By Zakkary Parisien, Summer Student, WCH Archives
The land that Women’s College Hospital (WCH) sits on may be part of the City of Toronto today but before its colonial roots, the land has been continuously inhabited for thousands of years.
Oral traditions of Indigenous peoples like the Mississaguas, Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Anishinaabe tell us that the land has always been a meeting place and seasonal hunting ground for many, providing a space for cultural interaction, the sharing of wisdoms, and the trade of goods. Dish With One Spoon wampum have been applied to this land; a legal agreement between Indigenous nations to share and take care of certain vital resource-rich lands. The area that WCH sits on has been home to seasonal hunting and fishing villages that were present archaeologically as early as 1000 BC and continued to be present until the enactment of Treaty 13. The Haudenosaunee, Mississaugas, and Wendat settled this land hundreds of years before the arrival of Columbus, using it for hunting, transport, and trade along the path called “The Carrying Place”, a portaging route connecting Lake Simcoe and Lake Ontario. It is said that many types of animals were the first to walk these paths towards the lakeshore, and many diverse people followed them, possibly inspiring that same aspect seen in the city today.
Nearby the WCH land, one of these villages could’ve been found. Inhabited by the Mississaugas, the site was located on land the Anishinaabe had referred to as Wonscotonach, or the “burning bright point”, near the modern-day Eaton Centre. This place was primarily a fishing village for the Mississaguas, used for seasonal hunting and trapping around the central Toronto area, as well as connecting the site to the trails heading north. It would have been an important place for and only abandoned with the congregation of the Mississaugas at the River Credit.
The arrival of Europeans and their goods changed the use of the land. Now, the area was a place for trade of European goods, with French traders creating fur-trading posts here for its proximity to The Carrying Place. The Mississaugas came to control most of the land, with the ones in Toronto becoming known for their good credit with traders, taking the name Mississaugas of the Credit, a name they still proudly use today.
In 1787 the British approached these Mississaugas that occupied the Toronto area in an attempt to acquire the land. The agreement between both parties was interpreted very differently, with the British assuming the gifts and loose mapped agreement was enough to buy the entire area, while the Mississuagas likely thought the land would be shared, and that the gifts either part of the good faith aspect of their relationship or were the beginning of presents in perpetuity for the land. Due to this the agreement was re-established in 1805, in which “Treaty 13” put the land firmly in the hands of the British colonial government.
Maps from the British colonial power of this time display the land very differently than what Indigenous people would have seen it. Many of the maps, like 1818 Plan of York by Lieutenant Phillpotts Royal Engineers, display the concept of Terra Nullius, meaning “empty land” in Latin, a concept that has been used in some cases to justify colonialism by falsely stating the land is not in use. However, the land is being used, especially by many Indigenous peoples, like those at Wonscotonach, in routine hunting and fishing trips.
After this purchase the land was zoned for the use of colonial residential development in Toronto, marking a change in the land’s use. This consequently created a momentary silence in Indigenous history on our land. The WCH lands then fell into the hands of the Elmsey family, who in 1798 established a villa which had its garden/orchard located on the modern hospital site. The estate lasted at least until 1851, until the land had been subdivided for city housing.
Beginning in 1926 the lands were sold to WCH for a new hospital building and have been home to WCH up until the present day. Throughout WCH’s history there have been a multitude of Indigenous peoples studying and aiding in the institution, like Mabel Jones, who became the first Indigenous graduate of the WCH School of Nursing in 1928.
In 2020, the Ganawishkadawe Centre for Wise Practices was established at WCH to help Indigenous-orientated healthcare become better researched and accessible. The land that the hospital sits on has held and does hold an important place in Indigenous history and continues to perpetuate the history and wisdom of the ancestors.