Nineteenth-Century Algonquin Culture Change

M. JEAN BLACK University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill

The 19th century was a period of rapid cultural, social and economic change for the Algonquin of southwestern . During this time, traditional trapping economies were drastically altered and the contemporary wage economy was foreshadowed. Local bands disappeared and others formed at new locations making it difficult to identify many modern band communi­ ties with any known to have existed previously. In this paper I discuss some of the changes which occurred during this period of transition between the 20th century and the more distant past. My approach is an individualistic or particularistic one in which I trace geneological ties between individuals mentioned in church and mission archives and their contemporary descen­ dants. By following the careers of some of these individuals as they appear at first one mission location and then another, it is also possible to trace the origin and decline of local Algonquin bands in the valley. My original intent was to extend geneologies for families residing at the Algonquin reserve of Desert (Kitiganzibi) to ancestors living early in the 19th century at Oka (Lake of Two Mountains), and in this I have been successful to some extent. My interest in these geneologies was part of a study of change in kinship patterns; but the sources I used have proven of value for investigating other aspects of culture change, ethnicity, and ethnic identity. The data on which this paper is based are taken from a number of sources including the Hudson's Bay Company Archives, the registries of the Sulpician mission of Oka, the registries of the Oblate missionary order, and Indian Affairs records. The registry of the Sulpician church at Oka is of particular interest since until recently I had believed these records were lost in a church firei n 1877. For that reason, work with them is still incomplete. These archival data sets contain different, but complementary, kinds of information. The Hudson's Bay Company records contain more economic

62 ALGONQUIN CULTURE CHANGE 63 data and references to the activities and goals of the fur traders. They contain more information about non-Christians than do mission records and are familiar to ethnohistorians. Indian Affairs records are less complete but contain valuable descriptive data about some communities. Mission records contain more references to women than do either of the others. The demographic history of the population is more apparent in church records, even taking into account the fact that non-christians are under-represented. Often the progress of missionary activity can be assessed by the number and frequency of adult baptisms and, in the upper Ottawa, the inception of European-style surnaming and its increase is more apparent. A place of origin for individuals is frequently given by the missionaries, especially after the 1820s, a point of interest in the discussion following. All these records provide interesting insights about the assumptions, concerns, and motives of those who kept them. The cognitive maps of the various authors may be quite different, not only between different points in time but also between different categories and interest groups of the same time. Our inquiries may be directed profitably with this kept in mind and new questions may be raised by discrepancies or varying points of view. The Oka Sulpicians recorded baptisms, burials, and marriages of those who frequented the mission village between 1721 and 1850. The registries of the Oblate Order begin in 1843 and are particularly revealing of the origins of contemporary Algonquin communities. The River Desert Band is the largest of the Algonquin communities in southwestern Quebec with a reserve located near the town of at the confluence of the Desert and . Tradition credits the establishment of the reserve in the 1850s to the efforts of Antoine Paki- nawatik, an Algonquin chief of the Oka mission community. His petitions to the government to have a reserve set aside for the Algonquin are thought to have been a major factor in inducing the government to grant such a reserve in 1854. A few years prior to this, several families are believed to have left Oka and moved with him to River Desert forming the core of the Band. Frank Speck repeated this tradition, writing that the Band formerly had resided at Lake of Two Mountains, coming to Maniwaki from there (cf. Speck 1929:98). This phrasing implies that Speck's view of River Desert origins was monolithic, assuming the movement of an entire community more or less intact from one locale to another within an easily discernible time frame. It also implies that he saw Native communities as residential units with a particular home place similar to European style villages. How­ ever, the origins of the community at River Desert are far more complex and it is clear from the data cited that the Gatineau-River Desert area was utilized by Oka and other Algonquin throughout the 19th century, not as a 64 M. JEAN BLACK

