A Brief History of Indigenous People in Huron County Prior to European Settlement
10,000 Years in 20 Minutes
Project Researcher: R. Jordan George of Kettle & Stony Point First Nation
Project Supervisor: Ralph Blasting of Bayfield
This project was made possible thanks to a generous donation to the Bayfield Historical Society by Stephanie and Michael McDonald.
Administration: Ruth Gibson, President, Bayfield Historical Society
Videography: Guy Spence
Web design: Julia Armstrong, Archivist, Bayfield Historical Society
The symbol of the Anishinaabeg Nation as found on the Huron Tract Treaty #29. Below the two “Thunderbird” figures are “ribbon seals” and other Dodem markings.
Introduction from Project Researcher R. Jordan George
in Anishinaabemowin (Anishinaabe-Ojibway/Chippewa Language) with translation below
Video: Guy Spence
Aanii-boozhoo kiinaa wiiyaag! Anamaakaahgay omaampii, miinawaa beindigin!! Gtchii Miigwetch!
Zhaadan Manidookaa (Jordan George) n’dizhnikaaz. Mkade Migizii nii Nishnabe noozwin. Wiiwkwedong: Kikonong miinawaa Aazhoodenaang Nishnaabe ahkiing n’doonjibyaan. Giigohn nii dodem, Mshiikehn miinawaa Nahmehbin n’dodemayaan. Ojibwe miinawaa Bodewaadmih ninih nidaaw, Anishinabe ahway.
Shkaamigizii ni noos zhinkaazod.
Shkaamigizii ooge ogwisanan Daawshbidoongiizhigobaa, ni mishoomisan. Ni Mishoomis zhinkaazod Daawshbidoongiizhig ooge ogwisanan Robert Georgebaa Sr.
Robert George Sr. ooge ogwisan Albert George Cumaanibaa. Albert George ooge ogwisan Macadoshu “George” Manidookaabaa. Macadoshu “George” Manidookaa ooge ogwisan Mayangikebaa. Mayangike ooge ogwisan Tobinabeebaa, Bodewaadmi Gtchi Gimaa. Tobinabee ooge ogwisan Anaquibah, Gtchi ogtichiidaa gimaa Bodewaadmig. Maamwi kinomaahgedaa ndaa nandaa gikendan miinawaa bmaadziwaa mino maadziwin.
Translation
Hello all! Greetings/welcome here, please come in!! Thank you so much!
My name is Jordan George. My Aishnaabeg name means Black Eagle. I am from Wiiwkwedong (literal meaning: “by the Bay”), Kettle & Stony Point First Nation. My clan is Fish-Turtle and Sucker Fish. I am an Ojibwe and Potawatomi person. I am Anishinaabe.
My father’s name ShkaaMigizii means Strong Eagle, and my grandfather’s name is Daawshbidoongiizhig (Split in the Sky). His father was Robert George Sr., who was the son of Albert George (Cumaahnii). Cumaahnii, the son of George Manidokaa (Manidokaa), was the son of Mayangike. Mayangike was the son of the Potawatomi Chief Tobinabee, whose father was the great Potawatomi Chief Anaquibah, a war chief of the Potawatomi.
I am very thankful to have worked on this historical research project with the Bayfield Historical Society, and to have the chance to share my understanding of this land’s history and the history of my people, the Anishinabeg. We honour our ancestors and the spirit of reconciliation by entering into collaborative learning experiences like this in creative ways. I imagine my grandfather—nii mishoomis, Robert George Jr. (Dawshbidoongiizhig), who was forcibly removed along with his family and community from reserved and unceded Treaty lands at Aazhoodenaang (Stony Point Reserve) in 1942 when he was 10 years old, and my grandmother, nii Nokomis, Sylvia, who attended Mount Elgin Residential School as a child—working along with me and giving me strength to continue in this work as long as necessary, so that what they experienced is never again possible in this country, and so that all Canadians see and understand the rich history of our people and Nations. – Jordan George
“The idea that all indigenous peoples, but First Nations people in particular, were doomed to an extinction-like event . . . was a prevalent underlying social and legal idea that persisted for some three centuries among Western thinkers into the present.”
– Bruce Trigger, Natives and Newcomers: Canada’s “Heroic Age” Reconsidered (1986), p. 3
My fifth great-grandfather (Naano Gtchii Mishoomis) Tobinabee. Portrait by VanSanden, ca. 1825 of Potawatomi Chief Topinabee, Northern Indiana Historical Society. See source here.
