Chapter 4: The Second Nations Making Ontario was one of the great dramas of the occupation of the New World, and as with all dramas it had a setting, in this case a natural environment free of substantial human modifications. The interaction of settling and environment raises vital questions: what was the full gamut of geographical change wrought ; and under what ethic did the settlers interact with nature? J. David Wood, Making Ontario: Agricultural Colonization and Landscape Re-creation Before the Railway, 2000 (p. xvii). Image courtesy of the National Archives of Canada (PA-060604) Image courtesy of the National Archives of Canada (PA-060604) Chapter 4: Second Nations The process of settlement that began in the decades following the American Revolution brought about an Ontario? ecological revolution in southern Ontario and in our watersheds that within three generations completely The Etobicoke and Mimico Creek watersheds have transformed the landscape. The scope of the changes not always been in "Ontario." Since the arrival of the was unprecedented, and had long-lasting effects Second Nations, they have been part of: which present major challenges to restoring the 1608 New France (started with the founding of health of the watersheds. Québec, interrupted on two occasions for a total of ten years in the 17th century when 4.1 The settlement of the Etobicoke and Mimico the English held the territory) Creek watersheds 1763 The British colony of Québec (between 1763 and 1774, specifically within the portion of The land survey in the area of our watersheds started Québec known as the "Indian Territory," at Lake Ontario in 1787, and over several decades created to act as a buffer between British proceeded north through York and Peel Counties. North America and New England) 1791 Upper Canada, after the Constitutional Act divided Québec into Upper and Lower The survey started with the Toronto town site almost Canada immediately after the Toronto Purchase in 1787, 1841 Canada West, after Upper and Lower Canada although land grants were not officially made until are reunited by the Act of Union, but are after 1791. The survey of the lands between the renamed Canada West and Canada East Humber River and Etobicoke Creek began in 1788 1867 Canada West entered Confederation as the over the strenuous objections of the Mississaugas, Province of Ontario who believed the river, not the creek, to be the boundary. The survey was limited at first, therefore, to drawing township lines. Concession and lot lines started to be filled in after the 1805 treaty confirming the boundaries of the Toronto Purchase. It was almost a decade after the creation of Upper Canada in 1791 before settlers started arriving in the southern reaches of the Etobicoke and Mimico Creek watersheds. Few were original Loyalists. Most arrived in the second wave of emigration from the United States, which resulted from a series of proclamations issued by Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe after 1791 offering free land to anyone who would swear an Oath of Allegiance to Britain. Some petitioned for land that they promptly sold before returning to their own country, but most remained and struggled to make a new life. Those who remained were required, within two years, to build a house, clear their half of the road allowance in front of their lots, as well as clear, fence, and plant five acres of each 100 acres granted. 51 Chapter 4: Second Nations FOREST COVER CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT TIMEPERIOD AQUATIC RELATIONSHIP & VEGETATION BASIS OF ECONOMY AND ARTIFACTS 1791 to 1847 Mississaugas: - deforestation: land Mississauagas: - First Nations population depleted (from the creation - during first generation clearance for farming, - modified hunting/ bydisease and cultural dislocation, of Upper Canada to after Euroamerican fuel, logging as cash gathering/fishing moved to reserve on the the exodus of the settlement, attempted crop economy for first Credit River in 1825 Mississaugas from to continue traditional - c. 1840 deforestation generation after - most of land in watersheds ceded the Credit Reserve) seasonal rounds within estimated to have settlement to the government by the watersheds reached 50 per cent - resettled from Mississaugas c. 1820 - lost fishing rights at - native vegetation watersheds to Credit - survey divided the land into mouths of two creeks displaced by imported River in 1825 to agrid of 200 acre/80 ha farms - by 1825 settled on a species of grains, become sedentary - roads followed grid farm reserve on vegetables, trees farmers - land fenced and graded the Credit River (ornamental and fruit- - 1847 farming - settlers’ houses built of bearing) and flowers experiment declared a wood and/or local stone failure; moved to New - most domestic goods home-made Euroamerican settlers: Credit Reserve on the or imported until 1820s-30s - viewed land along Grand River - elite class of administrators, creeks as