Chronicles of S. Minsos

Women writers often use fiction to illustrate a socio-cultural philosophy. Think of some famous examples. Jane Austen. George Eliot. Edith Wharton. Harper Lee. Margaret Laurence. Margaret Atwood. Alice Munro. Katherine Mansfield. Flannery O'Connor. And Minsos' personal favourite, Sara Duncan.

Why do "old times" impact us still?

As far as the Mohawk trilogy goes, you be the judge.

Starting from personal family records and expanding into community records, Minsos structures the Mohawk trilogy to align with the fount of socialization. Using Weird Tit-for-Tat and culture clubs as a template to tell a tale of love, betrayal, and colonial malfeasance (The Grand River Navigation Company), she animates the zeitgeist of an era. Women philosophers don't rank highly in the public's critical eye, but maybe someday . . .

Scroll down to the Image Gallery. You can glimpse the actual setting of the novels, three "real" historical characters – the narrative's antagonists – and a certain, recently deceased, musical prodigy.

Although Minsos does not bring her nineteenth-century story into the twenty-first century, she firmly believes, though other opinions may differ, the past of which she writes echoes in contemporary lives.

The Haldimand Tract – with its great wealth, now lost – is vitally important to the Haudenosaunee. Just as the Oklahoma Reservation –with its oil head-rights, now lost – is important to the nation of the Osage. These narratives are unfinished. Legal battles rage on.

Therein lies a great irony: Six Nations musician Robbie Robertson composed the score for Killers of the Flower Moon.

Daniel Dennett

1942 - 2024

Dr. Minsos remains grateful to the late Dr. Dennett for his many wonderful and amazing books, for his philosophical and scientific approach to mind, evolution, selection, atheism and, most of all, for the delightful pearls of wisdom he sprinkled throughout his writing.

Minsos finds Dr. Dennett and the other Horsemen (Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins) occasionally tripped over their default masculinity. See, "Are Women Funny?" in Culture Clubs: The Real Fate of Societies.

S. Minsos is a Canadian Author and Philosophical Theorist...

.... who has written seven published novels and academic works including the Mohawk Trilogy and the Culture Club Series, with its most recent addition to the series, her newly released book, Culture Clubs: The Real Fate of Societies.

All times and places mentioned in Minsos' novels are based on fact. The arc of the narrative is cast from the adventures and trials of her great-great-grandparents, Mohawk-Oneida (Grand River Settlement) Tehawennihárhos (Squire Davis) and Scottish immigrant Jennet Ferguson.

Matters come to a head when Tehawennihárhos and Jennet tangle with David Thompson 1, his ruthless employees, the complicit military, and Thompson's Indigenous allies.

Thompson was the builder of Ruthven Hall (Ruthven Park) in the canal town of Indiana and a nefarious former director of the Grand River Navigation Company.

The protagonists observe, first-hand, the scandalous activities of the Grand River Navigation Company and the Navigation's shoddy, unlawful treatment of the Haudenosaunee, many of whom starved to death because the confederacy had no access to its wealth, which, without council's consent, was being invested in the Navigation.

In 2017 the Grand River Saga was recognized for courage, accuracy and verisimilitude in fiction: S. Minsos was awarded a Canada Bicentennial pin for Books 1 & 2 of the Mohawk Trilogy for their contribution to the truth and reconciliation of First Nations, Inuit and Métis.

In 2018 Foreword Magazine reviewer Lillian Brown accorded Book 3 of the Mohawk Trilogy, Sky Walker: Tehawennihárhos Charter, the magazine's highest designation: five stars: "The satisfying third and final book in S. Minsos’s historical trilogy, Sky Walker Tehawennihárhos Charter follows the nineteenth-century disruption to Indigenous lands caused by European and American settlers."

Researching her Squire Davis family, Minsos discovered Bruce E Hill's book at Iroqrafts: The Grand River Navigation Company. Hill documents the great theft. There could be millions of dollars involved in a settlement. Perhaps that's why a deathly silence greets anyone writing about this tragic event.

Let us not silence the chroniclers. We must know the truth and grapple with the facts, however displeasing.

In the novels all the historical (real) characters are fictionalized. Nevertheless, if the past has a story to tell we should hear it, and mannerists offer insights. We might see a bit of our wonderful selves – or our enemies – in Thayendanegea, Squire Davis, Jennet Ferguson, William Ferguson (Sr and Jr), Barton Farr, David Thompson 1, Lucille Goosay, Jeddah Golden, Nellah Golden, Jake Venti, Aughguaga Polly, Sara Johnson, Lizzie Bosson, Bride Munny, Boy Hewson, to name a few of the trilogy's colourful characters.