Behind the Book with Donald B. Smith

Smith_MississaugaPortraitsDonald B. Smith is the author of Mississauga Portraits: Ojibwe Voices from Nineteenth-Century Canada. Donald B. Smith’s Mississauga Portraits recreates the lives of eight Ojibwe who lived during this period – all of whom are historically important and interesting figures, and seven of whom have never before received full biographical treatment. Each portrait is based on research drawn from an extensive collection of writings and recorded speeches by southern Ontario Ojibwe themselves, along with secondary sources.

How did you become interested in the subject?
While preparing my Ph.D. in Canadian History at the University of Toronto in the early 1970s I became interested in the history of Aboriginal Canada. The history of the Aboriginal peoples, particularly the Ojibwe, in southern Ontario became my passion. I wrote my Ph.D. thesis on the Mississauga, as the early British settlers called the Ojibwe on the north shore of Lake Ontario. The fact that the Mississauga communities 200 to 150 years ago joined the Methodist (now the United) Church, learned English, and recorded their own versions of events, made these individuals ideal for an in-depth study. In 1974, I moved west to teach Canadian history at the University of Calgary, where I completed two books on the Mississauga in the nineteenth century. The first, Sacred Feathers. The Reverend Peter Jones (Kahkewaquonaby) and the Mississauga Indians, appeared in 1987 (2nd ed. 2013). Mississauga Portraits. Ojibwe Voices from Nineteenth-Century Canada, the sequel, followed in June of last year.

How long did it take you to write your latest book?
In some ways the writing of my second book reaches back over four decades to the time when I first “discovered” the history of the Mississauga. Although I have worked on a number of other topics as well, including three biographies and a history of Calgary, the story of the Mississauga has been a major research interest for nearly half a century.

What do you find most interesting about your area of research?
In my school days in Oakville, Ontario, just thirty-five kilometres or so west of Toronto, the First Nations were truly invisible, to non-Aboriginal people. I learned little about them in school, or in the media. Non-Aboriginal Canada in the 1950s ignored its Indigenous history all 10,000 years and more of it. It was fascinating in my Ph.D. research to learn about the First Nations, not just where I had grown up, but across Canada.

The study of these eight individuals in Mississauga Portraits allows for a greater awareness of the First Nations in southern Ontario. The eight lives add a human face to this story. The Ojibwe had come from the Upper Great Lakes to the north shore of Lake Ontario in the early eighteenth century, into what had been the hunting territory of the Iroquois, since the dispersal of the Hurons, and the “Neutrals”, a little known group at the western end of Lake Ontario. The British made the early treaties in this area with these Ojibwe whom they called Mississauga. These eight intriguing characters link southern Ontario’s Aboriginal past to the settlement period, as they left behind writings in English.

Do you have to travel much concerning the research/writing of your book?
Well yes I made several trips over the years to Britain, went twice to France, several times to the Eastern United States, and made countless research trips to Ontario.

What was the hardest part of writing your book?
Probably the “hardest” writing for me concerned the chapter openings. I must have re-worked my first chapter of Mississauga Portraits nearly twenty times. The chapter begins in Toronto in May 1856 with the arrival of Peter Jones, or Kahkewaquonaby (“Sacred Feathers”), to the home of his very good friend, Egerton Ryerson. They had met as young men in their early twenties, when the young Mississauga Methodist worked beside the first Methodist missionary at the Credit Mission. Both Peter and Egerton sought to introduce the Mississauga to farming and all-year village life. I love this chapter as it deals with a major universal theme, the power of friendship. The Mississauga and the British Canadian met as young men, and remained lifelong friends. When Peter Jones was dying from a chronic illness Egerton Ryerson, invited him to Toronto to consult medical specialists. He and his wife Eliza remained for a month at the Ryerson home. Unfortunately, the doctors had no success in arresting his decline. Sadly Peter and his wife returned to their home in Brantford where the Mississauga died at the end of June. Great emotion is involved in this chapter, and emotion is a challenge even for creative writers themselves to convey.

Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it?
First and foremost I learned the need for knowledge of the Ojibwe language to understand the perceptions and experiences of these incredible nineteenth century First Nations people. I studied just enough of the language forty years ago in Toronto to know its complexity and richness. I now pass the torch to other historians and biographers, particularly to those with an Ojibwe language background. I encourage them to examine the lives of these individuals.

What are your current/future projects?
My current project is, “CANADA & THE “INDIANS”: Non-Aboriginal Canadians’ perspectives on the First Nations, 1867-2017.

This is a timely topic, of great importance to all Canadians. In what respect have non-Aboriginal Canadians’ attitudes and perceptions of the First Nations changed over the last century-and-a-half? What influence, for example, has enormous population growth, new educational levels, the secularization of Canadian society, its globalization, and developments in Canada’s economy and technology, had on the outlook of non-Aboriginal Canadians? The 150th anniversary of Canada provides an occasion to reflect.
“Canada and the ‘Indians'” will review non-Aboriginal Canadians’ perspectives of the First Nations, the North American Indians who inhabited what is present-day Canada for at least 10,000 years. Although attention will paid to the descendants of “Indians” who married Europeans and are known as Metis, the major emphasis will on those individuals regarded as “Indians”. Government legislation, historical writings, and media accounts, will receive particular attention. I will rely primarily on documents that can be studied, analyzed, and placed in a larger context.

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