155
FIG. 2 (above): Walpole Island Indian Reserve, Ontario. 1895.
Ink and watercolor on paper.
Stamped: “Department of Indian Affairs, Technical Branch, Ottawa Canada, 26th
Nov. 1895 S.B. “From U.S. Admiralty chart of Lake St. Clair 1874.”
Library and Archives Canada, MIKAN 3693169.
The unceded territory of the Walpole Island First Nation between the United
States and Canada is delineated by the pink line.
FIGS. 3a and b:
Spirit fi gure, manidookaanaak.
Anishinaabeg, Walpole Island First Nation, Ontario,
Canada. Believed to be c. 1660.
Wood, deer fur (?), snakeskin, mirrored glass, pigment. H: 36 cm.
Given by Chief Pitwegijig to the Rev. Andrew Jamieson, 1860.
Ex Mrs. Wilmont Cumberland, Gordon Wotherspoon.
Royal Ontario Museum, gift of the Wotherspoon family,
inv. 2016.61.1.
First Nation “reserve,” which actually is unceded
territory on the border of the Canadian province
of Ontario and the U.S. state of Michigan.
Its current population is largely derived from the
related Anishinaabeg Ojibway, Potawatomi, and
Ottawa cultural groups, living together under
the political and cultural compact known as the
Three Fires Confederacy (fi g. 6). Known by its
inhabitants as Bkejwanong (Where the Waters
Divide), its English-language name, Walpole, is
said to derive from “war pole,” a reference to
clan totems that were observed there by early
Euro-American explorers.
In the post-Revolutionary War period, Alexander
McKee, who was eventually to become
deputy superintendent and deputy inspector
general of Indian affairs in the Upper Canada region,
encouraged the Ottawa and Ojibway peoples
who had been allies of the British to permanently
settle on Walpole Island to form a buffer
state to ease the hostilities what were fl aring up
between the American and British possessions in
the area.3 The Ottawa ogimaa Bauzhi-geezhigwaeshikum4
relocated to Walpole Island with his
family in the 1820s and soon became recognized
as the regional leader. Around the same time, the
British authority began to exert pressure on the
Ottawa and Ojibway of the St. Clair region to
adopt Christianity and agriculture. An eloquent