Canadian Author
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Image of a Davis man courtesy, Roger Picken. Mr Picken is a great-grandson of Alice Davis, and great-great grandson of Squire Davis and Jennet Fergsuon.
Alice Davis Schofield, daughter of Squire and Jennet, was the immediate elder sister of Albert, and the youngest sister of Minsos' great-grandmother Isabella Davis Burr.
Mohawk Squire Davis of the Grand River Settlement purchased two Balmorals (receipt found and recorded by family), to honour his Scottish wife.
The Grand River Saga
Mohawk Trilogy
An Introduction
The Grand River Saga in the form of the Mohawk trilogy emerges from an ongoing discovery of family, place, and history––the history of mid-nineteenth-century Canadian manners and affordances.
Rooted in extensive research and a deep engagement with theory, archival and community knowledge, the trilogy brings together historical record, lived experience, and storytelling, centred in particular on 1845–1846.
Drawing on a wide range of sources, including census records, family bibles, government documents, and published scholarship, the project reflects a sustained effort to understand the lives, relationships, and cultural context of the writer’s ancestors and culture clubs. These materials help illuminate not only individual family lines, but also the broader social and political structures, shaping the world in which they lived.
The setting at the heart of this work is the Grand River, ––its histories of displacement, resettlement, and continuity. The story is inseparable from the legacy of leaders such as Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant), whose influence, for good and ill, continues to shape both the historical record and the lived realities of the community. Readers are invited to explore this dimension more fully through research on Brant and his enduring significance.
Explore The Grand River Saga
This page brings together several interconnected areas of research and storytelling. Readers may choose to explore the historical foundations, family connections, or the literary works themselves.
The Mohawk Trilogy
Research and Family Content
The Mohawk Trilogy is a work of historical fiction grounded in detailed research and informed by family history. Set within a carefully reconstructed historical moment, the series reflects the complexities of identity, community, and change along the Grand River.
The research behind this work draws from an extensive range of materials, including archival records, genealogical data, and published sources. These include census records from Canada West (Ontario), family bibles such as those of the Burr-Davis line, and a wide range of historical texts and scholarly works.
Particular attention has been given to tracing family lines connected to individuals such as Kayendatye, recorded in the 1851 census as a widow of Peter the Runner and mother of Peter Davis. Through these records, connections emerge linking generations, including Margaret Riley and Peter Davis Jr, and extending to Squire Davis, the writer’s great-great grandfather.
Dr. S. Minsos Personal Research and Family Content
Noting familiar citations but keeping a large bibliography manageable seems sensible. Mohawk trilogy and culture club resources are as follows, surnames (usually) only: Ancestry.com, Arculus, Backhouse, Beatty, Benn, Bonneycastle, Berger, George Brown, Jennifer Brown, Cotes, Cruikshank, Burr-Davis family bibles, Campbell, Canadian Geography, (census records, newspapers, official government files on microfiche), Chalmers, cookbooks (vintage), Davis family, Damasio, Dennett, Dickason, Dougherty (Mabel), Sara Duncan, Bruce E Hill, Richard Hill, Susan Hill, Iroquois Edible and Medicinal Plants, Fenton, Faux, Files, Grann, Greene, Graymont, Hale, Harris, Heeney, History of Canadian Geography, History of Nineteenth Century Fashion and Clothes in North America, History of Nineteenth-Century Inventions, Ibbotson, Innes, Jameson (Mrs Anna), Johnston, Kelsay, Klinck, Laxer, MacDonald, McBurney and Byers, McCarthy, McKillop, McNab, Maracle, W. H. Merritt, Monture, Moodie, Mormon records, Noon, Paxton, W. H. Pearson, Quirk, Reville, Ruthven Park on site, Ryerson, Savage, Scanlan, Shanahan, Sivertsen, Sharpe and Pancoe, Donald B Smith, Smith's Canadian Gazetteer, Quirk, Snow and Gehring, Alan Taylor, John Taylor, David Thompson 1 (not mapmaker), Thompson family papers,Van Kirk, Trail, Warner, Beers, and Co., Windle, all of which (whom) proved to be invaluable sources for understanding the writer's ancestors, zeitgeist (affordances), and culture clubs (power structures) of one particular year, 1845-1846. Census Year: 1851 Item Number: 5240 Surname: Given Name(s): Our fourth great grandmother, Kayendatye, Age: 75. Widow of Peter the Runner and mother of Peter Davis (m. Margret/Margaret Riley, O'Reilly). Margaret Riley and Peter Davis Jr are recorded as being the parents of Squire Davis, who is the writer's great-great grandfather. Province: Canada West (Ontario) District Name: Brant (county)Sub-District Name: Tuscarora.
