Indigenous History

11,000 year ago the First Peoples

The richness of York Region's natural environment has attracted human habitation for approximately 11,000 years.  For more than 10,000 years, prior to the arrival of Europeans, temporary encampments and semi-permanent villages of various sizes were situated along the river valleys and lake shores of south-central Ontario.  

9,000-7,000 BC

Palaeo-Indian bands began moving into Southern Ontario as they followed migrating caribou on which they depended for their survival.  

1400-1500

Iroquoians inhabited the area with lifestyles increasingly sedentary and domestic. The extended family, living together in a single longhouse, constituted the basic unit of every aspect of Iroquoian life. Iroquoian society was matrilineal, in which descent was traced through the female line rather than the male line. Iroquoians were also matrilocal, with the extended family usually consisting of a woman and her daughters, or a group of sisters, living together with their husbands and children. 

The Iroquoian occupation ended in approximately 1550 A.D. It seems that immediately before the arrival of Europeans, the Iroquoians living in south-central Ontario felt threatened by the increasing aggressiveness of the Five Nations Iroquois living in today's New York State. A century after the withdrawal of the Iraquoians the land north of Lake Ontario was home to the Mississaugas also known as the Chippewas and members of larger Ojibway or Algonkian groups. 

Source: https://edrh.rhpl.richmondhill.on.ca/default.asp?ID=s2.2

1600

European trappers, traders and missionaries began to visit the area and interact with First Nations people.  Over the next century, various alliances, conflicts and other associations took place among First Nations, French and English representatives.

Source: York Region, https://ww4.yorkmaps.ca/canada150/

1700 -1800

In the late 1700s, British citizens and American refugees from the American Revolutionary War, as well as more European settlers began to arrive in increasing numbers.  

The “Toronto Purchase” in 1788 from three Mississauga chiefs a track of land 23 kilometers wide and forty five kilometers deep, extinguished all native claims to the lands.   British settlement began in south-central Ontario shortly thereafter.  In 1780 the Mississaugas numbered approximately 200 warriors with a total population of 1,000.

Settlement began when Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe advertised lots on Yonge Street around 1790, as it stretched northward from Lake Ontario.  This free land was offered to United Empire Loyalists whose American properties had been confiscated and to German settlers not permitted to own land in the United States.  Native protests over land alienation and mistreatment went unanswered and the Mississaugas grew more resentful.  Colonial officials at York and Niagara began to feel the possibility of an Indian uprising.  

Following the 1787 Toronto Land Purchase, British settlement began in south-central Ontario shortly thereafter. Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe used the Toronto Carrying Place (a First Nations route to Holland Marsh from Toronto which ran northward along the eastern bank of the Humber River) when travelling to Holland Landing in 1793 to survey Upper Canada. It was Simcoe's frustration and confusion with the trail that prompted the construction of a straight British military road in 1794 that became Yonge Street, named after British Minister of War Sir George Yonge. Simcoe's new route would not follow the natural contours of the land. As a "Military Street," it would run straight as an old Roman road, from York to Holland Landing. Simcoe had to withdraw the regiment from the project and order them to the Niagara frontier as war with the United States threatened

Settlement of Thornhill began when John Graves Simcoe, Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, offered free land to United Empire Loyalists whose American properties had been confiscated.  Simcoe offered Crown Grants of 20 chains wide by 100 chains deep along Yonge street or approx. 200 acres.