Kahkewaquonaby (Dr. Peter Edmund Jones) is believed to have been the first licensed First Nations doctor in British North America. He earned his medical degree from Queen’s University in 1866 and went on to practise medicine in Brantford, right here in Niagara-on-the-Lake, and eventually New York City. Later in life, Jones became chief of the Mississaugas of the New Credit and advocated for First Nations rights. His letters and political work show him pushing for greater control over First Nations affairs and the protection of Indigenous rights. There is an unexpected connection to Canada’s history of residential schools in his family story. His father, who was a Methodist minister, raised funds in England to help build a school for Indigenous people that later became one of the first residential schools in Canada. Dr. Jones achieved something remarkable in becoming a doctor at a time when few Indigenous people had access to higher education. In the generations that followed, residential schools denied countless Indigenous children the education and opportunities that Jones had been able to pursue.