Upper Canada and the Iroquois Confederacy

Teiaiagon was an

Iroquoian The Iroquoian languages are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their general lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking. As of 2020, all surviving Iroquoia ...

village on the east bank of the Humber River in what is now the York district of

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 anch ...

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 ...

, Canada. It was located along the

Toronto Carrying-Place Trail The Toronto Carrying-Place Trail, also known as the Humber Portage and the Toronto Passage, was a major portage route in Ontario, Canada, linking Lake Ontario with Lake Simcoe and the northern Great Lakes. The name comes from the Mohawk term '' ...

. The site is near the current intersection of Jane Street and Annette Street, at which is situated the community of

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 A ...

. The name means "It crosses the stream."

History

Percy Robinson's ''Toronto During the French Regime'' shows Teiaiagon as being a jointly occupied village of Seneca and

Mohawk Mohawk may refer to: Related to Native Americans * Mohawk people, an indigenous people of North America (Canada and New York) *Mohawk language, the language spoken by the Mohawk people * Mohawk hairstyle, from a hairstyle once thought to have been ...

. Helen Tanner's ''Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History'' describes Teiaiagon as a Seneca village around the years 1685-1687, although it existed before that time, and as a

Mississauga Mississauga ( ), historically known as Toronto Township, is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is situated on the shores of Lake Ontario in the Regional Municipality of Peel, adjoining the western border of Toronto. With a popu ...

village around 1696.

Étienne Brûlé Étienne Brûlé (; – c. June 1633) was the first European explorer to journey beyond the St. Lawrence River into what is now known as Canada. He spent much of his early adult life among the Hurons, and mastered their language and learne ...

passed through Teiaiagon in 1615.Teiaiagon
/ref> The village was on an important route for the developing

fur trade The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal ecosystem, boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals h ...

industry, and it was also "surrounded by horticultural fields". Williamson 2008: 51 It was said to be about "a

day's journey A day's journey in pre-modern literature, including the Bible, ancient geographers and ethnographers such as Herodotus, is a measurement of distance. In the Bible, it is not as precisely defined as other Biblical measurements of distance; the dis ...

from the Toronto Lake, our present

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' ...

". On November 18, 1678,

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, ...

departed

Fort Frontenac Fort Frontenac was a French trading post and military fort built in July 1673 at the mouth of the Cataraqui River where the St. Lawrence River leaves Lake Ontario (at what is now the western end of the La Salle Causeway), in a location traditiona ...

for Niagara in a

brigantine A brigantine is a two-masted sailing vessel with a fully square-rigged foremast and at least two sails on the main mast: a square topsail and a gaff sail mainsail (behind the mast). The main mast is the second and taller of the two masts. Ol ...

with a crew including La Motte and the

Récollet The Recollects (french: Récollets) were a French reform branch of the Friars Minor, a Franciscan order. Denoted by their gray habits and pointed hoods, the Recollects took vows of poverty and devoted their lives to prayer, penance, and spiri ...

missionary

Louis Hennepin Father Louis Hennepin, O.F.M. baptized Antoine, (; 12 May 1626 – 5 December 1704) was a Belgian Roman Catholic priest and missionary of the Franciscan Recollet order (French: ''Récollets'') and an explorer of the interior of North Ameri ...

, following the north shore of Lake Ontario to mitigate the effects of a storm. The ship was grounded three times, forcing the crew to stop at the mouth of the Humber River on November 26. The surprised inhabitants of the village "were hospitable and supplied them with provisions". Lizars 1913: 24 On December 5, the ship set off after being cut out of the ice with axes. Before departing, "La Motte's men bartered their commodities with the natives" for corn. Hennepin and others have recorded that the village was inhabited by as many as 5,000 people and had 50 long houses. La Salle camped at Teiaiagon several other times, once in the summer of 1680, and "perhaps twice in 1681" during his expeditions. There was a burial ground located in the central part of the village. The Senecas left the village, either pushed out by, or voluntarily for, the Mississaugas by 1701. With the removal of the Iroquois from southern Ontario by the Mississaugas, the

