[LINK] Torontoist on Oronhyatekha, "The Supreme Chief Ranger of the IOF"

[rfmcdonald]

This weekend just past, Torontoist's Jamie Bradburn posted a history of a remarkable man. The Mohawk Oronhyatekha was a prominent man in Victorian Canada, who despite virulent racism and oppression managed to become a social networker par excellence.

Born on the Six Nations reserve near Brantford in 1841, Oronhyatekha’s name translates as “burning cloud.” Though baptized as Peter Martin, he preferred to use his Mohawk name throughout his life, a practice which contemporary chroniclers honoured. During childhood, he trained as a shoemaker at a missionary-run industrial school. Following a visit by a phrenologist who, after measuring his head, deemed him “educable,” Oronhyatekha attended schools in Massachusetts and Ohio before returning to the reserve as a teacher.

When the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) visited the Six Nations in 1860, Oronhyatekha delivered a welcoming address. Despite an unremarkable speech, the 19-year-old’s dignified bearing and deep voice impressed the Prince. Oronhyatekha was invited to continue his studies at Oxford, under the tutelage of one of the Prince’s entourage, Regius professor Henry Acland. He stayed in England for the next three years, later acknowledging his respect for his tutor by naming his sons Henry and Acland. Upon returning to Canada, he married a great-granddaughter of Joseph Brant and studied medicine at the University of Toronto. One classmate, future U of T president Sir William Mulock, later recalled that because of troubles pronouncing his name, he was dubbed “Old Iron Teakettle.” His nickname was later shortened to “Dr. O.”

After earning his medical diploma in 1867, Oronhyatekha travelled Ontario to build up his medical career, stopping in Deseronto, Frankford, Napanee, and Stratford. To attract business and reduce the stigma attached to his Mohawk background, he overstated his medical credentials, claiming he was an Oxford-trained physician specializing in nervous disorders and respiratory diseases. He earned enough respect to serve as first secretary of the Hastings County Medical Association, and was appointed, based on a recommendation by John A. Macdonald, as consulting physician to the Mohawk reserve at Tyendinaga.

Following a personal bankruptcy, Oronhyatekha moved his practice to London, Ontario in 1874. To build his social network, he joined numerous fraternal organizations and temperance societies. He had been involved in such groups since his U of T days, having spoken at a conference of the Independent Order of Good Templars in 1863 on the dangers of “fire water” to the First Nations. Charm and persistence gained him entry to powerful organizations, such as the Orange Lodge, which rarely accepted aboriginals.

One membership would change his life. In 1878, he joined a local court of the Independent Order of Foresters (IOF). Since the organization’s membership rules stated that only white males aged 21 and over could join the fraternity, he received a special dispensation thanks to his Orange Lodge associations. He later joked that his sponsors “recognized that I belonged to a race which is superior to the white.”

Oronhyatekha later made the IOF, once a failing organization, into a significant force in the insurance world.

Remarkable. (The Wikipedia page is good, too.)