Neutral Nation - Territory

Territory

During the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the territory of the Attawandaron was mostly within the limits of present-day southern Ontario. There was a single population cluster to the east, across the Niagara River near modern-day Buffalo, New York. The western boundary of their territory was the valley of the Grand River, with population concentrations existing on the Niagara Peninsula and in the vicinity of the present-day communities of Hamilton and Milton, Ontario. Documentary sources indicate that the population of the historic Neutrals ranged from twelve thousand to forty thousand persons, with the lower number indicating the devastating effect of new European infectious diseases and periods of famine during the first part of the seventeenth century.

F. Douglas Reville's The History of the County of Brant (1920) stated that the hunting grounds of the Attawandaron ranged from Genesee Falls and Sarnia, and south of a line drawn from Toronto to Goderich.

St. Jean de Brébeuf and Chaumonot visited eighteen villages of the Neutrals in 1640-1641, and gave each a Christian name. The only ones mentioned in their writings were Kandoucho, or All Saints, the nearest to the Hurons; Onguioaahra, on the Niagara River; Teotongniaton or St. William, in the centre of their country; and Khioetoa, or St. Michael.

F. Douglas Reville described their territory as having been heavily forested and full of "wild fruit trees of vast variety", with nut trees, berry bushes, and wild grape vines. "Elk, caribou, and black bear; deer, wolves, foxes, martens and wild cats filled the woods."