residence in European terms, but certainly as part of their territory. There seems to have been a group of Algonquin trapping along the Gatineau who were not identified with Lake of Two Mountains and who traded at the Hudson's Bay Company posts at Lac des Sables or at River Desert after 1838. By all accounts, the 19th-century mission at Oka consisted of an Iro­ quois village and an Algonquian community. It is beyond the scope of this paper to deal with the earlier history of the Oka Algonquin community except to point out that it was already composite in its origin. Some of the Algonquians came from the lower bands mentioned by Champlain in 1613, but others joined them there. Nipissings formed a com­ ponent of the Oka community and there was reciprocal influence among the Algonquians. One such influence noted by linguists is the similarity of the language spoken by contemporary descendants of these two groups. "The Algonquin of Oka Mission at the mouth of the Ottawa River (Cuoq 1886) and now at Maniwaki, Quebec, is taken to reflect the speech of the Nipissing segment of the mission population, originally from Lake Nipissing" (God- dard 1978:583). Descriptions of 19th-century Oka by both Hudson's Bay Company men and Indian affairs officials note only the presence of Algonquin, Nipissing and Iroquois. In contrast, the Sulpician mission records mention several other ethnic identities including Tetes de Boule, a term most frequently applied to the population of the St. Maurice river drainage, sometimes to people living along the upper Gatineau and upper Lievre rivers, and in at least one instance to the band at "the grand lac" (Grand Lake Victo­ ria). Also mentioned are Ottawa, who were perhaps equal in numbers to the Algonquin and Nipissing at Oka. Others mentioned between 1821 and 1831 include Sauteaux, Ojibwa, Mississauga and Abenaki. These records clearly indicate that the 19th-century Algonquian community at Oka nor­ mally included individuals of at least five different ethnic groups; Algon­ quin, Nipissing, Tete-de-Boule, Ottawa, and Abenaki. The others may have represented an occasional or sporadic visit to the mission although some Mississauga remained a part of the community for at least a few years. A sharp contrast between Algonquians and Iroquois at Oka was re­ ported in 1821 by John McLean, who compared the farming and wage- earning Iroquois to the Algonquin, who "lived principally by the chase". He also stated that despite the close proximity of the two groups there was little friendly interaction between them; and, in fact, few could speak the others' language (McLean 1932:11-12). In 1844 the Indian agent at Oka wrote that the Algonquin and Nipissing "follow the chase" and that they came to Lake of Two Mountains for only about two months each year. This scarcely qualifies as a place of residence in European terms. Accord- ALGONQUIN CULTURE CHANGE 65 ing to this report, only women and elderly men cultivated "small patches of land" to a very limited extent while the Iroquois devoted themselves "in a considerable degree to agriculture" (, Indian Department 1845:20). McLean's denial of Algonquian-Iroquois interaction, taken quite liter­ ally, could also mean that some friendly interaction did occur and that some could speak the other's language. This interpretation is supported by mission records of marriages between Iroquois and Nipissing, Algonquin, Ottawa, and Abenaki. During the 10-year period just mentioned, the num­ ber of Algonquin-Iroquois marriages equaled those between Algonquin and Nipissing. Were the missionaries more sensitive to ethnic differences than were the Hudson's Bay men or the government officials? Were they repeating claims of ethnicity made by Algonquian speakers or did they make these assignments of ethnicity based on their own cognitive maps of Native so­ cial organization? As for the other sources, we know that keeping track of the debt of an individual and where he took his fur was important to traders, not his ethnicity. One might speculate that government officials were less concerned with distinctions among the Algonquians than with the distinction between Algonquian and Iroquois because this had relevance in the governance of Oka. Reports that relations between Algonquians and Iroquois were strained indicates difficulties for the government in adminis­ tration and for the HBC in trade which no doubt deflected their attention from any diversity among Algonquians. The Oka Iroquois were attracted by the possibilities of trapping, and attempts of some Iroquois to claim trapping rights in the region at a time when these territories were already under pressure caused conflicts. McLean noted in 1822 that some Iroquois "made good hunts" along the main rivers and on the outskirts of some Algonquin trapping territories (McLean 1932:24). In 1830 he wrote that the two groups were "nearly com­ ing to blows" over the hunting grounds. In a speech to the Iroquois, the head of the Indian Department admonished that the Iroquois and Algon­ quin should live together in harmony since they both "ate out of the same dish". The Iroquois, according to McLean, interpreted this as meaning they had equal rights to the hunting grounds. This caused a "very violent quarrel" in which the government had to intervene (McLean 1932:98). The pressure placed on Native People by growth in the White popu­ lation was greater than it had been earlier. Both farming and lumbering in the Ottawa and its tributary valleys had drastic environmental impact, reducing the supply of fur and game through settlement and the destruc­ tion of habitats. Not surprisingly, the economic condition of the Algonquin was increasingly poor. In 1844 the agent at Oka pleaded their case with the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, placing the blame on lumbering and 66 M. JEAN BLACK

