TepastenamTransliteration from oral Cree, also transliterated as "Tapastanum"; may be translated as: "Shining light". (baptized as Donald William Sinclair Ross; )Noted as 70 years of age in Wesleyan-Methodist Register of Baptisms Norway House 1840-1889, United Church Archives, Winnipeg, on July 11, 1875; cited in Margaret Anne Lindsay & Jennifer S.H. Brown, The History of the Pimicikamak People to the Treaty Five Period, The Centre for Rupert's Land Studies at The University of Winnipeg (2008), Appx. F. was a respected leader (Cree: ) of the Pimicikamak indigenous people in the 19th century. From oral history accounts he may have been a Midewiwin leader/. The record of his baptism in 1875 describes him as "A noted conjurer for many years, who long resisted the teachings of Christianity."Wesleyan-Methodist Register of Baptisms Norway House 1840-1889, United Church Archives, Winnipeg.
Life Tepastenam's family had its wintering grounds at "John Scott's Lake".See, e.g., Wesleyan-Methodist Register of Baptisms Norway House 1840-1889, United Church Archives, Winnipeg, no. 1582. This has been identified as Setting Lake on the Grass River.James Vidal Dillabough, Transportation in Manitoba, Manitoba Economic Survey Board, Winnipeg (1938), p. 127. He and his family members traded at Nelson HouseNelson House Indian Survey, Archives of Manitoba/Hudson's Bay Company Archives, B239/z/10, York Factory Miscellaneous Records, f. 88. until 1843, and later he began trading at Norway House.Archives of Manitoba/Hudson's Bay Company Archives, B.154/a/43 Norway House Post Journal, 1844-1845, f. 30. Beginning in 1861, some of his children and grandchildren were baptized at Rossville.Wesleyan-Methodist Register of Baptisms Norway House 1840-1889, United Church Archives, Winnipeg.
In 1875, Tepastenam was baptized as Donald William Sinclair Ross, reportedly named after two Hudson's Bay Company Chief Factors: Donald Ross and William Sinclair.Archives of Manitoba/Hudson's Bay Company Archives, Norway House Post Journals, B.154/a/71, 1874-1877, Roderick Ross, f. 18. He was listed in the 1881 register of the Cross Lake Methodist congregation as "chief" and his wife May was listed as "chiefess".Norway House Mission Journal, United Church Archives, Winnipeg (1881-85), no. 16, April, 1881. Ross first appears on the government of Canada pay list as "chief" in 1876. However, he "was a leader both before and after [Pimicikamak] entered treaty."Lindsay & Brown, The History of the Pimicikamak People to the Treaty Five Period, p. 82.
Treaty 5 Tepastenam was notable as the lead signatory to Treaty 5 on behalf of the Pimicikamak people on September 24, 1875 in Norway House.Alexander Morris, The Treaties of Canada with the Indians, Belfords, Clarke & Co., Toronto (1880); and see John Miswagon, "A Government of our Own", Frontier Centre for Public Policy, 21 April 2005, http://www.fcpp.org/main/publication_detail.php?PubID=1043 , accessed 24 September 2008. Neither of the other two signatoriesThey were George Garrioch and Proud McKay. matched his stature as a leader of the Pimicikamak people.Lindsay & Brown, The History of the Pimicikamak People to the Treaty Five Period. His mark (an X) granted Treaty rights to the Crown in an area of the Northwest Territories that was twice the size of the Province of Manitoba at the time.
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