Finding the Invisible Mississaugas of Davisville
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THE GRAND STRATEGY NEWSLETTER Volume 10, Number 4 - Sept/October 2005 Grand River The Grand: Conservation A Canadian Authority Heritage River Features Invisible Mississaugas 1 Bald eagles return to the Grand 3 Milestones Ruthven coach house 4 Upper Grand Trailway opens 5 Look Who’s Taking Action Greentec helps with outdoor education 5 Heritage award 6 Finding the Invisible Mississaugas What’s Happening of Davisville Trails workshop 6 Latornell symposium 6 By Gary Warrick While archaeological research up until 2003 Wilfrid Laurier University (funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Now Available Research Council of Canada) found and Stewardship Guide 7 The Grand River watershed is overflowing unearthed the Mohawk households of Davisville, Samuel’s Message 7 with archaeological remains, says Gary Warrick, evidence of the Mississaugas remained hidden. New wetland EIS an archaeology professor at the Brantford cam- Both groups had co-existed peacefully on the Guidelines 7 pus of Wilfrid Laurier University. (He is also a Grand River since the 1780s and lived together at member of the Grand Strategy Heritage Working Davisville in 1825-26. Did you know 8 Group.) His excavation of a Six Nations settle- During the summer of 2004, a Mississauga ment in Brantford dating to 1800-1835 was out- encampment was identified and test excavated, The Grand lined in an earlier Grand Actions article and revealing an interesting portrait of hunter-gather- Strategy Calendar 8 offered a fascinating picture of aboriginal life in er life in early 19th century Ontario. the early 1800s. This second article is about Ojibwa-speakers who have inhabited southern Cover photo: excavations related to the Mississaugas, who had Ontario since 1700, the Mississaugas lived on the Archaeologist Gary a very low impact on the Grand. Warrick and his daugh- north shore of Lake Huron, where they fought ter Courtney work with the Five (now Six) Nations over hunting and together on an o an archaeologist, the Mississauga occupa- trapping territory. By the 18th and early 19th excavation site. Ttion of the Grand River watershed is essen- century, they occupied the north shore of Lake tially invisible. Ontario, the Grand River watershed and the have lived there between the summer of beaver, freshwater drum, redhorse, stur- 1825 and the spring of 1826. But there is geon, bass, and passenger pigeon. No little historical documentation of their domestic species were identified. lives: a brief mention of church service The archaeological remnants of the attendance, plough demonstrations, mis- Davisville 3 Mississauga encampment sion house construction, jacklight fishing looks identical to hunter-gatherer camps and deer hunting. There is also a men- in northern Canada, which also have tion that the Mississaugas lived in tents smashed, burned bone (90 per cent of or wigwams within earshot of the food bone is heat-altered), few artifacts Methodist mission house. (primarily glass beads and lead shot), This Ojibwa encampment in 1845 by Paul Kane is similar to the Mississauga Most returned to the Credit River and dense concentrations of refuse sur- encampment at Davisville. Mission in the spring of 1826 to wait for rounded by relatively clean areas. log cabins promised by the British gov- Northern hunter-gatherers kept their liv- Niagara Peninsula. Each year they lived ernment. A year later, 20 cabins were ing areas extremely clean. in five different places: maple sugar occupied by 205 Misssissaugas (two The traditional hunter-gatherer nature camps in late winter, villages at the families per cabin). A few Mississauga of the 1825-26 Mississauga residents of mouth of rivers for fishing during families remained at Davisville as late as Davisville is striking, considering that spring, villages on river flats next to Jan. 10, 1827. six months after leaving, they were liv- fields of maize and potato during sum- An archaeological survey in 2002 ing in log cabins and plowing fenced mer, deer hunting camps in the mid- resulted in the discovery of several dis- fields on the Credit River. summer and fall, and hunting and trap- tinct concentrations of burned bone. Two Compared to their Six Nations neigh- ping camps during the winter. test pits produced over 100 pieces of bours, the Mississaugas owned few In 1787, about 500 Mississaugas bone each and flanked Davisville 2, one material possessions and carried camp lived at the western end of Lake Ontario. of the Mohawk cabins that was partially gear on their backs, like modern wilder- But measles, smallpox, tuberculosis and excavated in 2001-02. ness campers. They left few permanent alcohol abuse had reduced the popula- traces. Throughout the 18th and 19th tion to 200 by 1819. Fishing and hunting Remarkable find century, Mississaugas hunted, fished, had become difficult due to settlement In 2003, one bone concentration gardened, and