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2. First Nations - East
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Algonkian People of Eastern North America
Algonquian speakers ranged from Hudson Bay, along the Atlantic coast to North Carolina, and west to the Mississippi River. They include the Micmac, Montagnais, Algonkin, Cree, Ojibway, Ottawa, Potawatomi and Mississauga. They also spread west onto the Great Plains, and the Cree, Ojibway, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Gros Ventres also speak variations of the mother tongue.
NOTE: The Algonkian language group name is not to be confused with the Algonquin or Algonkin tribe of the Ottawa Valley [see below].
Newfoundland's Beothuk
Algonkian hunters also followed the retreating glaciers north to Newfoundland and Labrador in about 7,000 BCE. These people - called the Maritime Archaic Culture - were replaced by Groswater Inuit and then later the Dorset people, about 3,200 years ago. A new group of people called the Beothuk first occupied the coastal areas of Newfoundland sometime around 200 CE. They shared the area with the Dorset Inuit during the next 400 years before becoming the only occupants of Newfoundland.
We know little about the origin or culture of the Beothuk. Their language may have been a mix of Dorset Eskimo and the Algonkian dialect spoken by the Naskapi and Montagnais of Labrador and Quebec, since they intermarried with these people.
The Mi'kmaq (Micmac) & Maliseet
The name "Mi'kmaq comes from a word in their own language meaning "allies."
The Micmac and Maliseet of Atlantic Canada, like the Abenaki of northern New England, are also descended from the Maritime Archaic Culture, who moved north as far as Labrador around 7,000 BCE. Their Algonkian language closely resembles Cree and Montagnais, and many believe they moved into the Canadian Maritimes from the north far before 1500 CE.
Starting in about 1630 a Micmac band also occupied Newfoundland, at Conne River in the Bay d'Espoir on the South Coast. Anthropologist Ingeborg Marshall also suggests they may have settled in Newfoundland even earlier, and warred with the Beothuk, contributing to their decline and extinction.
Before contact, the Micmac were organized according to hunting districts, each with its own chief: Esgigeoag (Esgenoopetitjg), Gespegeoag, Gespogoitnag, Onamag, Pigtogeoag, Segepehegatig, Sigehigteoag. According to another source, the districts were called: Eskegawage, Kespoogwit, Memramcook, Pictou (Pectougawak), Restigouche, Richibucto, Shubenacadie, and Sigunikt.
The Abenaki, Maliseet & Passamaquoddy
The Abenaki homeland was called Ndakinna meaning "our land." It stretched across most of northern New England into the southern part of the Maritimes. As many as 40,000 Abenaki were concentrated in Maine east of New Hampshire's White Mountains, across Vermont and New Hampshire to the eastern shores of Lake Champlain, and along the St. Croix and the St. John's River Valleys into New Brunswick.
The Abenaki called themselves Alnanbal, meaning "men. The word originated from a Algonkian word meaning "people of the dawn" or "easterners.
The Abenaki Confederation tribes were the Amaseconti, Androscoggin, Kennebec, Maliseet, Ouarastegouiak, Passamaquoddy, Patsuiket, Penobscot, Pigwacket, Rocameca, Sokoni, and Wewenoc. The Micmac and Pennacook were also members of the confederation.
Because the Maliseet and Passamaquoddy were closer in language and culture to the Micmac, they have been called as Abenaki for historical reasons. The French referred to both tribes as the Etchemin.
Maliseet territory was located along the St. John River in northeastern Maine and western New Brunswick. Their name comes from the Micmac word "malisit meaning "broken talker". They are also called Aroostook, Malecite, Malicite, St. John's Indians. Their own name, "Wulastegniak means "good river people. .
The Passamaquoddy tribe of Abenakis, also called the St. Croix Indians, had villages on Passamaquoddy Bay, the St. Croix River, and Schoodic Lake. The name means "pollock spearing place".
Other Abenaki tribes were the Missisquoi (meaning "place of flint"), who lived on the eastern shore of Lake Champlain.
Northeastern Woodlands People - The Cree & Ojibwa
The Northeastern Woodlands people trace their beginnings back to about 5,000 BCE, when their hunting, fishing and gathering lifestyle emerged in the woodland area of Manitoba, northern Ontario, and Quebec.
Today, this Algonkian language group can be grouped into the Ojibwa (Anishinabe) and Cree dialects. Ojibwa speakers include the Saulteaux, Ottawa (Odawa), Nipissing, Mississauga, and Algonkin (Algonquin).
The Cree speaking Algonkians occupy the most-northerly areas of the eastern woodlands, from Labrador to the Prairies. Although they speak a single language throughout this large area, they use at least nine major dialects, including the Plains Cree in the West and the Montagnais, Naskapi and & Attikamek in the East (known collectively as the Innu, which means "person").
Montagnais, Naskapi & Attikamek Cree
Labrador and eastern Quebec was settled 8,000 years ago by the Maritime Archaic peoples who moved north, following the retreat of the glaciers. About 2,000 years ago, Cree-speaking Algonkian groups - the Montagnais people of today - moved into the area, called Nitassinan.
