Editing Cornwall, Ontario (section)

== Ethnic history ==
The post-contact regional population was a mixture of [[French Canadian]], [[Ojibwe]] and [[Mohawk people|Mohawk]] residents. Then came an influx of [[American loyalists|American Loyalists]] and refugees from the [[Thirteen Colonies]], along with other [[French Canadians|French Canadian]] and [[Acadian]] migrants. Then poor Scottish and Irish immigrants and refugees who arrived from overseas and other parts of Canada. The different groups mixed and integrated over time, with family names and histories reflecting a blending of different backgrounds that became typical of [[Eastern Ontario]].<ref name="sunypress.edu">{{cite web |title=The Early Settlement of Cornwall, Ontario and Massena, New York, 1784–1834|url=http://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/60871.pdf|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140611191042/http://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/60871.pdf|archive-date=June 11, 2014|publisher=[[SUNY Press]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ontarioarchaeology.on.ca/summary/english.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130308062404/http://www.ontarioarchaeology.on.ca/summary/english.htm |publisher=Ontario Archaeology Society |title=The English Period (A.D. 1760 to 1867) |archive-date=March 8, 2013 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

Smaller but impressive contributions in the region were made by a host of other migrants, from Jewish traders, craftsmen, and merchants to [[Eastern Europe]]an refugees and even a significant body of former slaves. Many of the stories go unreported in standard histories, which pass over the remarkable history of migration in the region. One good example is the story of John Baker, who died in Cornwall in 1871 at the age of 93. Born in [[Lower Canada]], he was said to be the last Canadian born into slavery and had been an active soldier in the [[War of 1812]] who fought in both Canada and Europe.<ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=http://my.tbaytel.net/bmartin/jbaker.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160816221804/http://my.tbaytel.net/bmartin/jbaker.htm |publisher=Judge Country Court |author=J. F. Pringle |title=Lunenburgh, or the Old Eastern District |chapter=XXXVI |year=1890 |archive-date=August 16, 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://tubman.info.yorku.ca/files/2013/05/Report-John-Baker-WEB-READY.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160819071042/http://tubman.info.yorku.ca/files/2013/05/Report-John-Baker-WEB-READY.pdf |publisher=The Harriet Tubman Institute |title=John Baker Report |archive-date=August 19, 2016 |url-status=dead |access-date=November 4, 2014 |df=mdy-all}}</ref> Slavery was ended in the colony of [[Upper Canada]] in stages; in 1793, the importing of slaves was banned, and in 1819, Upper Canada Attorney-General John Robinson declared all slaves in the colony to be freed, making Upper Canada the first place in the [[British Empire]] and even the world that unequivocally moved towards the formal abolition of chattel slavery. Most of the former slaves settled and integrated into the same communities in which they were freed. By 1833, this process of liberation had succeeded throughout the British Empire by the decision to free all of its slaves. It was the first major state in world history to abolish slavery, and Ontario was the place where the process first bore fruit. John Baker, the last slave to be born into slavery in Canada, died in Cornwall.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/slavery-abolition-act-1833/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161104111015/http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/slavery-abolition-act-1833/ |encyclopedia=[[The Canadian Encyclopedia]] |title=Slavery Abolition Act, 1833 |date=January 29, 2015 |publication-date=July 10, 2014 |archive-date=November 4, 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>[[Abolition of slavery timeline]]</ref>

"Canada" had been conquered from France after the [[Seven Years' War]] and included roughly the areas covered by [[Quebec]] and [[Ontario]]. In the aftermath of the American Revolution, the British authorities divided the [[Province of Canada]] in 1791 into two: Upper Canada for English settlers fleeing persecution in the United States and Lower Canada for the French. That was designed to accommodate Loyalists who had fled postwar reprisals and persecution in the new United States, but the 5,000 English-speaking settlers in the Eastern Township of [[Quebec]] were allowed to stay in the French-speaking area, and many French settlers moved into [[Ontario]]. Along with the area's original inhabitants, that made the area a patchwork of intersecting ethnicities that later greatly intermingled. Cornwall and the surrounding area, originally called "Royal Settlement #2" and then "New Jamestown," was initially a rough place and was largely left to its own devices. According to contemporary reports, that bred a local culture of intense self-reliance. Adding to the initial history of pragmatic entrepreneurialism, since very early with the founding of the city, provincial and federal governments have typically neglected the area and treated it as little more than a transit corridor. Those who remained in the region tended to be those who had the fortitude and the energy to survive on their own, with little outside assistance.{{cn|date=November 2022}}

