MISSIS'AGA. An Algonquian tribe residing east and smith from Lake Ontario, Ontario. ada. are closely connected with the of whom they are an oil The name is said to mean 'great referring to the mouth of I he Alissisaga hut an ednr•ated member of the tribe says that it refers to an eagle. claim ing that the Missisaga are derived principally from the Eagle elan of the Ojibwa. At a treaty in 1701 they signed with an eagle as their tribal mark. When first known to the French. early in the seventeenth century. the Alissisaga were living upon the lower part of the river which bears their name and upon the adjacent lin 1411111. So011 afterwards they moved east and south into the country left unoccupied by the dispersion of the Heron and Ottawa. and soon spread over the whole peninsula of Lowe• Ontario. At the close of the Revolution they even had one village on the south side of Lake Erie in what is now t thin. The land on wshic•h the Iroquois :ire now settled on Grand River. Ontario, Was
from the Missisaga. In 1746 they were admitted as the seventh tribe of the Iroquois confederacy, being then settled in five villages near Detroit,. but the alliance lasted only until the outbreak of the French and Indian War, a few years later. On account of the former loose distinction be tween the Alissisaga and Ojibwa, it is impossible to give exact figures of population. Those now officially classed as Alissisaga number about 750, on small reservations at New Credit. Alnwick, Mud Lake. Rice Lake, and Sengog. of ontario. Canada. They are all members of the Methodist. and support themselves by farming, fishing, trapping. gathering wild rice, basket-making. and outside labor. They are gen erally prosperono and comfort:11de and are uni versally commended by their agents for industry, morality, sobriety, and general progress. The statistics show them to lie a healthy people.