When I re-started writing for the Orono Times, the first story I submitted was a review of the Treaty Lands of the Mississauga First Nations. Despite what I believed to be thorough research, I humbly acknowledge that there were oversights. I stated that the land on which Clarington exists is Mississauga territory. Some months later, a letter was received from Newtonville resident, Tsi Nikayen’ Enonhne’ Gregg Powless, a member of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, in which he corrected and further expanded on this information.
Powless wrote: “This land – in fact entire Southern Ontario from Montreal to Nippissing traversing the Ottawa River – is the legal territory of Haudenosaunee (Six Nations, Iroquois Confederacy) and not the Mississauga. The latter were invited here from their traditional lands north of Superior, under our protection under the One Spoon, One Bowl Wampum (treaty 1656). This occurred after the Wendat had vacated their lands around Georgian Bay as a result of small pox decimation and emigrated to Quebec with the Jesuits.”
