The job description for a Northern Ontario leader might run like this: “The successful candidate will have a solid understanding of economics and politics and a commitment to working with private sector firms to advance the interests of the people of Northern Ontario. He or she will have a demonstrated ability to unite people of Aboriginal, French, and English origins. The candidate must be able to inspire loyalty and be a genuine peacemaker. The ideal candidate will also be a war hero with a demonstrated loyalty to the Crown and will have a strong spiritual streak”
So far I have only found one person who fits the bill. It is a man who fought for years to get a fair share of the profits from forestry and mining for Northern Ontario.
From the point of the provincial government my candidate was a wild-eyed radical. Only a radical would demand two percent of mining revenues for local communities. Mind you, by this standard, mining giant Phelps Dodge is run by flaming radicals. When the company was making its play for INCO and Falconbridge its CEO told reporters the company voluntarily contributes one percent of its revenues to the host community. That makes one percent the smallest reasonable demand. Unfortunately my candidate died in 1854, on his way to Toronto to protest the government’s broken promises. His name was Shingwaukonse, and he was one of the most important people in the history of 19th century politics in the Great Lakes. For some strange reason Shingwaukonse does not have an entry in the 14 volumes of The Dictionary of Canadian Biography, although he is discussed in the biography of one of his sons. Anthropologist Janet E. Chute has filled the gap in a wonderful study of Shingwaukonse’s life and work. Her book should be required reading for northern leaders.
Like so many northerners, Shingwaukonse was a mongrel. His father was white, but his mother raised him as an Ojibwa. He became a medicine man and a Christian. As a young man he fought in the War of 1812 and received a medal for his loyalty to Queen and Crown. As Chief of the Garden River band, he opened the community to the local Metis, and promoted new industries. There is no doubt Shingwaukonse was the legitimate representative of much of Northern Ontario at the time. Although he was a leader of a predominantly native community, it was already the kind of ethnic, racial, and multi-cultural mix that Canada has come to boast about. It was the same basic mix of French, English and Aboriginal strains that characterizes Northern Ontario today. The government in the south was certainly racist, but the Garden River community, like others in the North, was inclusive and progressive.
Shingwaukonse worked to keep control of the resources of Northern Ontario for the people of the region. He lost that battle because the legislature of Upper Canada was determined to take the land, the timber and the minerals. In 1846, four years before the infamous Robinson Treaties, the Executive Council of Upper Canada sold 30 large mining properties along the North Shore of Superior and Huron. Looking back, it seems the government in Toronto had sold off properties it didn’t own. The treaties ratified in 1850 acknowledged the Aboriginal claims to “the Eastern and Northern Shores of Lake Huron, from Penetanguishine to Sault Ste. Marie, and thence to Batchewanaung Bay, on the Northern Shore of Lake Superior; together with the Islands in the said Lakes, opposite to the Shores thereof, and inland to the Height of land”. Shingwaukonse enlisted the support of an idealistic non-native lawyer and entrepreneur, Allan Macdonell from Toronto. Macdonell was apparently too effective, because the Legislative Assembly introduced a bill that made “inciting Indians or half-breeds” punishable by up to five years in prison.
Macdonell’s supporters called it “an act to procure the conviction of Allan Macdonell.” Northern leaders beware: if you promote the political lower for Northern Ontario you could go to jail. The problems that Shingwaukonse faced are the same problems Northern Ontario faces today. The goals he set are still the goals of many in the North. His strategy of building solidarity among the people in Northern Ontario is the same strategy the Mayors of Manitouwadge, Chapleau, White River, Hornpayne, Dubreuilville, and Michipicotin are promoting today. It is time we give Shingwaukonse his due as the first great leader of Northern Ontario.
Dave Robinson is a professor of economics at Laurentian University. He can be reached atdrobinson@laurentian.ca
