by Jean Turnbull Elford
(1982) Beginning with British rule in the northern part of this continent, land was acquired from the Indians as it was needed for new settlers. Because of legislation passed in 1763, no Indian band forfeited their land without their own and the Crown’s consent.
The Indians surrendered Lambton in three sections. The Crown obtained Sombra in 1796 in a land sale of about 46,000 acres lying along the St. Clair River north of Wallaceburg. The Indians were paid 800 pounds sterling which they took in goods. Goods consisted in part of 872 blankets, 2,304 tobacco pipes, 960 fish hooks, about 1,200 yards of cloth, 21 pounds of thread, 80 ivory combs and 100 combs made of horn.
The rest of the southern tier of townships and parts of Brooke, Enniskillen and Warwick came with the purchase of 580,000 acres north of the Thames River in 1822. For this the Indians received:
“….two pounds, 10 shillings to each man, woman, and child during their lifetimes and their posterity forever providing that the number of annuitants should not at any time exceed 240 – being the number occupying the said tract of land.”
In July 1827, Chief Joshua Wawanosh and 17 lesser chiefs put their totems on a document that entitled His Majesty George IV to 2,200,000 acres of land. It included, besides the north Lambton portion, all of Perth and parts of Waterloo, Wellington, and Oxford Counties. The 440 Indians who lived on this land and their descendants were to receive 1,100 pounds annually and forever.
Out of these acres, Chief Wawanosh retained four reserves for his people for “their own exclusive use and enjoyment.” All four reserves were in Lambton County. They were the Lower Reserve on the St. Clair River in Moore Township; Aux Sables, or, as it came to be called, Stoney Point; and Kettle Point in Bosanquet; and the St. Clair Reserve at Sarnia.
This made five reservations, as Walpole was settled by Indians who had fought on the British side during the American Revolution. In 1841 and 1842 the Crown bought the Indians 400 acres for a sugar bush west of Petrolia. Five families settled there, but it was all sold again by 1918. The Lower Reserve the Indians sold in 1843. The government expropriated the Stoney Point Reserve for a military base in 1942. Final payment for it, a sum of over $2,000,000 was made in 1980. This sale left only three reserves.
Walpole was the first one settled. After the surrender of Detroit in 1796, Colonel Alexander McKee, Deputy Agent for Indian Affairs, brought about 300 Indians from Detroit to St. Mary’s Island, as Walpole was (portion of text missing) people on the reserve to approximately 1,580.
Tuberculosis was rampant among them, and it was thought they would all soon perish from it. Major John Richardson was of this opinion as may be seen from an extract from his book, “A Trip to Walpole Island – Port Sarnia in 1848.”
“As I contrasted the really native dignity and simplicity of these interesting people, with the loathsome hypocrisy of civilized life, I could not but deeply deplore the fast-approaching extinction as a race of the first lords of this soil, whose very memory will soon have passed away.”
It looked as if Richardson’s prediction was coming true by 1861 when the Indians numbered only 1,265 and even more in 1881 when there were only 1,250. From then on the population remained static until 1931 when it rose to 1,424. Since then, it has more than doubled and reached 3,814 by 1981.
To help them get established, the government appointed an agent for the four mainland reserves and one for Walpole. The first for the mainland was William Jones, appointed in 1831, and seven years later J.W. Keating was appointed for Walpole. In more recent times one agent was appointed for all the reserves.
Over the years the Indians gradually took more responsibility for their own affairs. By 1965 the agency for Walpole was closed and in 1969 the one for Sarnia and Kettle Point. Part of the work formerly done by the agents is handled by the Department of Indian Affairs branch at London and part by the bands themselves under their own band administration.
Along with less dependency on the agents, other democratic measures have been introduced. Elected chiefs replaced hereditary ones beginning in 1876. In 1951 Indian women were given the vote for chief and councillors. In 1954 the Province of Ontario granted the Indians voting privileges, and these were extended to the federal elections in 1962.
Since the whites have come among them they have adopted a whole new way of life. From being a nomadic people they have settled on the reservations in modern homes, and numbers work in industries. They rejected paganism and accepted Christianity. They have anglicized their names and use English instead of their native language. They joined Lambton battalions and fought in two world wars. Yet, while they retain their identity, they enjoy all the advantages possessed by their white neighbours.
St. Clair Reservation at Sarnia
After signing the treaty in 1827, Chief Wawanosh moved from the shore of Lake Wawanosh, in the vicinity of Toronto airport, to what is now the northwest corner of Prince of Wales Park. From there he moved farther south on the reserve to a lot on the present Christina Street between Devine and Confederation. Part of this property remained in his family until 1966 when the chief’s great granddaughter, Agnes Mern, died.
He died in 1871 at the age of 85. His son, David, who succeeded him, was the last of the hereditary chiefs. Starting in 1876, chief and councillors were elected. In 1981, Ray Rogers was the elected chief, and there were six councillors, one woman and five men.
The first agent was William Jones, who arrived in 1831. He lived on the reserve at the west end of Devine Street. Most of his successors lived in Sarnia, and in this century had an office in the federal building. They dispensed band funds, attended all council meetings, and negotiated band business. The agency was kept open until 1968 when the band took charge of its own affairs under its own band administrator. Administrator in 1981 was Reynold Williams.
