| Aboriginal Ontario: Historical Perspectives on the First Nations is a collection of 17 archaeological and historical essays about the history of First Nations in Ontario from precontact to the 1980s. The 14 authors offer accounts about the Algonquian and Iroquoian First Nations whose traditional territories covered the whole of the province. The first part of the book looks at the climate and landforms of the region as well as the material culture of the First Nations from the perspective of the archaeologist. The remaining sections offer chronological historical accounts of the peoples living in southern and northern Ontario from 1550 to 1945. The final section includes essays about the more recent histories of First Nations from the time of the Second World War to the 1980s. Articles discuss the Huron (Wendat), Petun and Neutral Iroquoians as well as the Algonquin, Nipissing, and Ottawa (Odawa) Algonquian-speaking peoples. Elizabeth Tooker provides an anthropological perspective of the Five Nations Iroquois Confederacy from 1550-1784. Historian Robert Surtees describes land rights and land sales from 1763-1830. Edward Rogers provides two essays about the Ojibwe of southern Ontario from 1830 to 1945, and the Ojibwe, Cree, and Oji-Cree of northern Ontario during the fur trade period. Ethnohistorian Sally M. Weaver describes the complex history and social change for the Six Nations of the Grand River in three important essays that cover the years from 1847 to 1945. Charles Torok writes about the Iroquois of Akwesasne, Tyendinaga, Wahta, and the Oneida of the Thames during the same time period. Essays by Donald B. Smith and Harvey McCue provide two closing views of First Nations in Ontario during the last 10 000 years. |
