Tinawatawa, also called Quinaouatoua, was a former

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 ...

village of the

Seneca people The Seneca () ( see, Onödowáʼga:, "Great Hill People") are a group of Indigenous Iroquoian-speaking people who historically lived south of Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes in North America. Their nation was the farthest to the west ...

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 The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the ...

". It was located on the western end 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 ...

Location

There are a number of theories about where the village was located. One theory is that it was east or northeast of present-day

Westover, Ontario Westover, Ontario is a hamlet west of Flamborough in Hamilton, Ontario. In the late 18th century the area was known as Donnybrook (distinct from Donnybrook, Ontario in Huron County). One of the first settlers was William Reid, who arrived in the ...

, on the north side of Spencer Creek and in Beverly Swamp, which was a winter hunting grounds site. From archaeological studies of what was called the Christianson Site, it was occupied about 1615 to 1630 by Iroquois people. Other theories are that Tinawatawa was along Ancaster Creek in

Ancaster, Ontario Ancaster is a historic town in the city of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, located on the Niagara Escarpment. Founded as a town in 1793, it immediately developed itself into one of the first important and influential early British Upper Canada communit ...

, between Dundas and

Brantford Brantford ( 2021 population: 104,688) is a city in Ontario, Canada, founded on the Grand River in Southwestern Ontario. It is surrounded by Brant County, but is politically separate with a municipal government of its own that is fully independ ...

. It may have been in current day West Flamborough on the Grand River along a high ground trail that is now Regional Road 97. Or, more probably, halfway to

and the Grand River.

History

In the 17th century, what is now Southern Ontario was Huronia. The Lower Great Lakes and Huronia "region was a multicultural landscape composed of conquerors, refugees and dispersed peoples." The Dutch, French, and English competed for trade alliances with indigenous peoples. Explorers and cartographers passed through the area. 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 ...

involved

and Algonguian speaking people. In the 1660s, Tinawatawa was part of the territory held by the Iroquois, but others traveled or ranged through the area. From 1660 to 1690, Tinawatawa was a hub village. On September 24, 1669,

Louis Jolliet Louis Jolliet (September 21, 1645after May 1700) was a French-Canadian explorer known for his discoveries in North America. In 1673, Jolliet and Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit Catholic priest and missionary, were the first non-Natives to explore ...

and explorer

René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (; November 22, 1643 – March 19, 1687), was a 17th-century French explorer and fur trader in North America. He explored the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, the Mississippi River, ...

met with

René de Bréhant de Galinée René Bréhant de Galinée was a member of the Society of Saint-Sulpice (Sulpician Order) at Montreal and an explorer and missionary to the Native Americans. In 1670, he and François Dollier de Casson were the first Europeans to make a recorded ...

François Dollier de Casson François Dollier de Casson (1636 – 27 September 1701) was born in France into a wealthy bourgeois and military family. He began his adult life in the army which he left after three years to continue his studies and become a priest. After becom ...

, superior of the

Sulpicians The Society of Priests of Saint-Sulpice (french: Compagnie des Prêtres de Saint-Sulpice), abbreviated PSS also known as the Sulpicians is a society of apostolic life of Pontifical Right for men, named after the Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris, ...

, and other Sulpicians of Montreal, who were missionaries. The missionaries were exploring the western frontier and looking for a place to establish a mission. They stopped at Tinawatawa to find a guide to take them to the western frontier. There were 30 years of skirmishes following the 1669 meeting. Tinawatawa was subject to attacks by the French and

Ojibwe The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains. According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...

. By 1701, most of the Iroquois withdrew from southern Ontario. The original five nations of the

Iroquois Confederacy The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian Peoples, Iroquoian-speaking Confederation#Indigenous confederations in North America, confederacy of First Nations in Canada, First Natio ...

reused former settlements in Southern Ontario, including Tinawatawa, also called Quinaouotuan and Tinaouatoua, or Otinawatawa by historian

Francis Parkman Francis Parkman Jr. (September 16, 1823 – November 8, 1893) was an American historian, best known as author of '' The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life'' and his monumental seven-volume ''France and England in North Ame ...

Notes

References

{{Iroquois settlement of the northern shores of Lake Ontario Iroquois Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands History of Ontario by location Seneca tribe First Nations history in Ontario Iroquois populated places Former populated places in Ontario History of indigenous peoples of North America Historical migrations