prime land lawyers, and merchants centred in - creeks the main water York/Toronto govern a basically agricultural society until after the source for domestic Euroamerican settlers: use, farming, power for Rebellion of 1837 and political - subsistence farming for grist and saw mills reforms in the 1840s first 2-3 generations - creeks dammed to - deforestation and loss - ratio between males and females in provide power for saw of native vegetation = the population narrows; number of and grist mills loss of habitat for children grows steadily as families - c. 1825 wells replacing certain species of established creeks as source of wildlife - mean household size rises from potable water due to c. 4 in first generation to c. 6.5 by pollution - wheat the major crop late 1840s - creeks also served as until c. 1860 - cemeteries established either by sewers - by 1840s cash/ families or local churches consumer economy - after the War of 1812 towns growing, based on started to grow to service the production of surplus farming community crops and sale of - cast iron plows introduced c.1815 livestock from the U.S. - villages and towns - 1828-1832 first influx of non- becoming centres of agricultural settlers commerce - 1827 first university (King’s - export trade develops College, later University of after 1840s Toronto) founded - 1844 public education system established; schools started to be built Kaolin pipes: Two of the earliest and most important European imports from the newly discovered Americas were maize (which evolved into the European corn varieties), and tobacco. From the late 16th to the mid-19th century, manufacturers in London and Glasgow were the sole suppliers of smoking pipes to markets in northeastern North America. Moulded in kaolin clay, the pipes closely resembled North American First Nations designs, and took on different styles over the three centuries that they were made. Makers in Montreal, Quebec City and Saint John, New Brunswick entered the market in about 1845. The above pipe is made by the firm owned by the Henderson family of Montreal, which sold kaolin pipes to buyers in the Toronto area until 1902. The kaolin pipe industry as a whole collapsed by 1914. 52 Chapter 4: Second Nations 4.1.2 The impact of settlement on the Mississaugas Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe and "agricultural sprawl" By 1820, the Mississaugas still living between the Credit River and Etobicoke Creek had been reduced Based on conversation and correspondence in in one generation from more than 500 to 200 by January, 2002 with Kathryn Dean of Toronto smallpox, measles, tuberculosis, alcoholism, and regarding her research for "Pax Britannica," her MA violence. Impoverished by disease, the changes thesis on the settlement of southern Ontario made to the environment by agricultural settlement, John Graves Simcoe hoped to establish a British and by efforts to exploit and marginalise them, many aristocratic form of government in Upper Canada to turned to the kind of self-destructive behaviour re-coup some of Britain's losses during the recent frequently associated with cultural breakdown. On Revolution. Thus he hoped to re-establish British the understanding that they would be helped to dominance of North America by gaining back a adjust to Euroamerican settlement, they were power base centred on the Great Lakes, while also persuaded in 1825 to sell all but 200 acres on the providing homes for those Loyalists who were west bank of the Credit River, just north of todays genuine war refugees, who had been tortured by Queen Elizabeth Way. These 200 acres were to be their compatriots in the United States and driven out kept for our children forever. of the country. The process of settlement proceeded quickly once Forever lasted only until 1847, when, despite the land was surveyed and the road grid in place, intensive efforts to develop a model farm and moving north from Lake Ontario to fill most of embrace Euroamerican agriculture, they decided to southern Ontario within a generation of the abandon their village by the Credit. Hearing of their founding of Upper Canada. Land was parcelled out plight, the Iroquois Six Nations invited the 250 to all comers, many of whom had little or no surviving band members to relocate to their reserve experience as farmers. on the Grand River near Brantford. Most accepted the invitation, although one small group went to the Ms Dean has used the term "agricultural sprawl" to describe the overly speedy settlement process, driven Saugeen Reserve in Bruce County. Thus the New largely by Simcoe's intent " to stay only five years Credit Reserve was established near present-day in the province, and he did not mean to leave a task Hagersville. Ironically, the land occupied by the Six half-done" (quoted in "Pax Britannica" from Mattie Nations reserve had been ceded by the Mississaugas Clark: "The Positive Side of John Graves Simcoe," to the British in a treaty in 1783 to provide a home p.