settlement and pointing out that "their case has been often brought before the Government" (Indian Department 1845:20-21). It was shortly after this comment was made that the River Desert reserve was established. The band was formed from among the diverse Algonquians at Oka, joined by Algonquin from the upper Ottawa and tributary river drainages. Two HBC posts opened after 1821 superceded the post at Lake of Two Mountains including, by 1838, an outpost at River Desert. In the 1840s, Oblate priests established missions at some of these posts. Both the missions and Company stores attracted resident bands at these locations during the summer months. As new outposts opened and old ones closed, individuals and even entire bands moved. For example, most members of the Trout Lake Band had traded at Temiskaming before the opening of Trout Lake Post. It may be argued that the band was formed only at that time by people living in the vicinity of Trout Lake. After the closing of the post, some people traded at Grand Lake while others went to Barriere and other posts. The band had ceased to exist as a separate political unit. In 1849 a church was built at River Desert which soon became an Oblate center and a repository for early records of their activities in the Ottawa Val­ ley. The River Desert missionaries continued their summer missions farther north, although after 1852 these trips became restricted to fewer locations. These missions were made less necessary in part because of an implosion of Algonquians from throughout the Ottawa valley to River Desert. Here and at the summer mission sites, a large number of small bands merged into a smaller number of large bands for both spiritual and temporal reasons. The sequence of events leading to this is complex, involving changing locales of trading posts and missions and consequent migrations of individuals to new locations. I can summarize here only a part of this sequence to illustrate the degree of interaction and population flow which occurred between bands. In 1843 the Oblates began their missions at Fort William, then trav­ elled to Portage des Erables, Temiskaming, Abitibi, and Grand Lake (Vic­ toria) in the upper Ottawa. They also went to Kanikanakong where they baptized people from Trout Lake and Grand Lake. In 1844 they again be­ gan summer missions at Fort William where they baptized people from Lake of Two Mountains; they then returned to Temiskaming, Abitibi, and Kanikanakong. At Abitibi and Kanikanakong they baptized individ­ uals from Grand Lake. At Kanikanakong they baptized people from Lac Ste. Marie on the lower Gatineau and Lac Barriere in the upper Ottawa. Arriving at Mitcikanabikong, they again encountered persons coming from from Lac Ste. Marie, Trout Lake, and Grand Lake. At Grand Lake, they en­ countered people from Temiskaming and while in the Gatineau valley, the missionaries performed marriages for people from the Sault au Recollets and Lake of Two Mountains. ALGONQUIN CULTURE CHANGE 67

The missionaries themselves were directly responsible for some of these contacts. Algonquian men from the lower Ottawa area, sometimes with wives and families going along, were hired to guide and man the canoes. Opportunities for social interaction with the local people increased. Among those accompanying the missionaries are several who later were enrolled members of the River Desert Band. It is apparent that these missions had a far reaching impact on the population of the Ottawa drainage from Oka to Temiskaming and beyond. The composite nature of the River Desert Band continued to become more elaborate throughout the 19th century, as did that of other bands, through intermarriages and movements to new areas. The size of the group was probably larger than the area had previously supported; there were 400 people in 1873. Population growth was related to the as well as to the attractions of an established reserve where a degree of economic security could be found. While the missionaries chronicled the growth of the reserve population (as well as that of the non-Indian population) in their registries, the mission itself was only one factor in the growth of a permanent reserve community. These Algonquin bands of the Ottawa valley exhibit the profound cul­ tural changes which occurred during this period. The history of the River Desert Band, which did not exist as a governmental unit prior to 1849, is a microcosm of the history of the entire region. One's impression of the period is of nearly continuous change, with movements of people into bands first at one location, then on to another. Bands arose, grew, and divided or disappeared as individuals moved about. In some favored locations large permanent bands arose like that of River Desert. While it is difficult to de­ scribe process, an analogy might be seen in wind-formed dunes that arise, disappear, and reform from the same body of sand. Much of this history has parallels in other parts of the post-colonial world. Discussions of ethnicity and ethnic boundaries for Africa and other areas of the Third World may have some relevance in understanding the relations among Algonquians during the 19th century. Aiden Southall, in writing about the Dinka and Nuer, stated that they "were convenient fic­ tions for the early explorers, administrators, missionaries, and alas, linguists and anthropologists, and so they are still with us, having acquired sufficient vested interests in the identities imposed upon them during the colonial pe­ riod to perpetuate them. We should therefore recognize them for what they are and investigate them accordingly" (Southall 1976:464). I would not go so far as to suggest that the 19th century Algonquin and Nipissing are con­ venient fictionsbu t Southall makes a valid point that a degree of invented tradition attends our view of ethnicity. Our description of Algonquians in the Ottawa region during the 19th century involves a continuous variation 68 M. JEAN BLACK

