Peter Jones (January 1, 1802 – June 29, 1856) was an Ojibwe author, Methodist minister, translator, and chief from Burlington Heights, Upper Canada. His Ojibwa name was Kahkewāquonāby (Gakiiwegwanebi in the Fiero spelling), which means "[Sacred] Waving Feathers". In Mohawk, he was called Desagondensta, meaning "he stands people on their feet". In his youth his band of Mississaugas had been on the verge of destruction. As a preacher and a chieftain, as a role model and as a liaison to governments, his leadership helped his people survive contact with Europeans.

Jones was raised by his mother Tuhbenahneequay in the traditional culture and religion of the Mississauga Ojibwas until the age of 14. After that, he went to live with his father Augustus Jones, a Welsh-born United Empire Loyalist. There he learnt the customs and language of the white Christian settlers of Upper Canada and was taught how to farm. Jones converted to Methodism at age 21 after attending a camp-meeting with his half sister. Methodist leaders in Upper Canada recognised his potential as a bridge between the white and Indian communities and recruited him as a preacher. As a bilingual and bicultural preacher, he enabled the Methodists to make significant inroads with the Mississaugas and Haudenosaunee of Upper Canada, both by translating hymns and biblical texts in Ojibwe and Mohawk and by preaching to Indians who did not understand English. Beyond his preaching to the Indians of Upper Canada, he was an excellent fundraiser for the Canadian Methodists, and toured the United States and Great Britain giving sermons and speeches. Jones drew audiences of thousands, filling many of the buildings he spoke in, but came to resent the role, believing the audiences came to see Kahkewāquonāby, the exotic Indian, not Peter Jones, the good Christian he had worked so hard to become.

Jones was also a political leader. In 1825, he wrote to the Indian Department; his letter was the first the department had ever received from an Indian. This brought him into contact with Superintendent of the Indian Department James Givins and influential Bishop John Strachan, with whom he arranged the funding and support of the Credit Mission. There he lived and worked as a preacher and community leader, leading the conversion of Mississaugas to a European lifestyle of agriculture and Christianity, which enabled them to compete with the white settlers of Upper Canada. He was elected a chief of the Mississaugas of the Credit Mission in 1829 and acted as a spokesman for the band when petitioning the colonial government and its departments. During his British tours, he had audiences with King William IV and Queen Victoria, directly petitioning the latter on the issue of title deeds for the Mississaugas of Upper Canada. During his life, Jones did manage to obtain some concessions from various provincial governments, such as having control over the trust funds for the Mississaugas of Credit turned over to their chiefs, but he was never able to secure title deeds for the Credit settlement. In 1847, Jones led the band to relocate to New Credit on land donated by the Six Nations, who were able to furnish the Mississaugas with title deeds. The Mississaugas of New Credit have since been able to retain title to the land, where they remain. Jones's health had been declining for several years before the move to New Credit, and he was unable to accompany them to an unconstructed settlement, retiring to a nearby estate outside of Brantford, Canada West, where he died in the summer of 1856.

Early life

Raised by his mother Jones was born on January 1, 1802, in Burlington Heights, Upper Canada. His father was Augustus Jones, an American-born surveyor of Welsh descent. His mother was Tuhbenahneequay, a Mississauga woman whose band inhabited the area. His father worked as a surveyor in the land the British planned to settle on; as was common among the European men who worked far from European settlements, he adopted the Indian custom of polygamy. While at his Stoney Creek farm he lived with his legal wife, a Mohawk woman named Sarah Tekarihogan, and while away surveying he lived with Tuhbenahneequay. While both the Mississaugas and Mohawks approved of polygamy, the white Christian settlers did not, and Augustus Jones ended his relationship with Tuhbenahneequay in 1802. Peter and his elder brother John were raised by Tuhbenahneequay in the Midewiwin religion, customs and lifestyle of their Mississauga ancestors, and learned to hunt and fish to support themselves.

He was named Kahkewāquonāby by his maternal grandfather, Chief Wahbanosay, during a dedicated feast. A son of Wahbanosay's who had died at age seven had been given the same name. The name translates into English as "[sacred] waving feathers" and denotes feathers plucked from the eagle, which was sacred to the Mississaugas. This put him under the guardianship of the Mississauga's animikii (thunderbird) manidoo, as the eagle represented this manidoo. His mother was of the Eagle totem and the name belonged to that totem. At the feast Kahkewāquonāby was given a club to denote the power of the thunder spirit, and a bunch of eagle feathers to denote its flight.

