About four hundred years ago about 60,000 people lived in today’s Ontario. They belonged to the Indian nation and spoke one of two languages -- Algonquian (the Ojibways, the Algonquins, and the Creek) in the north and Iroquoian (the Huron’s, Tobaccos and Neutrals and the five Iroquois nations) in the central and southern areas.
The Algonquian-speaking people farmed, where soils permitted, but they primarily hunted and fished, the Iroquoian-speaking tribes lived most of the year in villages where farming was more possible. The native people welcomed the European explorers. Samuel de Champlain, "the father of New France, visited the Huron’s in 1615. By the time he left, Champlain and the Huron’s had become allies and trading partners. |
