NATURAL HISTOKY, TORONTO REGION 



reported as having villages or settlements at Missis- 

 auga River, Manitoulin Island, Kente, Toronto 

 River, Matcitaen, and the west end of Lake Ontario, 

 besides at Lake St. Clair (and Detroit). In 1746 

 the Mississagas were admitted as the " seventh tribe " 

 into the Iroquois League, having sided with the latter 

 people against the French the MS. in the Toronto 

 Public Library (date c. 1801) still classes the " Mis- 

 sissagui," or " tribu de 1'aigle," as an Iroquois tribe 

 (i.e., "tribu des sauvages hurons"). For a time, 

 some of the Mississagas even lived within the bor- 

 ders of what is now the State of New York. Their 

 eastward progress in Ontario was barred by the 

 Ottawas and the French, they had a conflict with 

 the latter near Cataraqui in 1705 ; and Charlevoix 

 (1720) describes a "fire-dance" executed by the 

 Mississagas of that region some years later. They 

 figure prominently in the New York Colonial Docu- 

 ments of the eighteenth century. The descendants 

 of these Mississagas, who migrated from the region 

 north of Lake Huron, are to be found in the Missis- 

 saga Indians, numbering between eight hundred and 

 nine hundred, who live to-day at Rice Lake and Aln- 

 wick, Mud (Chemung) Lake, Scugog Island (Lake 

 Scugog), and in the settlement of the New Credit 

 (Brantford). Some dwelt formerly on Grape Island, 

 tc., in the Bay of Quinte. 



The Indians at the New Credit are the most 

 progressive of all the Mississagas, and they are the 

 ones who formerly lived on the River Credit (given 

 46 



