Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T20:13:47.075Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Early Historic Populations In Northwestern Ontario: Archaeological And Ethnohistorical Interpretations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Charles A. Bishop  and
M. Estellie Smith
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

There seems to be little doubt that major population shifts occurred in Northern Ontario and Manitoba following the Iroquois wars of the seventeenth century and the advent of the fur trade. These movements have tended to blur pre-contact ethnic boundaries. Although recent archaeological reports have provided much needed data, differing interpretations of that data have only further obscured the issue. For instance, while some scholars have argued that Blackduck Focus sites in western Northern Ontario and northern Minnesota were occupied by Algonkian-speakers (either Ojibwa or Creej, others have interpreted the materials as having an Assiniboin authorship. In support of the latter view, we analyze both the archaeological and early ethnohistorical data. From these sources we conclude that, at contact, the Ojibwa extended no further west than Michipicoten Bay, while the Cree occupied most of Northern Ontario except for a strip of about 50 mi north and south of the present International border west of Lake Superior which was Assiniboin territory. Proper determination of ethnic boundaries is of theoretical importance to studies of cultural ecology and social organization.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , January 1975 , pp. 54 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, A. T. (Editor) 1961 The explorations of Pierre Esprit Radisson. (From the original manuscript of the Bodleian Library and the British Museum.) Ross and Haines, Minneapolis.Google Scholar
Bishop, Charles A. 1972 Demography, ecology and trade among the Northern Ojibwa and Swampy Cree. Western Canadian Journal of Anthropology 3:58-71.Google Scholar
Bishop, Charles A. 1974 The Northern Ojibwa and the fur trade: an historical and ecological study. Holt, Rinehart and Winston of Canada, Toronto.Google Scholar
Blair, Emma H. (Translator and Editor) 1911 The Indian tribes of the upper Mississippi Valley and the region of the Great Lakes as described by Nicolas Perrot, French commandant in the Northwest: Bacqueville de la Potherie, French royal commissioner to Canada; Morrell Mars ton, American army officer; and Thomas Forsyth, United States agent at Fort Armstrong. 2 vols. Cleveland.Google Scholar
Bushnell, D. I. 1927 Burials of the Algonquin, Siouan, and Caddoan tribes west of the Mississippi. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 83.Google Scholar
Delanglez, J. 1948 Life and voyages of Louis Jolliet (1645-1700). Institute of Jesuit History Publications, Chicago.Google Scholar
Dunning, R. W. 1959 Social and economic change among the Northern Ojibwa. University of Toronto Press, Toronto.Google Scholar
Evans, Edward G. 1961 Prehistoric Blackduck-Historic Assiniboine: A reassessment. Plains Anthropologist 6:271-275.Google Scholar
Fenton, William N. 1949 Collecting materials for a political history of the Six Nations. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 93:233-238.Google Scholar
Hallowell, A. I. 1955 Culture and experience. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Henry, Alexander 1969 Travels and adventures in Canada and the Indian territories between the years 1760 and 1776. M. Hurtig, Edmonton.Google Scholar
Hickerson, Harold 1962 The Southwestern Chippewa: An ethnohistorical study. American Anthropological Association, Memoir 92.Google Scholar
Hickerson, Harold 1966 The genesis of bilaterality among two divisions of Chippewa. American Anthropologist 68:1-26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hickerson, Harold 1977 Land tenure of the Rainy Lake Chippewa at the beginning of the 19th century. Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology 2:41-63.Google Scholar
Hlady, Walter M. 1964 Indian migrations in Manitoba and the West. Historical and Scientific Society of Manitoba III (17):24-53.Google Scholar
Hlady, Walter M. 1970 Manitoba-the Northern Woodlands. In Ten Thousand Years: Archaeology in Manitoba, edited by Walter, M. Hlady, pp. 93-121. Manitoba Archaeological Society.Google Scholar
Jenness, Diamond 1963 The Indians of Canada (6th edition). National Museums of Canada, Bulletin 65.Google Scholar
Lowie, Robert H. 1910 The Assiniboine. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 4(pt. 1).Google Scholar
McNeish, Richard 1958 An introduction to the archaeology of southeast Manitoba. National Museums of Canada, Bulletin 157.Google Scholar
Mandelbaum, David G. 1940 The Plains Cree. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 37:155-316.Google Scholar
Masson, L. R. (Editor) 1960 Les Bourgeois de la Compagnie du Nord-Ouest. récits de voyages, lettres et rapports inedit relatifs au nord-ouest Canadien. 2 vols. Impr. Générale A Coté et Compagnie, Quebec.Google Scholar
NYCD 1853-87 Documents relating to the colonial history of the state of New York. 15 vols. Albany.Google Scholar
Rogers, Edward S. 1963 Changing settlement patterns of the Cree-Ojibwa of northern Ontario. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 19:64-88.Google Scholar
Skinner, Alanson 1911 Notes on the Eastern Cree and Northern Saulteaux. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 9(pt. 1).Google Scholar
Thwaites, Reuben Gold (Editor) 1888 Radisson and Groseilliers in Wisconsin. Report and Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin 11:64-96.Google Scholar
Thwaites, Reuben Gold (Editor)1896-1901 The Jesuit relations and allied documents: Travels and explorations of the Jesuit missionaries in New France, 1610-1791. 73 vols. Cleveland.Google Scholar
Tyrrell, J. B. (Editor) 1931 Documents relating to the early history of Hudson Bay. The Champlain Society, Toronto.Google Scholar
Vickers, Chris 1948a The historical approach and the Headwaters Lake Aspect. Plains Archaeological Conference Newsletter 1(3): 8-11.Google Scholar
Vickers, Chris 1948b Cultural affinity in the Minnesota-Manitoba region. Minnesota Archaeologist 14(2):38-41.Google Scholar
Voorhis, Ernest 1930 Historic forts and trading posts of the French Regime and of the English fur trading companies. Department of the Interior, National Resources. Intelligence Branch, Ottawa.Google Scholar
Warren, William W. 1957 History of the Ojibway Nation. Ross and Haines, Minneapolis.Google Scholar
Wilford, Lloyd A. 1943 A tentative classification of the prehistoric cultures of Minnesota. The Minnesota Archaeologist 9.Google Scholar
Wilford, Lloyd A. 1945 The prehistoric Indians of Minnesota. Minnesota History 26.Google Scholar
Wilford, Lloyd A. 1955 A revised classification of the prehistoric cultures of Minnesota. American Antiquity 21:130-142.Google Scholar
Wright, James V. 1963 An archaeological survey along the north shore of Lake Superior. National Museums of Canada, Anthropological Paper 3.Google Scholar
Wright, James V. 1965 A regional examination of Ojibwa culture history. Anthropologica 7:189-227.Google Scholar
Wright, James V. 1966 The Pic River site. In Contributions to Anthropology 1963-64, pt. 1, pp. 54-99. National Museums of Canada, Bulletin 206.Google Scholar
Wright, James V. 1968a The Michipicoten site, Ontario. In Contributions to Anthropology 6: Archaeology. National Museums of Canada, Bulletin 224.Google Scholar
Wright, James V. 1968b Cree Culture history in the southern Indian Lake region. In Contributions to Anthropology 7: Archaeology, pp. 1-31. National Museums of Canada, Bulletin 232.Google Scholar
Wright, James V. 1968c The application of the direct historical approach to the Iroquois and the Ojibwa. Ethnohistory 15:96-111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar