Teiaiagon

Teiaiagon was a Seneca and Mohawk NationsFact|date=July 2008 village on the east bank of the Humber River in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

ite

The site is currently near the intersection of Jane Street and Annette Street or the community of Baby Point.

History

The establishment of the village has slipped away into time immemorial. Since Algonquians onlyFact|date=June 2008 left evidence of seasonal villages in the area, Teiaiagon, a non-seasonal village was identified as an Iroquoian village. According to Percy Robinson's, "Toronto Before the French Regime", it shows Teiaiagon as being a jointly occupied village of Seneca and Mohawk.Of the Iroquoian peoples, it was the Senecas that retained the history of the village.Fact|date=July 2008 Though the regional population movements were complex, a major shift in the village history as displayed in archaeological evidence appears to have been connected to the formation of a league among the five Iroquois nations south of Lake Ontario some time after 1450.Fact|date=July 2008 The "League Iroquois" invitedFact|date=June 2008 the Iroquoians on and about Teiaiagon to join them, and after the invitation was refused, engaged in escalating warfare against all of the Ontario Iroquoians, including the Wendats, who at that time were the dominant Nation of the area.

Beginning in the late 1400s, the Wendats started abandoning their villages and moving north towards Georgian Bay and Lake Simcoe. There they created their own confederacy of four, perhaps five, nations, threeFact|date=July 2008 of which had moved north from the Toronto and Belleville areas. Archaeologists believe that this population movement was complete about two decades before 1600, prior to contact being established with Europeans. The departure of the Wendats left the Toronto area without permanent majority population inhabitants,Fact|date=July 2008 leaving Teiaiagon vulnerable.

Etienne Brule passed through Teiaiagon in 1615.Fact|date=July 2008 Hennepin and others have recorded that the village was inhabited by as many as 5000 people and had 50 long houses. By 1687, the village was destroyed by DeNonville, the French and 200 native Christian converts. With the removal of the Iroquois out of southern Ontario by the Mississaugas, the Anishinaabe and French trade began to flourish in the region shortly after the Great Peace of Montreal of 1701. Associated with this trade, there was a very small French garrison located somewhere on the old site of Teiaiagon from 1720-1730. In 1730 the French garrison was located downriver off the site of Teiaiagon. No one ever lived on the site of the old village of TeiaiagonFact|date=July 2008 as there was a 10 acre burial ground located in the central part of the village. The area of the village-site was overtaken by the Mississauga Indians and later by the French (1750) with a fort called Baby Point. The Mississaugas also did not live at the site of the village of Teiaiagon,Fact|date=July 2008 but had a village located across the Humber River, on the west bank of the river, near Old Mill Road and Bloor Street from 1788-1805. James Bâby from Detroit in 1816 acquired the land now called "Baby Point" 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 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."

During the treaty-making period, the Mississaugas had the primary land claim of the region, but since other nations in the region were not consideredFact|date=July 2008 in these treaties, these other nations viewed the treaties between the British and the Mississaugas as being illegitimate and not legally binding. Of these other nations, the Six Nations Confederacy had never given up their sovereignty to the lands in Toronto,dubious as it is a part of the Beaver Hunting Grounds.Fact|date=June 2008

Alternate names included:
* Taiaiako'n
* Taiaiagon
* Teyeyagon
* Toioiugon

Other villages

The Haudenosaunee and the Algonquians also lived along Lake Ontario.

The village of Ganatsekwyagon was on the Rouge River in Scarborough. Alternate names included:
* Gandat Siagon
* Ganatsekwyagon
* Ganacheieskiagon
* Gandatsetiagon
* Gandatsekwyagon
* Ganatchekiagon
* Ganeftikiagon
* Gandatsiagon
* Ganetsekiagon
* Gandatsekiagon
* Gandatsdhagon
* Kanatiochtiage
* Ganastiquiagon
* Gandalskiagon
* Le Portage de Toronto
* Toronto Carrying Place
* Toronto Portagecol-end

Another village was Ganaraske, originally a Cayuga village that transitioned to a Mississauga village. It is now known as Port Hope, Ontario.

ee also

* Baby Point
* York, Upper Canada

External links

* [http://www.gcce-ici.com/Interesting/Aboriginal/ATorontosTale.htm Teiaiagon: A Toronto Tale]
* [http://www.blackhole.on.ca/Historical_importance3.html The Seneca]
* [http://schools.tdsb.on.ca/jarvisci/toronto/teiaigon.htm Teiaiagon]
* [http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Teiaiagon Encyclopedia: Teiaiagon]
* [http://www.historyoftoronto.ca/history/overview.html History of Toronto]
* [http://www.sceneandheard.ca/article.php?id=253 SceneandHeard]
* [http://www.trca.on.ca/water_protection/strategies/humber/pdf/Legacy-C2b.pdf Coming of the French]
* [http://www.town.porthope.on.ca/departments/historical/history/history.htm Port Hope-Ganaraske]

Iroquois Confederacy