175 days of 175 years
Page Title
From May 21 2023 to our anniversary, November 12 2023, check social media every day (insert links) or this page, to see new historical tidbits about our church’s life, growing up in Brighton Ontario.
What to expect
Section one: building history
Section two: Members Stories
Section three: Evolution of our faith
Section four: Impact on our community
Section five: Why do you like coming
Section six: Indigenous relations
Section seven: Where are we going.
Curve Lake First Nation - Building relations
Many members of Curve Lake First Nation have given selflessly to the work of truth and reconciliation, and their efforts continue. Assisting the United Church of Canada, visiting our church as speakers, offering ZOOM teaching sessions, teaching through survivor quilts, invitations to Curve Lake, courses at Trent University, and most recently a tour of the Petroglyphs with lunch at Curve Lake. Keep an eye on our church newsletters and our United Church regional site at ecorcuccan.ca for upcoming opportunities.
Hiawatha First Nation - Building relations
An excellent way to expose yourself to First Nations culture is by attending a Pow Wow, a celebration of culture.
Everyone is welcome! Grand Entry, when all dancers enter the circle led by the Veterans and Head Dancers is usually around noon. Within our area, there are Pow Wows at Hiawatha, Alderville, Tyendinaga, and Curve Lake. You can learn about Pow Wow etiquette by googling “Pow Wow etiquette”, and in 2024, simply google “Ontario Pow Wows 2024” to get a list of dates.
Alderville Women’s Shelter - Building relations:
In 2020 the Outreach Committee of TSA became aware of the services being provided by Anishnaabe Kwewag Gamig Regional Women’s Shelter, located at Alderville First Nation. To support them in their work, TSA held an outdoor concert “Songs for the Soul” as a fund-raiser. Since then, we have maintained contact including supporting their “Every Child Matters” fund-raiser and participating in partnership with Brighton Public Library and author Laurie Hill in a public education forum “Healing & Hope: Lifelong Troubles after Abuse.”
Day 150
Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg History, Part 3
Samuel de Champlain was the first European to reach this area when he travelled through the territory in 1615. Champlain wasn’t much interested in the Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg as they travelled in their canoes. The Aayadowaad, who lived in a different territory and were friendly with the Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg, were of more interest to Champlain because they lived in villages and he could relate better to them. When Champlain passed through Aayadowaad country in 1615-1616, he and his men were carrying a serious virus which wiped out a great many Aayadowaad people. Because of their isolated territory, the Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg fared much better with regard to the illness.
Please watch this interview to listen to Doug Williams talk about First Nations' history with pandemics
https://youtu.be/VErwXc5dpao?si=Zzi50T2nqNZEF_Up
Source:
Book – “Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg: This Is Our Territory” [2018] by Gidigaa Migiz (Doug Williams) – Elder & former Chief of Curve Lake.
Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg History, Part 2
As described yesterday, the Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg were a seasonal nomadic people. Because they didn’t stay in one place for long, the early English and French cartographers did not record them on the maps of the day.
Similarly, there is very little local (Brighton) folklore known about the Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg people because they didn’t build permanent communities. Their homes were portable wigwams which could be easily assembled and dismantled as they travelled from place to place. The Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg had to leave this area from time to time due to weather, glaciation and diseases brought by other indigenous groups as well the French traders.
Source:
Book – “Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg: This Is Our Territory” [2018] by Gidigaa Migizi (Doug Williams) – Elder & former Chief of Curve Lake.
In 1804, the HMS Speedy set sail from York (modern-day Queen’s Quay), Lake Ontario enroute to Presqui”le Point at Newcastle District (modern-day Brighton)”. Many of the passengers aboard were on their way to try a murder case in the new district courthouse. Ogetonicut, a Chippewa man, was accused of killing a white fur trader in retaliation for the murder of his brother Whistling Duck. A storm swept in off Lake Ontario and the ship was last seen pitching in high seas on the approach to Presqu”ile Point. The passengers included some of the most prominent legal figures in Upper Canada. Apart from some bits of wreckage, no trace of passengers or crew has ever been found. The ship was lost, and justice was never served. The tragedy changed local history as well, in that Presqu’ile was deemed a poor location for a district town and the centre was moved to present-day Cobourg
Sources:
Aboriginal multi-media society www.ammsa.ca
Friends of Presqu”Ile www.friendsofpresquile.on.ca
In 1804, the HMS Speedy set sail from York (modern-day Queen’s Quay), Lake Ontario enroute to Presqui”le Point at Newcastle District (modern-day Brighton)”. Many of the passengers aboard were on their way to try a murder case in the new district courthouse. Ogetonicut, a Chippewa man, was accused of killing a white fur trader in retaliation for the murder of his brother Whistling Duck. A storm swept in off Lake Ontario and the ship was last seen pitching in high seas on the approach to Presqu”ile Point. The passengers included some of the most prominent legal figures in Upper Canada. Apart from some bits of wreckage, no trace of passengers or crew has ever been found. The ship was lost, and justice was never served. The tragedy changed local history as well, in that Presqu’ile was deemed a poor location for a district town and the centre was moved to present-day Cobourg
Sources:
Aboriginal multi-media society www.ammsa.ca
Friends of Presqu”Ile www.friendsofpresquile.on.ca
Serpent Mounds
The Serpent Mounds are located in Hiawatha First Nation Territory, on the north shore of Rice Lake. Nine earthen burial mounds enclose the graves of the Point Peninsula Native people. The largest mound is shaped like a serpent and from this mound the site derives its name. Aboriginal people built these mounds to bury their dead and revere their ancestors. Serpent Mounds is an Aboriginal historic site with evidence of occupation and use spanning more than 2000 years. In 2002, the Serpent Mounds were officially designated a National Historic Site of Canada.