"The original 516 settlers arrived in Royal Township #2 with minimal supplies and faced years of hard work and possible starvation. Upon their departure from military camps in [[Montreal]], [[Pointe-Claire|Pointe Claire]], Saint Anne, and [[Lachine, Quebec|Lachine]] in the fall of 1784, Loyalists were given a tent, one month's worth of food rations, clothes, and agricultural provisions by regiment commanders. They were promised one cow for every two families, an axe, and other necessary tools in the near future. For the next three years, bateaux (boat) crews delivered rations to the township, after which residents were left to fend for themselves."<ref name="sunypress.edu"/>

The region's energetic spirit of enterprise and fortitude was well-known in the 19th century. [[David Thompson (explorer)|David Thompson]], the Welsh-Canadian explorer who mapped the [[Western Canada|Far West]] and was called the greatest land geographer in history, drew many of his travelling companions from Cornwall's rural hinterland, with Scottish and native settlers, and he lived in Williamstown.

More recently, Cornwall has seen an increase in the arrival of new immigrants,{{cn|date=February 2023}} who tend to integrate and often fare better than immigrants in other parts of the country.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.eotb-cfeo.on.ca/english/labour-market/update-on-cornwalls-economy.html |publisher=Eastern Ontario Training Board |title=Update on Cornwall's Economy |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160813042036/http://www.eotb-cfeo.on.ca/english/labour-market/update-on-cornwalls-economy.html |archive-date=August 13, 2016 |url-status=dead |access-date=November 4, 2014}}</ref>

=== Integration ===
{{More citations needed section|date=October 2023}}
The Cornwall region was unusually integrated for rural counties in Ontario. For hundreds of years, the local population has been characterized by a mix of economic migrants, refugees, and opportunists. The mixing of different social classes and ethnic backgrounds was common even early in its history because of the interdependence demanded by isolation and the lack of support from or interference by official authorities.

The original Native population was remarkably welcoming, and the [[Iroquois]] were especially well known for integrating newcomers into local societies and for adapting to change as it happened. Many people in the region have some Native ancestry as a result, and many communities sit on sites that have been occupied, farmed, or managed for hundreds of years. Some people were pushed out, but others simply blended into new communities in a process that would go on continuously over many generations.{{cn|date=November 2022}}

The lack of strict hierarchy was a characteristic of the region. For example, from the 1780s to the 1830s, a "bee" was a social event that pooled local labour resources for people to come together for collective projects or to help out individual families, and it was often a festive occasion.{{cn|date=November 2022}} The early "bees" presaged the development of a varied and integrated culture that ultimately drew on many different classes, backgrounds, and ethnic and linguistic groups, all of which were forced by the harsh reality of life in the region to work together for common goals, the primary of which was survival. The "bees" and different forms of collective shared labour were extremely common all over [[Eastern Ontario]], especially in the early villages of the [[St. Lawrence Valley]].{{cn|date=November 2022}}

"In her book 'Roughing It in the Bush,' [[Susanna Moodie]] observed that 'people in the woods have a craze for giving and going to bees and run to them with as much eagerness as a peasant runs to a race.' Bees often involved all ranks and nationalities of society. Thomas Need, a sawmill operator in [[Victoria County, Ontario|Victoria County]], described in 'From Great Wilderness to Seaway Towns' the raising of his facility in 1834 in the following way: 'They assembled in great force, and all worked together in great harmony and goodwill notwithstanding their different stations in life.' These gatherings exhibited the lack of aristocracy in the rural loyalist settlement along the [[St. Lawrence River]] and residents' disregard for individuals' former social standing or lineage. The harshness and isolation of frontier living prevented the development of an aristocracy and, instead, united all members of the community in a struggle for survival. Early Loyalists, regardless of the amount of land they owned, depended upon the help of their neighbours to clear land, build homes, and share supplies and food during times of poor harvests."<ref name="sunypress.edu"/>