Bridging Two Peoples: Chief Peter E. Jones, 1843–1909

1. Peter Edmund Jones’s Origins

1 Q One Peter Edmund Jones’s Origins Q Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald rose from his seat in Canada’s Parliament to read a letter from an Ojibwe chief who was also a practising physician. The letter was dated 30 May 1885.1 My Dear Sir John, I should have written to you some time ago to thank you for making the Indian a person in the Franchise Bill. Other affairs, however, have prevented me from performing my duty. I now thank you on the part of the memory of my father and on the part of myself, as for many years we advocated and urged this step as the one most likely to elevate the aborigines to the position more approaching the whites. Kahkewaquonaby, M.D., Chief.2 So who was this chief who, despite nineteenth-century colonial intolerance , managed to become a physician, publisher, and political activist? Dr. Peter Edmund Jones was the first known Status Indian to obtain an M.D. degree from a Canadian medical school. He graduated from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, in 1866 and received his licence to practise in November of that year.3 Along with his general practice in Hagersville, a small town near Hamilton in southern Ontario, Jones was physician to his band, the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation. During his tenure as head chief, the Mississaugas became one of the first bands to have an elected Council.4 A competent writer, Jones edited and published The Indian, the first Canadian Aboriginal newspaper, in order to educate his people. Male Status Indians with minimal personal property had been granted the right to vote in federal elections in 1885, and Jones wished to encourage them to register for the forthcoming election . By means of his own newspaper and letters to The Toronto Daily 2 Chapter One Mail, Dr. Jones informed the general public that contrary to their government ’s policies, the Aboriginals were intent on maintaining their culture . In 1887, Dr. Jones even became an Indian agent, a federal civil service appointment that had hitherto almost always been restricted to non-Aboriginals.5 Dr. Jones was proud of his Mississauga heritage and worked tirelessly for his people’s welfare. Though he lived in the adjacent community of Hagersville, Jones farmed on the New Credit reserve and tried to bridge the gap between the two cultures. He married an English-Canadian widow with three sons whom he educated in private schools as if they were his own children. Like many educated Aboriginal Protestants, Jones was a Mason, served as secretary-treasurer of the local Orange Association, and had friends and patients in the Euro-Canadian community . Because of his privileged upbringing and schooling, however, he was never fully accepted by his fellow Mississaugas, especially the more traditional members of the band.6 Jones served as the Mississaugas of the New Credit band’s agent until 1896, the year the Conservative government lost power. He was saddened when a newly elected Liberal government repealed his cherished Indian Franchise Act, which had temporarily granted some of his people voting rights.7 Jones continued to take an active interest in the affairs of his people until his death from cancer in 1909.8 Today, he remains virtually unrecognized, despite his many accomplishments, foremost of which are his contributions to Aboriginal public health, journalism, and First Nations’ self-governance. Peter Edmund had opportunities not open to other Aboriginals because he came from an accomplished and well-connected family. His grandfather, Augustus Jones, was a Welsh-American surveyor who had migrated to Upper Canada after the American Revolution. Augustus was appointed deputy Crown surveyor and was the first to map Yonge Street, which followed a trade route used by the Mississaugas for thousands of years. He lived with the Mississauga chief Wahbanosay, a signatory of the 1805 Toronto Purchase, who guided him through the wilderness between 1790 and 1802 and married Wahbanosay’s daughter, Tuhbenahneequay .9 The marriage was solemnized by tribal custom and they had two sons: John, born in 1798, and Peter, born four years later. Tuhbenahneequay wished to continue living with the Mississauga band so the boys lived with their grandparents, spoke Ojibwe, and learned woodland lore.10 After the War of 1812, a new wave of settlers occupied traditional Mississaugas’ lands, and their society rapidly disintegrated in the face Peter Edmund Jones’s Origins 3 of...