Nitassinan territory includes most of Quebec east of the St. Maurice River along the north shore of the St. Lawrence to Labrador, where the Naskapi live, and north of Montreal, where the Attikamek live, as far as the divide to the James Bay drainage system.
Montagnais, meaning "mountaineers," was the name given them by the French. They were also called the Kebik. This may be the source of the name "Quebec", but it more likely comes from an Iroquoian word meaning "where the river narrows.
The Montagnais were sometimes called the Porcupine Indians because they considered porcupine a delicacy. Montagnais and Naskapi Cree today refer to themselves as the Innu, or "people," not to be confused with the Inuit (Eskimo), their former enemies. Naskapi (Nascopi) comes from a Montagnais word meaning "rude or uncivilized", a joke at the expense of their poorer Labrador relatives.
The Algonkin or Algonquin & Nipissing
NOTE: The names Algonkin and Algonquin are both correct when referring to this tribe, and are not to be confused with the name of the Algonkian (Algonquian) language group.
The Algonkin did not have a overall name for themselves, and it was given to them by the French. It probably comes from the Maliseet word "a'llegonka meaning "dancers," or another Maliseet word meaning "allies."
Algonkin tribal tradition says that their ancestors migrated to the upper St. Lawrence Valley from the east in about 1400, a tradition they share with the Ojibway and Ottawa. The Algonkin bands had a combined population of about 6,000 before first contact with the French in 1603.
The Algonkin themselves distinguished between bands that stayed in the upper Ottawa Valley year-round (the "Nopiming daje Inini" or inlanders), and bands that moved down to the St. Lawrence River during the summer. The Kichesipirini or "people of the Great River," were the largest and most powerful group of Algonkin. Their chief village was on an island in the Kitchesippi (Ottawa) River.
The Algonkin say they lived in peace with the Laurentian Iroquois at Hochelaga before the first French (Jacques Cartier) contact, and intermarried or absorbed some of them. But Iroquois tradition says they were dominated by the Algonkin and forced to pay tribute to the tribe they called the Adirondack, a derogatory name meaning literally "they eat trees". When the Iroquois united under the Iroquois League, they entered into 50 years of warfare, and drove the Algonkin back from the Adirondack Mountains and upper Hudson Valley into the St. Lawrence and Ottawa valleys.
The Nipissing, a small Algonkian tribe allied with the Algonkin and Ojibway, lived around Lake Nipissing and alongside the important French River portage that linked the Ottawa River with Lake Huron. There were probably less than 1,000 Nipissing before French contact in about 1615.
Anishinabe Nation - Ojibway, Ottawa & Potawatomi
The Ojibway language is central Algonkian, almost identical to Ottawa, Potawatomi and Algonkin, and close to Cree, with a more distant relationship to the Illinois and Miami of the south.
Ojibway oral tradition says that their people once lived near an ocean. This was either the Atlantic near the Gulf of St. Lawrence, or Hudson Bay, where their Cree cousins now live. Around 1400, the world entered a mini-ice age and the climate became colder. The first bands of Ojibway travelled south to the east side of Lake Huron. By 1500, the Ottawa branch had settled at the mouth of the French River and on the Lake Huron islands, especially Manitoulin, which they consider their ancestral homeland. The Ottawa tribe grew to about 8,000 people before contact with the French.
The name Ottawa (Odawa or French Outaouais) comes from the Algonkian word "Adawe", meaning "to trade", and originates from the fact they used their birchbark canoes to travel great distances for trade. In their own language, the Ottawa and Ojibway refer to themselves as Anishinabe (Neshnabek) meaning "the people."
After 1500, the Ojibway and Potawatomi continued to move northwest along the Mackinac Strait and into Lake Michigan, Lake Superior and as far as Wisconsin's Apostle Islands, displacing several resident tribes, and bringing themselves into conflict with the Dakota Sioux and Assiniboine. Others - the Saulteux - moved onto the Manitoba Plains alongside their Cree cousins.
The Ojibway (known in the US as the Chippewa) were to become the most numerous Great Lakes tribe, and one of the most powerful in North America. The Mississauga branch were to drive the Iroquois out of Ontario, and the Bungee and Saulteaux branches forced the Sioux to leave Minnesota.
Iroquoian Speaking Peoples of the Eastern Woodlands
The speakers of Iroquoian languages possibly descended from bands of Hopi of Arizona, who moved north and east due to growing drought at about the same time as the first Algonkian arrived in the Great Lakes area. Their descendants, the Cherokee people, were the ancestors of the Canadian Iroquoians. These people likely separated and moved northeast about 4000 to 3500 years ago, appearing as an identifiable group, the Great Lakes Iroquoians, in about BCE.
These people brought their small-scale farming to southwestern Ontario in about the 7th century CE. They gradually spread eastward, and settled the territory called Iroquoia. Their livelihood relied on "The Three Sisters" - corn, beans and squash - as well as seasonal fishing and deer hunting. By the time of French contact, the total Iroquoian-speaking population was over 60 000, of whom half were Hurons.