Thayendanegea Joseph Brant
The broader historical context of the Grand River cannot be understood without considering the role of Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant). His leadership, decisions, and legacy continue to influence how the history of the region is interpreted and understood.
A dedicated section explores this research in greater depth, situating Brant within the political and cultural realities of his time.
The Grand River Trust Funds Scandal
The transfer of Six Nations funds into Great Britain’s “general revenue” was a breach of trust that stripped the Haudenosaunee of control over their own wealth. Money generated from their lands was used for colonial projects without consent or benefit, contributing to lasting dispossession.
Why was it fraudulent to put Haudenosaunee monies into Great Britain's "General Revenue"?
Six Nations’ money in “general revenue” was deeply problematic:
1. The Action Disregarded British Trust Laws and Undermined The Six Nations' Hopes for Sovereignty
The Six Nations Confederacy was promised autonomy and stewardship over its lands and resources when it allied with the British during the American Revolution. This alliance was informally formalized in documents like the Haldimand Proclamation (1784), which granted the Mohawk the Grand River lands. By taking Indigenous money — earned from Six Nations’ own land and timber sales — and placing the confederacy's accrued pounds sterling in British “general revenue,” the Crown acted dishonourably, a traitor to the very promises it made: Treated Haudenosaunee money as Crown property, not Indigenous property. William Ewart Gladstone (Liberal): April 23, 1880 – June 9, 1885 Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (Conservative): June 23, 1885 – January 28, 1886 William Ewart Gladstone (Feb 1886 – July 1886): Started his third ministry focused on Irish Home Rule. Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (July 1886 – 1892):Commenced his second term after winning the general election following the split in the Liberal Party. Liberal and Conservative governments Ignored their allied Confederacy’s "right" to self-determination — effectively seizing control of the Grand River Settlement's economy and governance. The British broke a fiduciary duty: Britain had a legal/moral obligation to hold Grand River funds in trust. acted like thieves: The British government pocketed and spent the monies of others.
2. “General Revenue” Meant No Accountability
Once the money went into Britain's general revenue, bad things happened: Money lost its identity as Six Nations’ money. The government offered no specific earmarking or accounting for how "trust" money should be used. Using what purported to be its own funds, the government could and did "legally" spend Grand River trust monies on various colonial projects, including those, like the canal system, which benefited settlers at Indigenous' expense. The British government used trust money on a speculative canal project designed to create canal towns and to enrich private investors, men like William Hamilton Merritt and David Thompson, — and perhaps, but not likely and no matter anyway, the Six Nations Confederacy.
3. The Grand River Navigation Company Was a Failure to the Point of Being a Scam, and Certainly a Scandal
The Navigation: Promised prosperity but delivered nothing of value to the Six Nations. Enriched, via a pump and dump stock scheme, a handful of colonial robber barons, whilst the company bankrupted the Six Nations' land owners. Left the Six Nations with no funds and in debt to the Receiver-General, whilst the canal system they paid for opened up their land to exploitation and settler encroachment. Bruce E. Hill’s research shows funds were diverted into private accounts — an act of outright theft. It is curious to me Bruce E. Hill's seminal book, The Grand River Navigation Company, is tough to find.
4. There Was No General Consent, Only Eager Investors
The Six Nations' councils did not approve of their funds being used this way. In fact, many chiefs Protested; Wrote letters and hired lawyers to demand redress; Were repeatedly ignored, marginalized, and lied to. This turns what might have been shoddy governance into deliberate and active colonial dispossession. (See Harring, Sidney L. White Man's Law: Native People in Nineteenth-Century Canadian. Jurisprudence. Toronto: Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History)
5. The Navigation Set a Precedent for Ongoing Injustice
When a state confiscates Indigenous wealth, uses it for state-building, then fails to compensate or even acknowledge the act, that’s not just history — that's a live issue: Without proper consultation or benefit-sharing, the establishment's using Indigenous wealth continues. Many Indigenous communities remain underfunded today — they were systematically robbed of wealth they were entitled to. 🔹"The Navigation Scandal" In Plain Language: Imagine you earned wagon-loads of cash, selling your land and lumber. Your nineteenth-century "banker" is your great European ally, Great Britain. You act in good faith. You expect your deposited monies to be saved, or used for your needs. Instead, your "banker" quietly moves your funds into their own personal account. Eventually, gleefully and full of promises about big profits from big investments, your "banker" spends every penny of your money on a risky exotic (colonial) business, which spectacularly fails — and since everything has happened without your oversight, you are left to wonder what happened to your riches. Indeed, you are left with practically nothing, ––no sovereignty, no land, no right to trade, no money, a full wagon-load of settlers' prejudices, and a puny subsistence-level annuity. That’s what happened here — not to an individual, but to an allied Indigenous culture club (power structure).