Bead Hill is an archaeological site comprising the only known remaining and intact 17th-century
Seneca
Seneca may refer to:
People and language
* Seneca (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname
* Seneca people, one of the six Iroquois tribes of North America
** Seneca language, the language of the Seneca people
Places Extrat ...
site in
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
. It is located on the banks of the
Rouge River in
Rouge Park
Rouge National Urban Park is a national urban park in Ontario, Canada. The park is centred around the Rouge River and its tributaries in the Greater Toronto Area. The southern portion of the park is situated around the mouth of river in Toron ...
, a city park in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
. Because of its sensitive archaeological nature, it is not open to the public, nor readily identified in the park. It was designated a
National Historic Site of Canada
National Historic Sites of Canada (french: Lieux historiques nationaux du Canada) are places that have been designated by the federal Minister of the Environment
An environment minister (sometimes minister of the environment or secretary of t ...
in 1991.
Bead Hill site
The Bead Hill site is believed to be one of seven villages established along the north shore of
Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south and east by the U.S. state of New York. The Canada–United States border sp ...
by the
Iroquois
The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...
in the 1660s. The Bead Hill site was settled temporarily as part of a mid 17th century push by the Iroquois Confederacy north, from their traditional homeland in New York state. The
Huron Wendat Confederacy, had once occupied the north shores of Lake Ontario but had moved north toward
Georgian Bay
Georgian Bay (french: Baie Georgienne) is a large bay of Lake Huron, in the Laurentia bioregion. It is located entirely within the borders of Ontario, Canada. The main body of the bay lies east of the Bruce Peninsula and Manitoulin Island. To ...
and
Lake Simcoe
Lake Simcoe is a lake in southern Ontario, Canada, the fourth-largest lake wholly in the province, after Lake Nipigon, Lac Seul, and Lake Nipissing. At the time of the first European contact in the 17th century the lake was called ''Ouentironk'' ...
at the end of the 16th century.
Following extensive excavation undertaken in the 1980s it was determined that the Bead Hill site could be the historically documented village of Ganatsekwyagon. Evidence from test excavations suggests that it was home to about 500 to 800 people for about 22 years (1665-1687). Bead Hill was primarily a fur trading outlet, not a military or agricultural site. It was located at the nexus of major trade and transportation routes, including the lakeshore trail that follows modern-day
Kingston Road and the historic Toronto Carrying-Place Trail.
Bead Hill is adjacent to Glen Rouge Park and Campgrounds.
Ganatsekwyagon
![Rouge Trail Map 1673 Louis Jolliet 1673](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Rouge_Trail_Map_1673_Louis_Jolliet_1673.png)
The Bead Hill site is believed to contain the archaeological remains of the village of Ganatsekwyagon. French missionaries and explorers arrived at Ganatsekwyagon in 1669.
François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon
François () is a French language, French masculine given name and surname, equivalent to the English name Francis (given name), Francis.
People with the given name
* Francis I of France, King of France (), known as "the Father and Restorer of ...
passed the winter of 1669 in the village, which was the first recorded residence of Europeans in the neighbourhood of Toronto.
François-Saturnin Lascaris d'Urfé may have also spent the winter of 1669 in Ganatsekwyagon with Abbé Fénelon but the records are unclear.
The village was an important fur trading post and was part of the regional power struggle between the French, British, and Iroquois. The
Comte de Frontenac
Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac et de Palluau (; 22 May 162228 November 1698) was a French soldier, courtier, and Governor General of New France in North America from 1672 to 1682, and again from 1689 to his death in 1698. He established a num ...
wrote to
Louis XIV of France
, house = Bourbon
, father = Louis XIII
, mother = Anne of Austria
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
, death_date =
, death_place = Palace of Versa ...
in the fall of 1674 that the Iroquois "have given their word not to continue the trade, which as I informed you last year, they had commenced to establish at Ganatsekwyagon, with the Ottawas, which would have absolutely ruined ours by the transfer of the furs to the Dutch."
Tensions between the Iroquois and French led to a number of conflicts over the course of the 17th century which are collectively known as the
Beaver Wars
The Beaver Wars ( moh, Tsianì kayonkwere), also known as the Iroquois Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars (french: Guerres franco-iroquoises) were a series of conflicts fought intermittently during the 17th century in North America throughout t ...
, which would gravely affect Ganatsekwyagon. In 1687, the French, led by the
Marquis de Denonville
A marquess (; french: marquis ), es, marqués, pt, marquês. is a nobleman of high hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The German language equivalent is Markgraf (margrave). A woman wi ...
, began a campaign against the Senecas in northwest
New York state
New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. stat ...
