Date Published:
March 2005

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Caughnawaga

Caughnawaga, a village in Laprairie county, Quebec, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence river , opposite Lachine, and on the Canadian Pacific Railway. The name is an Iroquois word meaning "village of the rapids". The village was founded in 1667 as a refuge for the Iroquois converts to the Christian faith, just as Lorette and Sillery had been founded for the Hurons and the AIgonkin a few years before; and it is still an Iroquois village, though in 1890 its inhabitants abandoned the system of tribal chiefs, and chose to be governed by municipal laws. The Caughnawaga Indians have played their part in history. They fought on the French side during the Seven Years' War, but after the conquest of Canada in 1763 they accepted British rule. They fought on the British side in the War of 1812, and covered themselves with glory at the battle of Beaver Dam, in Upper Canada; they helped to suppress the rebellion of 1837-8 in Lower Canada; and a contingent of them went on the Red River expedition of 1870 and on the Egyptian expedition for the relief of Khartoum in 1884, under Lord Wolseley. Louis Jackson, the head of the contingent of 1884, published an account of his experiences, in Our Caughnawagas in Egypt ( Montreal , 1885). For an admirable account of the history of Caughnawaga, see E. J. Devine, Historic Caughnawaga (Montreal, 1922).

[Consult the article on  Kahnawake elsewhere at the site]

Source  : W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. II, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 411p., p. 15.