Allan Sherwin - Bridging Two Peoples: Chief Peter E. Jones, 1843–1909

Bridging Two Peoples

Indigenous Studies Series

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Chief Peter E. Jones, 18431909

Allan Sherwin

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Wilfrid Laurier University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Sherwin, Allan L.

Bridging two peoples : Chief Peter E. Jones, 18431909 / Allan L. Sherwin.

(Indigenous studies series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Issued also in electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-55458-633-2

1. Jones, Peter E., 18431909. 2. Indian physiciansOntarioBiography. 3. Ojibwa IndiansOntarioBiography. 4. Racially mixed peopleOntarioBiography. 5. Ojibwa IndiansCivil rightsOntarioHistory. I. Title. II. Title: Chief Peter E. Jones, 18431909. III. Series: Indigenous studies series

R696.J65S54 2012 610.92 C2011-908671-9

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Electronic monograph.

Issued also in print format.

ISBN 978-1-55458-652-3 (PDF).ISBN 978-1-55458-653-0 (EPUB)

1. Jones, Peter E., 18431909. 2. Indian physiciansOntarioBiography. 3. Ojibwa IndiansOntarioBiography. 4. Racially mixed peopleOntarioBiography. 5. Ojibwa IndiansCivil rightsOntarioHistory. I. Title. II. Title: Chief Peter E. Jones, 18431909. III. Series: Indigenous studies series

R696.J65S54 2012 610.92 C2011-908672-7

Cover design by Blakeley Words+Pictures. Cover image: Dr. Peter Edmund Jones donned his fathers headdress and buckskin suit during his 1898 visit to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. He carried the steel peace-pipe tomahawk smoked by Iroquois and Mississauga chiefs in the 1840 reaffirmation of their treaty of friendship. Courtesy of the National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution (Negative no. 00498B). Text design by Angela Booth Malleau.

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For Fiona

by Donald B. Smith

The lack of abundant written sources makes the writing of biographies of nineteenth-century Aboriginal leaders extremely difficult. Fortunately, in the case of Dr. Peter Edmund Jones, who was an Aboriginal politician and later Indian agent, as well as a medical doctor and publisher of an Aboriginal newspaper, an extensive paper trail exists. Dr. Allan Sherwin has carefully examined a vast array of printed and manuscript sources to produce his fascinating study.

Dr. Peter Edmund Jones, believed to be the first Status Indian to graduate from a Canadian medical school, was the third son of Peter Jones, or Kahkewaquonaby (180256), Mississauga chief and Methodist missionary. His mother, the English-born Eliza Field, kept her late husbands letters and historical manuscripts, a treasure trove of information about his family. Dr. Sherwin has written his book using these rich sources, as well as Eliza Fields own diaries, and added the Indian Affairs Records (RG 10) and the John A. Macdonald papers, held in Library and Archives Canada. Supplementing these accounts are the back issues of The Indian, Canadas first Aboriginal newspaper, which Dr. Jones published in 1886.

Not satisfied with pure manuscript work, Dr. Sherwin visited New Credit several times, where in 2002 he had the good fortune to meet the late Lloyd S. King (19152006), then eighty-six years old, an Elder with an incredible knowledge of the New Credit community. In the 1920s Lloyd knew William Elliott, then in his eighties, the last person living in the community, who had been born at the Old Credit Mission twenty kilometres west of Toronto. The Mississaugas resided there from 1825 to 1847, before they relocated next to the Six Nations Territory on the Grand River. William Elliott told young Lloyd about his recollections of the move from the Credit River in 1847.

Dr. Sherwin has written much more than a biography. The professor emeritus of the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University presents the story of a whole community, the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation, in the late nineteenth century. He describes how well they managed their affairs, such as public health and education, under the direction of Dr. Jones and his fellow chiefs and Band Council members. Through his political work Dr. Jones fought for self-government, hunting and fishing rights, and for the land claims of the Mississauga. The impressive research behind this book is one of its greatest strengths.

What makes the reading of this biography truly unique is the description of one Aboriginal community, the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation, from a medical perspective. Many books have been written on nineteenth-century Aboriginal Canada, but I know of no other that has been written by an individual, such as Dr. Sherwin, with half a century of medical study, teaching, and practice guiding him throughout in his research and writing.