Manitoulin Island - History

History

In 1952 archeologist Thomas E. Lee discovered Sheguiandah on the island, a prehistoric site with artifacts of the Paleo-Indian and Archaic periods, dating at least to 10,000 BCE and possibly to 30,000 years ago. Additional studies were undertaken by a team he led from the National Museum of Canada in succeeding years. Popular interest in the finds was so high that it contributed to Ontario's passing legislation in 1953 to protect its archeological sites. A team performed excavations again in the early 1990s, as well as being able to draw from new material in botany and other disciplines. They concluded the site was at least 9500 years old, making it one of the most significant in Ontario.

Manitoulin means spirit island in Anishinaabemowin (the Ojibwe language). The island is considered sacred by the Native Anishinaabe people, who call themselves the "People of the Three Fires." They are generally known as the Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi tribes.

The North Channel was part of the route used by the Voyageurs and Coureur des bois to reach Lake Superior. The first known European to settle on the island was Father Joseph Poncet, a French Jesuit, who set up a mission near Wikwemikong in 1648. The Jesuits called the island "Isle de Ste. Marie". Eurasian infectious diseases introduced by the visitors had a devastating effect on the island's population, as the Natives had no natural immunity to the new diseases.

In addition, the Five Nations of the Iroquois began raiding the island and area to try to control the fur trade with the French. As part of what was called the Beaver Wars, the Iroquois drove the Anishinaabe people from the island by 1650. According to Anishinaabe oral tradition, to purify the island from disease, the people burned their settlements as they left. The island was mostly uninhabited for nearly 150 years.

Native people (Odawa, Ojibwe, Potawatomi) began to return to the island following the War of 1812. They ceded the island to the British Crown in 1836; the government set aside the land as a refuge for Natives. In 1838 Jean-Baptiste Proulx re-established a Roman Catholic mission. The Jesuits took over the mission in 1845.

In 1862, the government opened up the island to settlement by non-Native people by the Manitoulin Island treaty. As the Wikwemikong chief did not accept this treaty, his people's reserve was held back from being offered for development. That reserve remains unceded. On August 7, 1975 the Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve reasserted their sovereignty over the islands off the east end of Manitoulin Island, declaring, "Wikwemikong Band has jurisdiction over its reservation lands and surrounding waters."

The province erected an Ontario Historical Plaque on the grounds of the Assiginack Museum to commemorate the Manitoulin Treaties' role in Ontario's heritage.