Aamjiwnaang historian and author launches new book

By Colin Graf

AAMJIWNAANG FIRST NATION—Local author David D. Plain has launched his new book “A Brief History of the Saugeen Peninsula”.  The new book is Plain’s sixth, with four non-fiction historical works, one historical novel, and a poetry book preceding his latest publication.

Plain decided to delve into the past of the Anishinabe of the Saugeen (Bruce) Peninsula as a way to honour and remember one of his grandfather’s’ land and people, he told a recent gathering at the Aamjiwnaang Community Centre.  Basing his work on research from several years ago, Plain has divided his work into two sections, one on Ojibwe culture in the mid-1800s, and the other on events and changes that came to the Ojibwe in the area during that period.

The book helps recall the semi-nomadic ways of the past, as Anishinabe, living in the main villages in summer, would hold traditional gatherings in autumn that lasted for days at gathering places such as Sault Ste. Marie or Manitoulin Island. There would be large meals of fish, berries, and meat; drumming, dancing, games, and sporting contests such as foot races and lacrosse would provide excitement and entertainment.  Military alliances were made or renewed, as Plain narrated during a reading from his book.

Plain’s writing also explains how villages would break up in the fall to travel to smaller hunting and trapping camps during the winter, when the men would hunt each day or tend to trap lines while the women processed the meat and pelts, and cooked the meals.  In early spring, he explains, there would be “almost a festival atmosphere” as groups of around six families would create the “sugar camps” for the making of maple syrup and sugar “after a long isolated winter.”

Next came the fishing camps, where brook trout, perch, and bass would be caught in rivers and streams, along with lake trout and sturgeon, a “particular delicacy”, would be fished in Lake Huron.  A staple was whitefish, Plain writes, and a favourite area was a group of fishing islands off of the Lake’s shore north of the Saugeen River mouth.  To complete the circle, the main village would reassemble in the summer to grow the Three Sister; corn, beans, and squash.

Storytelling was also a constant feature of life, with each village having an official storyteller who might be able to tell hundreds of stories.  Many featured Nanabozho, the trickster with a “flawed character,” as Plain describes him.  Most of Nanabozho’s adventures turn into misadventures, he explains.

Pleased to have the work published, Plain says he feels good because when he is no longer here, his knowledge will live on among his people.

“A lot of people don’t know these stories, a sense of our own history is sorely lacking,” he says, hoping his book will help the future generations of Anishinabek learn about their past.

In his book, Plain recalls how between the early and mid-1800s an influx of immigrants arrived in southern Ontario from the U.S.A. and Europe, and the British government needed to find land for them.  The governors began work to convince the First Nations people to cede land to the Crown, who would then turn it over to land speculation companies.

The Saugeen people were “more or less coerced into” giving up 1.5 million acres in 1836, Plain recounts, stretching from the Sauble Falls down to the area around the modern town of Hanover, and back to Goderich on the Lake Huron shore.

The Governor of the time, Sir Francis Bond Head, hoped to convince all of the Ojibwe, whose numbers had been decimated by illness and war, to move to a place far from the new settlers where they could continue their traditional lifestyle.  His choice was Manitoulin Island; however, many Ojibwe from further south in Ontario had already taken up the European farming lifestyle and weren’t  interested in leaving their small farms, as Plain tells it.

A counter-proposal came from Chief Waywanosh, who proposed settling together but on the Saugeen lands.  Plain says few Ojibwe responded to either idea.

Then the governor added pressure at the annual gift-giving ceremony on Manitoulin in 1836.  Bond Head told the Ojibwe his government couldn’t prevent settlers from encroaching on their lands, and they could lose everything if they didn’t take his offer to sell the Saugeen lands and move north. Plain writes that only four Ojibwe signed the treaty, and there was no assembly of the First Nations, which rendered it illegal.  According to the Royal Proclamation of 1763, Plain says, the Ojibwe were required to hold an assembly and get the support of their members in order to sell their land to the Crown.

Researching the book involved both very modern and very ancient techniques, from recording oral history from Elders to searching online data archives from historical societies and universities, Plain says.  First-hand accounts, previous historians’ work, letters, and reports from the 19th century have been main sources, he adds.  University archives in Michigan and Wisconsin were particularly useful, Plain recalls.

Plain has found historical research sometimes turns up interesting examples of “culture clash.”  He says a clue in the mistranslation of English terms into Anishinaabemowin illustrates how the Anishinabek people of the 1800s probably misunderstood the meaning and operation of the treaty agreements they were often tricked into signing.   This revolves around the word Daawed, a term used to describe an autumn meeting in pre-contact times between the Ojibwe who lived north of Lake Huron and the Wendat (Huron) people from the south side of Georgian Bay.  The northerners would bring various products and the more agrarian Wendat would give their surplus of corn, beans and squash.  When the Europeans came along and saw us doing this, they translated that word into “trade”, Plain says, but “we were not bartering to get the best deal, we were sharing our surpluses”.   If one side of the lake had a bad year, “we would just give them our surplus anyway and make it up down the road,” he says.

Thus, Chiefs almost certainly believed they were sharing their land with the Europeans, not surrendering title to it, Plain claims.  With their population having been reduced by over 90 percent, the Chiefs knew they had a surplus of land to share, but not to sell.  There is even evidence Chiefs were told they could get land back if their numbers increased in the future, though that was not written into the treaties.  Having an oral culture, the Chiefs believed the final, authoritative version of treaties were the spoken words, not the written text.

Plain’s book can be purchased from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or at the Bookkeeper book store in Sarnia.