The Treaty Period (1801-1847)

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Mississauga continued to frequent the mouths of Sixteen and Twelve Mile Creeks, as well as the nearby Credit River where they followed their traditional hunter-gatherer subsistence. Over the course of the next fifty years, their lives would take a dramatic and irreversible turn.

By 1800 the Mississauga were in a precarious position. They had fallen prey to European diseases and alcohol abuse. Moreover, as a result of the vanishing fur trade and the large number of gifts dispensed by the Indian Department, they became dependant on European tools and other goods. They also had an imperfect understanding of the concept of private land ownership that would result after territories were ceded to the Crown.

The so-called 'Mississauga Tract' stretched westward along the lakeshore from the Etobicoke River to Burlington Bay and covered a vast region from the lake into the interior. While Governor Simcoe understood that this region had significant stands of oak and pine which could be used a source of masts for the Royal Navy, he was initially content to leave the tract in the hands of the Mississauga. However, with the flood of United Empire Loyalists, both European and Indian, into Upper Canada, there arose a need to acquire more territory belonging to the Mississauga.

In 1805, the Mississauga agreed to surrender 85,000 acres from Etobicoke River to Burlington Bay and north from the lakeshore to the vicinity of modern Eglinton Avenue. The treaty stipulated certain conditions:

Reserving to ourselves and the Mississaugue Nation the sole right of the fisheries in the Twelve Mile Creek, the Sixteen Mile Creek, the Etobicoke River, together with the flats or low grounds on said creeks and river, which we have heretofore cultivated and where we have our camps. And also the sole right of the fishery in the River Credit with one mile on each side of said river.

The Mississauga also retained the vast inland portion of the 'Mississauga Tract' and relied on the Crown to protect their access to Burlington Beach. The Treaty was ratified in 1806 and each of the ten Chiefs received five shillings for signing their totems to the document. The Mississauga received a lump sum payment of European goods such as cloth, ammunition, blankets, knives, ribbons and ploughshares, valued at 1,000 pounds.

Samuel Wilmot surveyed the ceded territory and created three townships while laying out two concessions north of Dundas and four below. His map dated June 28, 1806 shows the location of the Indian corn fields on the western river flats, not far from the mouth of Sixteen Mile Creek. Both the Twelve and Sixteen Mile Creek reserves extended for half a mile on each side of said creeks, within the Third and Fourth Concessions below Dundas. The Credit River had by far the largest reserve which extended for one mile on either side of the river from its mouth to the Second Concession above Dundas.

By 1818, the policy of paying one time, lump-sum payments for land was changed to a system of paying perpetual annuities which, theoretically, were to be generated by the interest on money received from the settlers who subsequently bought the land. By 1818 the Crown expressed an interest in purchasing not only the reserves on the Sixteen Mile Creek and other creeks and rivers which had been excepted in the 1805-6 agreements, but also the remaining inland portion of the 'Mississauga Tract'. By this time, the bargaining power of the Mississauga had been further diminished as their numbers had thinned and they were no longer needed by the British as military allies. For an annuity of 522 pounds 10 shillings, they agreed to cede the inland portion of the 'Mississauga Tract' consisting of 648,000 acres. Although at that time they retained the Sixteen Mile Creek and other river reserves, these were subsequently surrendered in treaties dated 1820. After that time, the Mississauga retained only a 200 acre reserve on the east bank of the Credit River two miles from the lake.

At the time, government policy was based on the hope that all 'Indians' would cease their nomadic lifestyles and become farmers. This was echoed by Peter Jones (1802-1856) who was the son of Augustus Jones, a surveyor of Welsh descent, and a Mississauga mother named Tuhbenahneequay. His Mississauga name was Kahkewaquonaby, or Sacred Waving Feathers and he belonged to the Eagle Clan. As a young adult he converted to Methodism and became a missionary to his own people. He succeeded in converting most of the Mississauga and eventually became one of their chiefs. The Mississauga village on the Credit River became a model community and Jones became one of the most important and powerful aboriginal leaders of his time.

In 1827 the former reserve on Sixteen Mile Creek which had been accessible primarily by water, was purchased at auction by William Chisholm who then dredged and developed the harbour. The purchase money is reported to have been held in trust by the government to complete the Mississauga village on the Credit. In his book Sacred Feathers, historian Donald Smith records the astonishment felt by Peter Jones in 1940 when he travelled to Oakville after a long absence:

Only twenty years earlier a forest had stood here with Indian cornfields on the flats by the river mouth. Now the former Indian reserve had a harbor and shipyards and a population of 450. It had become an important shipping centre for white oak and for grain. Thanks to its prosperity the village in 1840 had regularly laid out streets and lots.

By this time, the Credit River Mississauga were divided about whether to remain at their village or seek a new home. After much debate, they accepted an offer from the Six Nations Iroquois to settle on 4,800 acres of land at the south end of the Six Nations Reserve in Tuscarora Township close to present day Hagersville. Here their descendants reside to this day and are known as the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation. The move to this new location in 1847 brought to a close the historic presence of the Mississauga on the Sixteen and Twelve Mile Creeks and Credit River.

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