A history of community, a history of erasure, a history of remembering
Negro Creek timeline
(this page is a work in progress, check back on May 20 for more detailed history)
“This is some text about the signing ofTreaty 45 1/2
Which was this whole thing that transferred millions of acres of territory to the Crown in exhange for this stuff.
When all was said and done, it was an improper treaty.
A key point in the case is the promise made in 1836 by Crown representatives to convince the Saugeen to sign a treaty surrendering 1.5 million acres of their territory south of the peninsula. They said the Crown could not control the encroachment of squatters into that large part of Saugeen territory. However, they promised to keep squatters out of the peninsula “forever.””
“Documented arrival
First documentation of Black settlers at Negro Creek: Millers, Woods, Barnes - among the first non-indigenous settlers.
Then known as the Queen’s bush, in Wellington county until Grey county was formed in 1854. We know that Black settlers, both free and formerly enslaved, began settling in the Queen’s Bush as early as 1833, journeying northward along the blazed trail system of the Saugeen anishinaabe, which preceeded colonial roads.
Over this decade, more families came, there were marriages and new children born, and the Negro Creek community grew. Cleared fields of trees and large rocks on their farms and neighboring farms, operated limestone kiln, worked on the roads.
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“A Vibrant Community
By 1851, the community had diversified their crop and livestock production, and many families had built log homes to replace their shanties. Other families continued to clear lands with the intention of building homesteads. Negro Creek was a well established settlement.
The children of the community at that time included John Chuckee, Aaron Earles, Abraham Bowey, Rachel Bowey, Moses Bowey, John and Susan Pearce, Mary Woods, Daniel and Elizabeth Barnes, Henry Miller, William Miller, Priscilla and Westley White, Caroline Parker, William and Candy and Mary Armstrong, William Henry and Emily Ann Ross, Elizabeth and James and Daniel and Ellen and William Douglas. At least 5 of these children were attending school at the log schoolhouse U.S.S no 4. Holland & Sullivan, where they became the first literate generation of their families.
Members of the community that weren’t needed on the farms laboured at the limestone and brick kilns near the schoolhouse, a 15 minute walk from the creek. Others worked as laborers on the buildings and roads of neighbouring communities.
In the woods behind the lime kiln and schoolhouse are the Negro Lakes, which is said by descendant Terry Harding to have been a stop along the Underground Railroad. On property owned by the Ross family, Harding remembers having heard that freedom seekers built cabins along the shore of the lakes as a secluded place of refuge.
We do not know where the Negro Creek community attended church, although we know that they were all methodists. Likely, a circuit preacher (perhaps Philemon Warman of the Black community along the Old Durham Road) would have been hosted by one of the families. We know that in 1858 when the Little Zion methodist church was erected a few concessions away, the Earls family attended.
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“Treaty 72 & 82 signed
”The Crown told us in 1854 that the government could not longer protect our lands from settlers, so we were forced to sign the land surrender for the Bruce Peninsula. Yet, the day after we signed that treaty, the government took steps to do exactly what they told us they could not do: they put into place policies and actions to prevent settlers from trespassing on our newly surrendered lands, because the Crown wanted to make sure they got the best land values when they sold that land. At 1 a.m. the morning of Oct. 14, 1854 Lord Elgin, sent a message to Grey County Sheriff, George Snider. It ordered him to “summarily” eject any squatters intruding on “the property of the Crown”.
The land claim for Treaty 72 is presently in the Canadian court systems.
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“Dispossession
After the signing of treaty 72 and the subsequent policing of those determined to be “squatters” in the eyes of colonial officials and land agents, the Negro Creek community began to crumble. This was similarly the case in other Black agricultural communities of the time, including the Old Durham Road, Rocky Saugeen, and Queen’s Bush settlements.
What we understand is that as european settlers flooded the region, there was increased interest in the established farmland along the Garafraxa road. This attention brought land agents, who targeted Black families with lies and intimidation to get residents to flee or undersell their property. A Black settler named James Francis, who lived further south along the Garafraxa road described the agents’ behavior as ruining “a great many poor people here in the bush” and that he himself was intimidated into selling “two cows and a steer, to make the payment that [he] might hold the land”. In other instances, white neighbours interested in the valuable land took it upon themselves to bully Black families into selling or fleeing.
When the land agents took their lands and their neighbours attitudes changed, the families of Negro Creek harvested the seeds of community that their ancestors had sowed on the land, and journeyed to replant them under the east hill of Owen Sound (which later became Mudtown), in Collingwood, and elsewhere.
Over these two decades, the Ross family resettled in Sue Saint Marie, the Woods family resettled in Collingwood, and the Chuckees, Gordons, and some of the Douglas’ and some of the Millers resettled in Owen Sound. Others resettled in Holland Centre, Walter’s Falls, London, and elsewhere. The Earles, Bowies, and Douglas’ remained in the area for generations to come. ”
“Markdale Standard”
“Desecration of graves”
“Old Durham Road Black Pioneer Cemetery commemorated”
“Newash burial ground commemorated”
“Township renames Negro Creek Road “Moggie Rd””
“Road name restored”
“Road signs stolen and vandalized”
“Descendants gather to plan commemoration”