Sources:
Hiawatha First Nation; www.hiawathafirstnation.ca
Parks Canada; www.pc.gc.ca
Curve Lake (Part 2)
The Mississauga, and most other nations have always understood that their historic harvesting rights were never ceded. While Canada and Ontario always had lots of lawyers, the Indian Act prohibited First Nations from raising money or hiring lawyers to pursue land claims until 1951. In 1977, when Dave Mowat was Chief of Curve Lake, he and Wayne Taylor decided to catch some bullfrogs about 30 miles from Curve Lake, near Marmora. The First Nations men had a pretty good day of it, catching 65 frogs - not to sell, but to feed their families. They and their ancestors had done so for generations, “since the earliest memory." The men were charged with hunting out of season, which is what they wanted. After several trials, they were acquitted of charges, based on the terms of the 1818 treaty. The provincial government appealed to the Ontario Court of Appeal, but lost, proving what the First Nations always believed to be their right.
Curve Lake (Part 1)
Curve Lake First Nation people are the Michi Saagig or Mississaugas of the great Anishinaabe nation, the traditional people of the North shore of Lake Ontario and its tributaries; this has been Mississauga territory since time immemorial. In 1829, a peninsula along Mud Lake was chosen by the Crown and New England Company to establish what is now known as Curve Lake First Nation. From 1781 to 1923, their lives were affected by 18 different treaties. For many of these they had to trust the written document to reflect what had been agreed to orally, as they were unable to read the English, and treaties were signed with their dodaim signatures.
Williams Treaties, 1923 (Part 2)
These treaties transferred over 20,000 square km to the Crown. In exchange, the Indigenous signatories received modest one-time cash payments: $25 per band member and lump payments of $233,375 to the Chippewa and $233,475 to the Mississauga.
While the Indigenous peoples argued that the Williams Treaties guaranteed their rights to hunt and fish on the territory, the governments disagreed. The rights were not as clearly laid out as had occurred in the earlier Robinson and Numbered Treaties. It has been noted that the Indigenous peoples had no legal representation at the treaty talks.
Land use rights in the territory covered by the Williams Treaties had been the subject of legal disputes until a $1.11 billion settlement was reached between the Federal, Provincial governments, and the Williams Treaties First Nations, including the Mississaugas of Alderville, Chippewars of Rama First Nation, Curve Lake First Nation, Hiawatha First Nation and the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation. This settlement recognized pre-existing harvesting rights, and allowed each nation to add up to 11,000 acres to reserve and bases.
Source:
The Canadian Encyclopedia (author: SI Wallace [2020]) and https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/williams-treaty-reconciliation-1.4910558
Williams Treaties, 1923 (Part 1)
In response to rising concerns and claims that treaty lands had been poorly allocated or unceded, the governments of Ontario and Canada appointed the Williams Commission to investigate the problems. The Commission’s report affirmed Indigenous claims to large tracts of land in central and southern Ontario.
As a result, the commissioners rapidly brokered two new treaties to “extinguish Chippewa and Mississauga title to the lands in question.”
The first was signed with the Chippewa peoples of Rama, Christian Island and Georgina Island in the Lake Simcoe area. The second was signed with the Mississauga peoples of Alderville, Scugog Lake, Mud Lake and Rice Lake.
Source:
The Canadian Encyclopedia (author: SI Wallace [2020]).
Hiawatha First Nation: Church and Community
Hiawatha First Nation is located on the north shore of Rice Lake. In 1825 the Rice Lake area became part of the circuit travelled by Methodist preachers and the community then known as The Village received regular visits.
Prince of Wales Albert Edward (later King Edward VII) visited their community in 1860. He was moved by the beauty of the site and proposed the community be re-named Hiawatha, by which it has been known ever since.