Around 1811, Jones was adopted by Captain Jim, a Mississauga chief. Captain Jim's own son, also named Kahkewāquonāby, had died, and he petitioned Tuhbenahneequay to adopt Jones. Tuhbenahneequay approved the adoption, and Jones was sent to the Credit River to live with Captain Jim as one of his own children. During a long episode of drunken frolicking by all the adult Indians in Captain Jim's band, hunger and exposure to the cold crippled Jones, making him unable to stand. After two or three months of this, his mother received news of Jones's condition, and travelled to the Credit River with her relative Shegwahmaig (Zhigwameg, "Marshfish"). The two women carried Jones back to Stoney Creek, where he resumed living with his mother. His lameness subsided with time.

During the War of 1812, Jones's band of Mississaugas experienced a share of the War's hardship. Jones's grandmother Puhgashkish, old and crippled, had been left behind by the band when it was forced to flee the soldiers advancing on York. She was never seen again. The band lost the warrior White John to the fighting, and several more were injured. Although Jones was too young to act as a warrior, he and his brother John visited the site of the Battle of Stoney Creek the day after the fighting, viewing the effects of battle firsthand. The land the band hunted and fished upon was beset with an influx of Indian refugees exceeding in number the population of the band. Jones went on his first vision quest about this time; his lack of visions caused him to question his faith in the Mississauga's religion. His faith was also troubled by the death of chief Kineubenae (Giniw-bine, "Golden Eagle[-like Partridge]"). Golden Eagle was a respected elder of the band, who experienced a vision promising spirits would make him invincible to arrows and bullet. To renew the declining faith of his people, some of whom had begun to adopt the lifestyle of the white settlers, Golden Eagle arranged a demonstration of his spirit-granted invulnerability. He was killed attempting to catch a bullet with a tin pot. Jones witnessed the event.

Raised by his father

In 1816, known as the Year Without a Summer, severe climate abnormalities caused an abysmal harvest, and the Mississauga band at the head of Lake Ontario was disintegrating. In the preceding twenty years community leaders Head Chief Wabakinine, band spokesman Golden Eagle and Jones's grandfather Wahbanosay had died, and no new leaders had effectively assumed their roles. Alcoholism among the band members was rising. Many members had abandoned the band, travelling west to the Thames River valley or Grand River valley which were more isolated from white settlers.

Augustus Jones had learned of the band's troubles and ventured into the interior to bring Peter and John to live with him at his farm in Saltfleet Township, with their stepmother and halfsiblings. As he knew only a few words of English, Peter was enrolled in a one-room school in Stoney Creek. With the help of the local teacher, George Hughes, Peter learned English. The next year, the family moved to Brantford, where Augustus took Peter out of school and began to instruct him in farming. Sarah Tekarihogan's Iroquois tribe had settled in the Grand River valley in and around Brantford. Here Jones was inducted into the Iroquois tribe and given the Mohawk name "Desagondensta", meaning "he stands people on their feet". Jones was baptised Anglican by Reverend Ralph Leeming at the request of his father in 1820, but internally he did not accept Christianity. Jones would later say that although the instruction he received in Christianity from his father, his stepmother and his old schoolteacher George Hughes had attracted him to the religion, the conduct of the white Christian settlers "drunk, quarreling, fighting and cheating the poor Indians, and acting as if there was no God" convinced him there could be no truth in their religion. He allowed himself to be baptised primarily to become a full member of the white society of Upper Canada, with all the privileges it entailed. Given the behaviour of others who had been baptised, Jones expected it to have no effect upon him. (subscription required) Jones worked with his father farming until the summer of 1822, when he found employment as a brickmaker working for his brother-in-law Archibald Russell to raise money so he might resume his schooling. He attended school in Fairchild's Creek during the winter of 1822–23 studying arithmetic and writing, hoping to obtain work as a clerk in the fur trade. In spring 1823, Jones left the school, returning to his father's farm that May.

Ministry

Conversion