This painting by local artist Francis Granger was completed in 1864. It is an image of the military hospital on the Niagara Commons, also the former “Indian Council House.” The original 1797 building was destroyed during the War of 1812. It was rebuilt and used until 1822, when the Indian Department was no longer active here. The council house served as an embassy and a meeting space for the British Indian Department and the local Indigenous Peoples. Annually they would meet to discuss treaties, alliances, concerns, celebrate and to provide gifts to the Indigenous people. On Nov. 8, 1807, there was a council of Six Nations chiefs and the Indian Department to give thanks and gift a wampum belt to Dr. Edward Jenner. Jenner discovered how a cowpox vaccination helped to prevent smallpox. Smallpox devastated many Indigenous people during the early settlement of Europeans here in North America.
To learn more about local Indigenous history up to present day, the NOTL Museum is now selling the newest publication, “Landscape of Nations: Beyond the Mist” in our gift shop. I would also encourage you to attend the Niagara Regional Native Centre’s 10th Annual Nurturing Our Roots Traditional Pow Wow at the Meridian Centre in St. Catharines on Oct. 5 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