The Six Nations of Iroquoia - Haudenonsaunee
The term Iroquois applies to one specific group of Iroquoian speakers, belonging to the League of the Five Nations. These people called themselves the Haudenonsaunee or "Rotinonshón:ni" - People of the Longhouse. The original homeland of the Haudenonsaunee was in upstate New York between the Adirondack Mountains along the Finger Lakes to Niagara Falls.
Archeological evidence indicates the Iroquois had lived in upstate New York for at least 500 years before the Europeans arrived. Longhouse construction dates to at least 1100 CE. Larger scale "three sisters" farming was started in the 14th century. This caused a population surge and tribal conflict. By 1350 villages had become larger and fortified due to increased warfare. There is also some evidence that ritual cannibalism appeared around 1400.
The Onondaga were the first of the Iroquois tribes that can be positively identified in New York, resulting from merger of two villages sometime between 1450 and 1475. The origin of the other four tribes is not as certain. According to Iroquois tradition, they were once a single tribe in the St. Lawrence Valley subject to Algonkian-speaking Adirondack who had taught them agriculture. To escape Algonkian domination, the Iroquois say they left the St. Lawrence and moved south to New York where they split into opposing tribes.
To stop tribal conflict and killing, the Haudenonsaunee formed The League of Peace and Power (Iroquois Confederacy). This politico-economic-cultural alliance, before contact with Europeans, healed the conflict that was tearing the people apart.
Members of the League include the
- Seneca ("the great hill people")
- Cayuga ("people at the mucky land")
- Onondaga ("the people of the hills", also called the "firekeepers" or the "wampum keepers")
- Oneida ( "the people of the standing stone")
- Mohawk ("the possessors of flint")
- Tuscarora ("hemp gatherers" or "shirt wearing people"), who moved from North Carolina in 1713; and in 1722, making it the Six Nations.
The Laurentian Iroquois
Another group of Iroquoians, the St. Lawrence Iroquois, were divided into the Stadaconans (Quebec), Hochelagans (Montreal), and the people living in almost 20 villages in the St. Lawrence Valley. The Hochelagan people adopted farming a short time after 1000 AD, and the Stadaconans later - the archaeological evidence of corn suggests the 13th century. The Stadaconans had also adapted to a marine hunting culture. When Jacques Cartier first encountered Chief Donnaconna's group in Gaspé in July 1534, he found a family seal hunting party of 200 people in about 40 canoes.
We still don't know what happened to these St. Lawrence Iroquoians. When Cartier made his visits in 1534, 1535, and, he passed 7 smaller villages along the St. Lawrence between Hochelaga and Stadacona. But when Champlain arrived at Quebec half a century later in 1608, the Iroquois were gone, replaced by Algonkian speakers.
Were they victims of epidemics or poor harvests? Were they chased upstream by gulf Micmac with French weapons? Pottery evidence from Huron sites suggests that the Iroquois of the Upper St. Lawrence were attacked by Huron war parties, and their women and children taken as slaves.
The Huron, Neutral and Tobacco Nations
The third major group of Iroquoians were the Huron Confederacy, numbering about 30,000 people at the height of their power. These tribes were dispersed by warfare and disease in the mid 17th century. The French called them Huron, because the way their warriors shaved their heads make them look like boars. The Confederacy consisted of
- the Attignawantan (Bear nation), the largest nation
- the Ataronchronon, the eastern division of the Bear Nation
- Attigneenongnahac (Cord nation)
- Tahontaenrat (Deer people)
- Arendaronon (Rock nation)
The main Huron villages, each surrounded by hectares of corn fields, were clustered around the southern end of Georgian Bay, in an area of about 2300 km2. The French called the area Huronia. [map]
Related to the Hurons were the Atiwandaronks, or Neutral (so-called by the French because they stayed neutral in warfare) and the Erie bands. The Neutral and Erie people lived between the Grand and Niagara rivers, in southwestern Ontario and along Lake Erie. Before the arrival of the French the Petun had warred with the Huron, but had made peace.
Other allies were the Tionnontate or Petun (called Tobacco because of their major trade crop), who lived west of Nottawasaga Bay and along the east shore of Lake Huron. There were as many as 8,000 before contact in 1616, but only 3,000, in nine villages, survived by 1640.
During the dark days of, over 20,000 Huron died of smallpox or influenza. After the Iroquois attacks of the late 1640s, about 1,000 Huron and Tionnontate fled northwest and reached safety on Mackinac Island, Upper Michigan. This group became known afterwards as the Wendat (Wyandot) meaning the people who live on the peninsula (between the lakes). The rest of the Hurons were killed, or captured and adopted by the Iroquois or Neutrals. In 1650, a few thousand escaped to Quebec, where their descendants live at Ancienne Lorette, or Wendake.
| First Nations - East - Gallery | Stories & Texts | Web Links | Student Activities | Daily Life | Student Projects |
| A. Aboriginal Canada →→ 1. Turtle Island → 2. First Nations - East → 3. Daily Life - East → 4. First Nations - West → 5. Daily Life - West → 6. First Nations - North → 7. Daily Life - North →→ B. Early European Explorers |
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