camped on the banks of and land clearance, according to histori- (Davisville 3) 70 metres upriver of the Grand River, especially on the flood- cal accounts from the early 1820s. Their Davisville 2 was tested with six one- plains and forested uplands of Kitchener way of life was threatened. metre square units using mesh sieves. Waterloo, Blair, Cambridge and Davisville was administered by The results were remarkable – a layer of Brantford. Methodist missionary Alvin Torry. A bone 35 cm below surface and four cm This invisibility of their ancestors is a frequent visitor was Peter Jones thick in three of the units. Excavated source of pride for contemporary (Kahkewaquonaby), born in 1802 to soil sifted through screen produced Mississaugas. The light ecological foot- British surveyor Augustus Jones and 14,000 pieces of bone from one square! print they left stands in marked contrast Tuhbenahneequay, a Mississauga The only post-contact artifacts were a to the farms and settlements of 19th cen- woman from the Credit River com- piece of iron scrap, a strike-a-light (for tury Ontario. When talking about the munity. fire starting) fashioned on local chert, Ontario heritage, it is important to Jones converted to Methodism in and a piece of lead shot. remember the Aboriginal heritage buried 1823 and became friends with Mohawk In 2004, 18 additional one-metre in the ground and in the remembered Chief Thomas Davis. In the spring of squares were excavated at Davisville 3 stories of the Six Nations and 1824, the Credit River Mississaugas and the soil from 15 of them was Mississaugas of New Credit. were invited to Davisville by Jones, who flushed through screen using water. This hoped to demonstrate that to survive, produced 22,732 bone fragments, 44 they had to become settled Methodist lead shot, 13 glass seed beads, three farmers. gunflint flakes, two pieces of a blue- Some accepted the invitation and edged ceramic plate, one piece each of moved in early 1824. In the spring of iron, lead and brass scrap, and one shell 1825 about 35 Mississaugas arrived and, wampum bead (string wampum). by the summer, 45 more joined them. Despite the highly fragmented and The Jan. 10, 1826, census lists 79 burned condition of the bone, over 90 Mississaugas as Davisville residents, per cent of it was identified as mammal, Davisville 3 site excavations. although as many as 100 to 150 may with species including deer, muskrat, 2 Share the resources - Share the responsibility The volunteer observers use a formal Bald eagles protocol and are looking for specific information such as the number of adults return to the and sub-adults overwintering in the area, the eagles’ flight paths up and down the Grand River river, where they perch during the day to hunt, what they eat, where they roost at By Bob Scott, Exceptional Waters Coordinator, night and the effects of ice cover on and Tony Zammit, GRCA Ecologist their distribution. The volunteers moni- tor the river for eagles from 12 locations ald eagles are living proof that the every other Saturday during the winter. Bquality of the Grand River is Using telescopes and binoculars, they improving. keep at least 300 metres away so as not In recent years eagles have been stay- to disturb the eagles. This winter, addi- ing around the middle Grand between tional observers in the Brantford area early December and March or April. plan to begin monitoring, extending the Historically, the eagle population rad- coverage to south of Brantford. ically declined throughout North Bald eagle. Spotting an eagle America and even disappeared from (Photo by Dave Jolly) southern Ontario by the 1970s. This was You can identify an eagle by its large due to high levels of contaminants, espe- be seen as far south as the Dunnville size and wide wing span, which can be cially the pesticide DDT, that built up in area, where they are nesting, and as far greater than two metres. The wings are fish, which are the eagle's main food. north as Luther Marsh. During the win- held straight across rather than arched. A ter months, they are frequently seen The eagle eggs either didn't hatch or the main identification for adult eagles is the between the north end of Cambridge and young had deformities, such as crossed snow white head and tail, which can be the Cockshutt Bridge in the south end of beaks, which prevented them from prominent against a blue sky. Brantford. This area is attractive to them growing into adults. It takes four to five years for an eagle because sections of the water do not But DDT was banned, and from 1983 to develop a white head and tail, so freeze solid, due to a combination of rif- to 1987 the Canadian Wildlife Service, young eagles can be difficult to identify. fles and the influx of groundwater that Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Like hawks, eagles soar on thermal provides enough warm water to keep the and GRCA co-operated to successfully updrafts without moving their wings for river from freezing.