Around the 1860s, it became apparent that a new church building was needed. Fund-raising lasted for several years with the church being completed and dedicated in 1871.
With the Act of Union in 1925, the Hiawatha Church became part of the United Church of Canada. The church women were actively involved in fund-raising for the building of the church and then for numerous activities and needs up to the present day.
Source:
Book – “The Village of Hiawatha: A History” (by H. Shpuniarsky and The Village of Hiawatha Book Committee [2016].
Treaty 20, 1818
Also referred to as The Rice Lake Purchase, this agreement included the land containing modern-day Peterborough and parts of the Kawartha Lakes and Durham. The First Nations people who live in this area claim that the agreement guaranteed their traditional rights to hunt and fish. In 1981, the Ontario Court of Appeal agreed, ruling that the treaty did indeed guarantee those rights.
Source:
The Canadian Encyclopedia (author: SI Wallace [2020]).
Alderville First Nation, Part 2
When the reserves were first formed, First Nations were encouraged to shift from their traditional economy to become either farmers or trades persons. Houses and barns were to be their first priorities to ensure an agrarian way of life, as opposed to a traditional First Nation lifestyle. Hunting, fishing and gathering were not valued as economic venues for serious income to sustain the community. The Mississauga actually maintained a hold on many of their traditions including the Ojibway language all through the early decades of the Methodist experience. Their resistance toward their complete assimilation existed and it has become the basis upon which the cultural survival of the people has been maintained.
Sources:
An Essay on the Alderville Reserve; www.ricelakereserves.com
Alderville First Nation History; https://alderville.ca/alderville-first-nation/history/
Alderville First Nation, Part 1
Alderville has been home to the Mississauga Anishinabeg (Ojibway Nation) since the mid-1830s. Prior to that, their traditional territory included the shorelines of Bay of Quinte and north from Lake Ontario. The main Reserve of the Alderville First Nation is located near the south shore of Rice Lake in Ontario, and a smaller parcel of land is located on nearby Sugar Island. In the early years of contact with British settlers, the Mississauga were pressured to adapt and several converted to Christianity, primarily Methodism. The people learned to read, write, and to worship in a different manner, becoming a major target group for the early assimilation policies of Canadian church and state. However, their sense of identity would not allow for a complete surrender of their cultural values and language.
Source: Alderville First Nation; https://alderville.ca/alderville-first-nation/history/
The Johnson-Butler Purchase - The “Gunshot Treaty”, 1788 (Part 2)
This large tract (Lake Ontario shoreline from Trenton to Toronto) captures countless streams and waterways coming from what is now referred to as the Oak Ridges Moraine. It was a very important fishing area for the Indigenous peoples. Former Chief Dave Mowat of Alderville believes that the precise shoreline would not have been included in the land transfer and that the Mississauga people would have retained perhaps a chain length of access at the water’s edge to maintain their traditional fishing rights.
YouTube video - “Chief Dave Mowat: Williams Treaties and Pre-Confederation Treaties”
(Recorded by The Centre for Canadian Nuclear Sustainability 2023)
The Johnson-Butler Purchase - the “Gunshot Treaty”, 1788 (Part 1)
The Johnson-Butler Purchase is also called the Gunshot Treaty because its northern border was described as the distance a person could hear a gunshot from the edge of Lake Ontario. This involved land up to and including Rice Lake, more than 30 km away!
The east-west borders ran from the Trent River to present-day Ashbridges Bay (in Toronto). This purchase facilitated settlement in the Brighton and Presqu’ile area, and along the shore as far as Scarborough.
Former Chief Dave Mowat of Alderville First Nation has pointed out that this treaty included no terms & conditions, no officially demarcated boundary, and that no surveyor was involved in the negotiations (contrary to the dictates of the Royal Proclamation).
Source:
YouTube video - “Chief Dave Mowat: Williams Treaties and Pre-Confederation Treaties”
(recorded by The Centre for Canadian Nuclear Sustainability, 2023).
Tyendinaga – part 2
The colours of the Tyendinaga flag come from the wampum belts, which were made of purple quahog and white welp shells. The eagle is the messenger to the creator, the protector of peace. The silver chain represents relationship and the need for continuous dialogue, between the Haudenosaunee and Europeans. This relationship must be strong, pure and untarnished, like a silver chain. But it’s important to polish the chain continuously to keep it purified. The circle represents unity, strength, the cycles of life, as well as the Great Peace and Great Law established by the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee.
Tyendinaga – part 1
The Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte are descendants of the Fort Hunter Mohawks. Until the American Revolution, the Fort Hunter Mohawks lived in the Mohawk Valley in what is now New York State. As they sided with the British, the Fort Hunter Mohawks lost their homeland, and on 1 April 1793, John Graves Simcoe, lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, executed a deed to the land the Fort Hunter Mohawks had chosen on the Bay of Quinte. The land they were given was less than 25% of what they requested, and over the next century, ¾ of it was taken from them, leaving them with very little of their original request.
