The Ojibwa of southern Ontario

Schmalz, Peter S.

Book

The Ojibwa of southern Ontario

University of Toronto Press • Toronto • Published In 1991 • Pages:

By: Schmalz, Peter S..

Abstract
This work is an historical account of the Ojibwa from the seventeenth century to the 1990s. Based on oral traditions, supplemented by the usual documentary sources, Schmalz corrects many long standing historical errors and fills in numerous gaps in Ojibwa history. The document begins with a study of Ojibwa life before the arrival of Europeans in North America, with a particular focus on the peaceful trade relations and later warfare which developed between the Ojibwa and Iroquois. The golden age of the Ojibwa came in the eighteenth century with their close alliance with both the French and English, and their increasing dependence on guns, tools, and liquor at the expense of their traditional ways of life. The author describes the participation of the Ojibwa in the colonial wars in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the later establishment of the reserve system under British and later Canadian supervision which was intended to destroy the traditional Indian culture and assimilate them into mainstream society. 'The twentieth century has been something of an Ojibwa renaissance. Schmalz shows how Ojibwa participation in two world wars led to a desire to change conditions at home. Today [the 1990s] the Ojibwa are gaining some control over their children's education, their reserve, and their culture' (p. i).

Acculturation and culture contact

HRAF PubDate

2000