This volume traces the history of the Indians in the Grand River Valley from the first written record in 1627 until the middle of the nineteenth century. Much of the book is devoted to the Six Nations Indians who, dispossessed of their homes in the Mohawk River Valley because of their allegiance to the British cause during the American War of Independence, were granted lands on the Grand River in Ontario after the war. From this grant arose many problems—the Indians' right to sell their land, the difficulties of such sales, their transition from a fur to an agricultural economy, the position of the Six Nations in the War of 1812 and the Rebellion of 1837, and the adjustment of the Indians to a European way of life, religion, and education. All of this is told in the words of the missionaries, travellers, army officers, government officials and settlers, as well as in the vigorous letters and speeches of the Indians themselves.

(Ontario Series of the Champlain Society, Volume 7)

Charles M. Johnston is professor emeritus of history at McMaster University and the author of McMaster University, Volume 2: The Early Years in Hamilton, 1930–1957.

Charles M. Johnston's profile page

'Professor Johnston has made an important contribution to the history of Indian affairs in North America and to the history of Ontario.'

Canadian Historical Review

'... Johnston has compiled a most interesting volume. ... This is a sound and interesting addition to the Ontario Series.'

Journal of American History

'The book is very carefully edited, is well illustrated, and is in every way a credit to the series to which it belongs.'

Historian

'Professor Johnston of McMaster University has performed a useful service for scholars by bringing together relevant documents from every likely, and in some cases obscure, depository in Canada, the United States, and Great Britain. His introduction leads well to the documents that follow. The editorial treatment is complete. The maps are adequate and the illustrations interesting. The index is good. Altogether it is difficult to see how the editor could have done more. This work, which should appeal to the intelligent general reader and scholar alike, compares favorably with the best of its six predecessors in the series.'

American Historical Review

'In an introduction that is at once comprehensive, learned, and sensitive, Mr Johnston describes the coming of the Six Nations Indians to the Grand River after the American Revolution and the granting to them by Sir Frederick Haldimand of a tract "six miles deep from each side of it beginning at Lake Erie, & extending in that Proportion to its Head." The rest of the story, extensively illustrated by documents, had to do with the "endless controversy" over this grant, its gradual diminution, and the life of the Indians down to the middle of the nineteenth century. This is local history of the best kind, told according to the strictest canons of scholarship and with a full awareness of the world beyond the Valley.'

University of Toronto Quarterly