The Crawford Purchase (Part 3)
There are no existing copies for the deed of the land transfer from the Mississauga of the Bay of Quinte and the Crown. Neither was a formal treaty signed.
The Crawford Purchase was essentially not a treaty. It was the acquisition of land without any ongoing British obligations, such as annual payment or gifts (a key feature of most treaties). No reserves were included in the agreements. As the Loyalists and later white settlers took over the land, the Mississauga were eventually pushed out of their traditional territory toward Rice Lake.
Sources:
“Anishnabek News” - November 8, 2018 by Dr. David Shanahan.
YouTube video - “Chief Dave Mowat: Williams Treaties and Pre-Confederation Treaties”
(recorded by The Centre for Canadian Nuclear Sustainability, 2023).
The Canadian Encyclopedia (author: J Boileau [2020]).
The Crawford Purchase (Part 2)
In his report, Crawford described that the purchased land extended back from the lake “as far as a man can travel in a day”. With this imprecise description, Crawford exchanged land for goods: “that all the families belonging to them shall be clothed and that those that have not fusees (flintlock muskets) shall receive new ones, some powder and ball for their winter hunting, as much coarse red cloth as will make about a dozen coats and as many laced hats.” There is little ambiguity regarding the pittance that the British were going to pay for this huge amount of land.
An outcome of this purchase was that Kingston township was surveyed and the land for the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory was established.
Sources:
YouTube video - “Chief Dave Mowat: Williams Treaties and Pre-Conferedation Treaties”
(recorded by The Centre for Canadian Nuclear Sustainability, 2023).
The Canadian Encyclopedia (author: J Boileau [2020]).
Indigenous Relations
The Crawford Purchase (Part 1)
In 1783 (following the American war of independence), Captain William Redford Crawford was assigned the duty of meeting with the Mississauga Indigenous people of the Bay of Quinte to negotiate a land transfer to the Crown. The government needed to relocate 200 Indigenous people under the leadership of Chief Deseronto who had been allies to the British and had subsequently been forced from their traditional lands in Fort Hunter, south of Lake Ontario. Crawford’s team learned that the Mississauga would also welcome white settler Empire Loyalists.
The resulting purchase included a large tract of territory along the north shore of the upper St. Lawrence River and the eastern end of Lake Ontario.
While the Mississauga of the Bay of Quinte may have indicated that they would welcome some Mohawk and white settlers to their territory, it was never their intent to relinquish their traditional economy, harvesting sites, fishing rights or burial sites.
Sources:
“Anishnabek News” - November 8, 2018 by Dr. David Shanahan.
YouTube video - “Chief Dave Mowat: Williams Treaties and Pre-Confederation Treaties”
(recorded by The Centre for Canadian Nuclear Sustainability, 2023).
Day 130
Treaties with Indigenous Peoples in Canada
According to “The Canadian Encyclopedia”, Indigenous treaties are constitutionally recognized agreements between the Crown and Indigenous peoples. Most of these agreements describe exchanges where Indigenous nations agree to share some of their interests in their ancestral lands in return for various payments and promises. Many Indigenous people see treaties as sacred covenants between nations, establishing a relationship between those for whom this is an ancient homeland and those whose roots lie in other countries. They understand that the true force of the treaties lies not in legalistic language, but in what was said at the time, often in their Indigenous languages. Ceremonial conventions at treaty deliberations included the smoking of sacred pipes or the exchange of culturally significant gifts, such as wampum belts.
Non-Indigenous treaty-makers tended to see treaties not as sacred pacts, but as inexpensive and convenient ways to strip Aboriginal title from most of the lands in Canada so that resources could be used by settlers.
Source:
The Canadian Encyclopedia (author: G Albers [2017]).
To learn about Wampum belts, please watch the video
The next section of our “175 Days” will be looking at the historical context in which TSA was born and grew up. We will be looking at the people who were displaced and with whom we interacted in building our faith community – the Indigenous peoples.
In 1763, the Royal Proclamation, initially issued by King George III, set out guidelines for European settlement of Aboriginal territories in what is now North America. It officially claimed British territory after Britain won the Seven Years War and France withdrew its claims to North America. While ownership over North America is issued to King George, the Royal Proclamation explicitly states that Aboriginal title has existed and continues to exist, and that all land would be considered Aboriginal land until ceded by treaty. The Royal Proclamation stipulates that only the Crown can buy land from First Nations.
These basic tenets of the Proclamation were eventually ignored and then forgotten by the settler culture.
Source:
The Canadian Encyclopedia (authors: AJ Hall [2006], G Albers & A Mcintosh [2019]).