. Denonville destroyed most of the Seneca villages in New York. It is unclear whether the French also destroyed Ganatsekwyagon and other Iroquois villages on the North Shore of Lake Ontario in his 1687 campaign, or if the villages were abandoned as the Iroquois on the north shore of Lake Ontario retreated to New York state. Iroquois villages were usually temporary and tended to shift to a new location every 10–20 years. Therefore, it is not unusual that villages were abandoned. Regardless of the exact reason, following the 1687 campaign the Iroquois were restricted to south of Lake Ontario and Ganatsekwyagon was abandoned.
The name likely means "among the birches".
Because early Europeans had difficulty in transcribing First Nations names into European orthographic systems, numerous spelling variations exist. Alternate names for the village included:
*Gandat Siagon
*Ganatsekwyagon
*Ganacheieskiagon
*Gandatsetiagon
*Gandatsekwyagon
*Ganatchekiagon
*Gandatsiagon
*Ganetsekiagon
*Ganestiguiagon
*Gandatsekiagon
*Gandatsdhagon
*Kanatiochtiage
*Ganastiquiagon
*Gandalskiagon
*Le Portage de Toronto
*Toronto Carrying Place
*Toronto Portage
Early descriptions of Bead Hill
William Brown, who was renting a saw mill on the Rouge River, was one of the first individuals to describe Bead Hill in 1849. After his employees found the site and he inspected it, he wrote,
"There were pieces of broken pottery, broken guns, and flint heads of some very handsome tobacco pipes which the men brought away. They intended to go again ... But I persuaded them to allow the dead to rest in peace, going, however, to view the place myself; and I found that about 40 acres had been appropriated as a place of sepulture, and that no grave had been deeper than about two feet from the surface. The whole of the steep bank of the river had been used, and the graves being one above another in the hillside, they looked like steps from the top to the bottom."
In 1885, C. Blackett Robinson published ''A History of Toronto and County of York'', which described artifacts found "near the mouth of the Rouge River, where the site of what was once a considerable Indian village was indicated by the remains of the logs which formed a wooden palisade surrounding their habitations." Some of these artifacts, the account continued, "have all the characteristics of the stone age, and mixed with the rude weapons and implements of 'native industry' are those of copper and iron, and also glass beads, which were probably obtained by intercourse with the early French voyageurs and traders ... A few yards from the site of the village a number of graves containing aboriginal remains were discovered."
Iroquois villages on the north shore of Lake Ontario
By the late 1660s various Five Nation Iroquois had established seven villages along the shores of Lake Ontario where trails led off into the interior. In addition to Ganatsekwyagon at the mouth of the Rouge River, the following settlements have been identified by historian Percy James Robinson:
* Ganneious - on the site of present-day
Napanee
Greater Napanee is a town in Eastern Ontario, southeastern Ontario, Canada, approximately west of Kingston, Ontario, Kingston and the county seat of Lennox and Addington County. It is located on the eastern end of the Bay of Quinte. Greater Nap ...
* Kente - on the
Bay of Quinte
The Bay of Quinte () is a long, narrow bay shaped like the letter "Z" on the northern shore of Lake Ontario in the province of Ontario, Canada. It is just west of the head of the Saint Lawrence River that drains the Great Lakes into the Gulf of ...
* Kentsio - on
Rice Lake
* Ganaraske - on the site of present-day
Port Hope
*
Teiaiagon
Teiaiagon was an Iroquoian village on the east bank of the Humber River in what is now the York district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was located along the Toronto Carrying-Place Trail. The site is near the current intersection of Jane Street ...
- on a hillside overlooking the
Humber River, today's
Baby Point
Baby Point is a residential neighbourhood in the York district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is bounded on the west by the Humber River from south of Baby Point Crescent to St. Marks Road, east to Jane Street and Jane Street south to Raymond Av ...
neighbourhood in Toronto
* Quinaouatoua (or
Tinawatawa
Tinawatawa, also called Quinaouatoua, was a former Iroquois village of the Seneca people on the western end of the Niagara corridor, described as "a fertile flat belt of land stretching from western New York to the head waters of the Thames River ...
) - Near modern-day
Hamilton Hamilton may refer to:
People
* Hamilton (name), a common British surname and occasional given name, usually of Scottish origin, including a list of persons with the surname
** The Duke of Hamilton, the premier peer of Scotland
** Lord Hamilt ...
References
{{coord, 43.8041, N, 79.1401, W, source:wikidata, display=title
History of Toronto
Scarborough, Toronto
Archaeological sites in Ontario
Seneca tribe
First Nations history in Ontario
Iroquois populated places
First Nations sites in Toronto
17th century in Ontario