294 THE INDIAN OCCUPANCY 



They knew nothing of agriculture. They were arrogant, and 

 of the various tribes with whom the missionaries had to do, they 

 were the "proudest in the neighborhood". Polygamy was com- 

 mon amongst them, the number of wives a man might have de- 

 pending only upon his ability to provide for them. Like all 

 their neighbors, they were licentious; but unlike them they 

 were amenable to religious teaching, and many were converted 

 and baptized. 



The exact, or even the approximate date of their first 

 appearance in the Niagara Peninsula is not known. It was 

 probably later than 1670, for in that year they had not removed 

 from their hunting grounds along the North Channel of Lake 

 Huron. They were not mentioned by La Salle or Joliet, or by 

 Fathers Dollier or Casson who passed across the peninsula in 

 1669. At that time, on the contrary, these visitors found at the 

 head of Lake Ontario, not Missisaugas, but a small Seneca vil- 

 lage called Otinawatawa, evidently a base for hunting parties of 

 Iroquois. These had but recently dispossessed the Neutral 

 Nation, the previous occupants of that region, and were busily 

 hunting beaver and other fur-bearing animals then numerous in 

 the depopulated country. Nine years later, however, in 1678, 

 La Salle met a party of their hunters on the lower Niagara and 

 was ferried across by them. In 172 1 they certainly occupied the 

 Niagara Peninsula in considerable numbers, for Durrant, (1) 

 writing in regard to the French post at Niagara, speaks of a 

 magazine west of Niagara for the trade with the "Mississague 

 called Roundheads". 



Their reasons for leaving Lake Huron are unknown. Prob- 

 ably the mere fact that the Peninsula offered a fine opportunity 

 for hunting and fishing was the primary reason. Possibly they 

 wished to be in close touch with the French traders. They must, 

 of course, have had some agreement with the Iroquois before 

 they occupied territory which was Iroquois by right of conquest. 

 In 1700, at a council of Iroquois and English, Sadeganaktie, an 

 Iroquois sachem recommended that several western tribes, 

 amongst them the Missisaugas, be invited to come and live 

 among the Iroquois, and it is quite possible that business con- 

 cerning their removal brought the Missisaugas to a council with 



1. Doc. Rel. to the Col. Hist, of N. Y., Vol. V, P. 