Anishinaabe The Anishinaabeg (adjectival: Anishinaabe) are a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples present in the Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States. They include the Ojibwe (including Saulteaux and Oji-Cree), Odawa, Potawa ...

and French trade began to flourish in the region shortly after the

Great Peace of Montreal The Great Peace of Montreal (french: La Grande paix de Montréal) was a peace treaty between New France and 39 First Nations of North America that ended the Beaver Wars. It was signed on August 4, 1701, by Louis-Hector de Callière, governor of ...

of 1701. Associated with this trade, there was a very small French garrison or Magasin Royal located near the site of Teiaiagon from 1720 to 1730. In 1730, the French garrison was located downriver of the site. A store was later built at the mouth of the Humber in 1750 and

Fort Rouillé Fort Rouillé was a French trading post located in what is now Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Fort Rouillé was constructed by the French in 1751, building upon the success of a trading post they established in the area a year earlier, known as Fort T ...

soon after, east of the Humber. The Mississaugas did not live at the site of the village of Teiaiagon, but had a village located across the Humber River, on the west bank of the river, near Old Mill Road and

Bloor Street Bloor Street is a major east–west residential and commercial thoroughfare in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Bloor Street runs from the Prince Edward Viaduct, which spans the Don River Valley, westward into Mississauga where it ends at Central Park ...

, from 1788-1805. James Bâby from

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

in 1816 acquired the land now called

and only had orchards located on the site of Teiaiagon. The site was relatively undisturbed as it was not farmed. The Teiaiagon area was acquired by the government for a military fortress and army barracks, but then was sold to Robert Home Smith, who began developing the Baby Point subdivision in 1912. In 1949, at the south-west corner of Baby Point Road and Baby Point Crescent, a plaque was erected, briefly mentioning "Taiaiagon."

Cartography

Possibly because early European explorers had difficulty in transcribing

First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: **First Natio ...

names into European orthographic systems, numerous spelling variations exist. These include ''Taiaiako'n'', ''Taiaiagon'', ''Teyeyagon'', and ''Toioiugon''. The name "Teiaigon" appears on a 1688 map of

New France New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spa ...

drawn by

Jean-Baptiste-Louis Franquelin Jean-Baptiste-Louis Franquelin (1650-c.1712) was a French trader who was appointed in the early 1670s as the first cartographer in ''Nouvelle France'' (Canada) by the colony's governor. He was appointed in 1688 as royal hydrographer by Louis XIV. ...

based on "sixteen years' of observation of the author". It was indicated to be on the eastern side of a small bay, from which a portage route led to the west branch of Lake Taronto.

Archeology

Excavations at Baby Point were first conducted in the late nineteenth century. Records from that excavation have been lost, though it is known that they revealed "traces of palisade walls". In the late 1990s and early 2000s another excavation, conducted as a result of installation of a

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbon d ...

line to the residential neighbourhood, discovered the burial plots of two Seneca women, which were dated to the 1680s. One of the women was buried with a moose antler comb engraved with a rattlesnake-tailed panther, "possibly representing Mishipizheu", Williamson 2008: 52 which morphs into a bear. The other woman was buried with three brass rings and a carved moose antler comb depicting "two human figures wearing European-style clothes flanking an Aboriginal figure". Another burial plot on Baby Point was found in 2010 when a house was being renovated. Artifacts were studied and a ceremonial reburial took place. Just north of the site, in today's Magwood Park, is "Thunderbird Mound", which is believed to be an ancient burial mound. The site has not been studied for its archaeology. The site is considered threatened by erosion and pedestrian traffic by the Taiaiako'n Historical Preservation Society.

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 Teiaiagon at the mouth of the Humber 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 southeastern Ontario, Canada, approximately west of Kingston and the county seat of Lennox and Addington County. It is located on the eastern end of the Bay of Quinte. Greater Napanee municipality was created by a ...

* 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 * Ganatsekwyagon - at the mouth of the Rouge River * 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 Hamilto ...

References

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Notes