Of the four reserves in mainland Lambton, St. Clair at Sarnia was the largest. Originally it was comprised of 10,260 acres and extended from the river on the west to Kimball Road on the east, and from La Salle Road north to the present federal building in Sarnia. These acres have been reduced, through a series of sales, to some 3,000.
Malcolm Cameron made the first and biggest single purchase. In 1840 he bought a strip a mile wide and four miles long off the east side. Starting in 1852, Sarnia gradually bought Reservation land to let the town grow. Sales from 1890 were generally to railways and industries. Sarnia’s portion of Chemical Valley is all on former Indian land. More of it was used for the new highway 40 and for right-of-ways for pipe and hydro lines.
When the Indians first came to the reserve, it was covered with trees. In 1862 at a general council they voted to surrender to the Department of Crown Lands:
“the mercantable oak and pine timber standing on the unoccupied portions of the reserve in the Township of Sarnia, and also on the Reserve in the Township of Bosanquet (Sables) in order that the same might be sold and the proceeds invested in the usual manner, the interest produced thereby to be divided with our other monies half-yearly.”
Malcolm Cameron bought the timber rights at Sarnia, and for a number of years he sent timber from the reserve in ships, specially constructed for loading at the stern, to shipyards in Quebec and Glasgow. Once the land was denuded, much of it was rented to whites for pasture, and the Indians themselves did some farming. Now they are mostly employed in local industries.
Being used to wandering over a large tract, it took them a few years to settle on the reserve. The government had built them log houses, but they showed a strong preference for wigwams and used the houses to stable their livestock. The preference for wigwams came partly from their fear of contracting tuberculosis: they thought being confined to houses might have some bearing on the high incidence of it. Until they did settle it was hard to establish missions among them. Roman Catholic priests tried to convert them, but with little success.
In 1832, the Wesleyan Methodists sent Rev. Thomas Turner to minister to them. He lived beside the agent and used the government-built school for a church. He was only there two years when Rev. James Evans took his place. Evans had a great advantage in that he could speak Ojibwa. He wrote to the “Christian Guardian” about his progress in 1835:
“Through Divine Blessing we now number `15 who are striving together for the faith of the Gospel; among whom is Wawanosh the head chief of a tribe of about 500 souls, also his wife who is an amiable woman; her equal I have not found amongst any of the pagans.”
“The son of the chief who is heir to the office, a promising youth of 16 is also an exemplary boy and will undoubtedly, if faithful, be useful among his people.”
One of Evans’ converts, George Henry, an interpreter, wrote to the same paper in 1837:
“Yes, Mr. Paper-maker, if you had seen these Indians a few years ago you would think they were the animals you call orang-outangs for they appeared more like them than human beings, but since the Great Spirit has blessed them they have good clothes, plates and dishes, windows and bed curtains, knives and forks; chairs and tables; and one chief has saved plenty of duck and partridge feathers and has a good feather bed, but what is better than all these things they have the religion of Jesus Christ in their hearts.”
Evans was succeeded by Rev. John Douce. Records kept by him show that he baptized white children all through the western part of the county as well as a large number of Indians.
The missionaries lived at the west end of Devine Street until 1872 when new buildings were erected south of Churchill Road on what is now Dow Chemical property. The mission house was replaced in 1916 with a smaller one but the church and council house served until 1947. The church was replaced with a new one on Tashmoo Avenue in 1952 and the mission house moved back beside it. The council house similarly was replaced in 1947. It burned in 1978 and a large new community centre took its place in 1980.
As well as Methodist missionaries the reserve had those of the Anglican faith who came to the reserve in the 1840s. Among their converts was the former Methodist, Chief Wawanosh. By 1868 they had a new church on the river front. In the 1890s an Anglican church was moved from Froomefield to the second line as Churchill Road was called. Services were conducted by the rector of St. John’s Anglican Church in Sarnia, but were discontinued shortly after the First World War.
Both a Pentecostal denomination and a Church of Christ have held services on the reserve intermittently since the early 1960s.
School children on the St. Clair Reserve have had educational opportunities and qualified English-speaking teachers since 1832. Their first teacher was Elijah Harris. The first school was also the church and was replaced by a red brick one on the corner of Tashmoo Avenue and Churchill Road in 1872. Some children were sent to boarding school at either Sault Ste. Marie or Muncey. Starting in 1954, the children attended the school at Bluewater and in 1961 began to go to school in Sarnia. A day nursery built in 1972 is the only children’s institution on the reserve.
The Indians had an annual fall fair from 1903 to the late thirties. It was held on the council house grounds and featured horse races, livestock shows, and exhibits of women’s hand work, and the school children’s art work. Its place has been more or less taken by a pow-wow that has been staged annually since 1962.
According to the report of the agent serving in 1909, the Sarnia band was more prone to tuberculosis than any of the others. It helped to reduce them from around 700, the estimate given by Smith in his gazetteer of 1846, to 538 by 1851 and to 247 by 1912. The Spanish influenza of 1918-19 brought this number closer to 200. From that point the population grew very slowly until new drugs were found to combat tuberculosis in the 1940s. By 1950 the reserve had 360 inhabitants. Since then the band has grown until in 1981 there were 805 band members with 565 of them living ion the reserve. Not only was the band larger than it had ever been but also more prosperous. In addition it had dropped the name “St. Clair Reserve” in favour of “Chippewas of Sarnia Band.”