in cultural characteristics, analogous to that described by linguists for lan­ guage; and their differences might better be described as a continuum or cline-like state than as bounded entities. Robert Levine and Donald Camp­ bell (1972:97) point out that "the boundedness and permanence of ethnic entities is an illusion produced by the neglect of boundaries and transac­ tions across them as objects of study in themselves". These transactions include migration, inter-marriage, the assimilation of individuals, and also, certainly, events such as the fur trade and efforts of missionaries. This is a point of some importance to the themselves. Legal and governmental bodies have often placed the burden of proof on Na­ tive people to demonstrate their ethnicity both individually and as groups. Recent efforts of the Mashpee of Massachusetts and the Lumbee of North Carolina to gain full legal recognition indicates that this can be a no-win situation or double-bind. Should it become necessary for the various bands of Quebec Algonquin to demonstrate their solidarity, cultural integrity, re- latedness, and shared membership in an ethnic group with potential for political cooperation and action, their long history of intermarriage, migra­ tion and interaction is attested to in the registries of these missions. Terms of ethnic reference, labels such as Nipissing and Algonquin, and even terms referring to specific bands, mislead by creating divisions among them. This is not to suggest that they are all homogeneous but that they do possess a shared, common experience and an intertwined history. In sum, no Algonquin band has had a history independent of other bands since the onset of the 19th century, at the least, and cannot realistically be considered apart from the others. In this paper, I have tried to describe some of the transactions across boundaries which have contributed to their present day commonality. It is to be expected that future studies will add to our further understanding of these and other transactions.

REFERENCES Canada, Indian Department 1845 Report on the Affairs of the Indians in Canada, Laid Before the Legislative Assembly, 20th March, 1845. Levine, Robert A., and Donald T. Campbell 1972 The Problem of Ethnic Boundaries. Pp. 81-113 in Ethnocentrism: Theories of Conflict, Ethnic Attitudes, and Group Behavior. Robert A. Levine and Donald T. Campbell, eds. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Goddard, Ives 1978 Central Algonquian Languages. Pp. 583-587 in Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 15. Bruce G. Trigger, ed. Washington: Smithsonian Institution. ALGONQUIN CULTURE CHANGE 69

McLean, John 1932 Notes of a Twenty-five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Terri­ tory. W.S. Wallace, ed. Publications of the Champlain Society 19. Toronto. Oblats de Marie-Immaculee 1843- Registre de la paroisse de PAnnonciation de Marie-Immaculee de Maniwaki. Microfilm. National Archives of Quebec. Hull, Quebec. Southall, Aiden 1976 Nuer and Dinka Are People: Ecology, Ethnicity and [rest of refer­ ence missing] Speck, Frank G. 1929 Boundaries and Hunting Groups of the River Desert Algonquin. Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. Indian Notes 6:97-120. New York. Sulpician Order 1806- Registre de la paroisse de PAnnonciation de la Bienheureuse Vierge de Marie de Oka. Vols. 3-4. Microfilm. Public Archives of Canada. Ottawa.