The Iroquois-Ojibwe War

I never learned this in school. There is a fascinating history of Toronto & Southern Ontario that predates Simcoe cruising Lake Ontario, looking for a good site for a settlement that wasn’t too vulnerable to American attack. Before he ever ordered his soldiers to cut down a swath of forest to build Yonge Street all the way up to Lake Simcoe, Southern Ontario was the site of a prolonged and fascinating war between the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) and the Anishnaabeg (Ojibway) for domination of this part of the country. Battles were fought from the eastern end of Lake Ontario to the western end of Lake Erie and up to Lake Superior.

In the early seventeenth century the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), who were regarded as formidable and unbeatable warriors, pushed out the Wendat (Hurons) from their lands. Moving north, they allied with the Anishnaabeg (Ojibway). For a while the Anishnaabeg put up with being pushed back and back as the Haudenosaunee had muskets from the Dutch in New York. But eventually they turned around and decided to push back, initially armed with bows and arrows, but then with guns.

The Anishnaabeg, who were generally highly independent and individualistic, united in the war against the Haudenosaunee. What amazes me is how they were able to coordinate complex pincer attacks across very large distances without any telephone, email, or other high speed communication. All they had were runners and people in canoe. For example there was one battle in which a party came down from Sault Ste Marie, met up with others at Lake Couchiching, then divided again with one group going down to Toronto and another east to the Bay of Quinte. The Toronto group met up with them there. In another battle, hundreds of canoes were engaged in a two pronged attack in the Lake St. Clair region. At the mouth of the Saugeen River, the Battle of Skull Mound was fought, named for the mounds of bones. For generations, bones at different battle sites continued to emerge from the earth. It was a turning point in history, a great and devastating war. The Haudenosaunee were driven out of the entire Great Lakes area.

The fur trade provided the First Nations with an opportunity to obtain guns, metal tools & cloth, which made life a whole lot more comfortable than the laborious, slow use of bone and stone tools, all of which had to be made by hand, for hunting, shelter, clothing, art, religious objects, toys, games.

Double Ball

One of the most interesting games was played by women. Double ball involved using sticks to hook a thong that joined two balls and run across the field to get it through the other team’s goal, a combination of lacrosse and hockey.

For more Native Games ;  And click here

Toronto and the land surrounding it for 45 miles was the territory of the Mississauga, a branch of the Anishnaabeg. They were the ones who at the end of the eighteenth century, less than a hundred years after the end of the great war between the first nations, had to deal with Lord Simcoe’s crew. The British reps obtained Toronto and the surrounding lands from the Mississauga in several treaties whose legality was suspect even at the time. (Hence it kept getting re-done; the British wanted it done right as they were still a bit nervous of the people who were here first. There is more to say on that in another post.)

As long as the British and French were competing, the Anishnaabeg were in an excellent position for trade & negotiation. But once the French were defeated, the economy entirely changed. The British had a monopoly and took advantage of it to demoralize the First Nations peoples who had become dependent on European imports of guns, metal tools and cloth, having lost the skill of making tools out of locally available materials. It became expensive and difficult to obtain those items (though rum was freely distributed) & hunger, and poverty took its toll. That part of the history is difficult for me to read; it’s very sad.

But the point of all this, for me, is that the history of my country didn’t begin with my family’s immigration in the mid twentieth century. It didn’t begin with confederation, and it didn’t begin with the English defeat of the French, or the French fur traders, none of whom were my ancestors either. It goes back beyond that, to the first peoples who settled here. That is the human history of this land, and if this land is my country, then it is my history too.

For more info See Ojibwe History and check out The Ojibwa of Southern Ontario by Peter S. Shmalz.