---

About

Origin

The Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation is part of the Ojibwe (Anishinaabe) Nation, one of the largest Aboriginal Nations in North America. George Copway, an Ojibwe Missionary, and Methodist Minister, notes that “those now called the Messasaugans, settled in Canada west, after the years 1634 and 1635.”

A word in the Anishinaabemowin language translates:

“Missisakis” into “many river mouths.” By the mid-nineteenth century, the Mississaugas believed they had obtained their name from the mouths of the Trent, Moira, Shannon, Napanee, Kingston, and Gananoque rivers. The term New Credit was in reference to the relocation of the Credit River Mississaugas in 1847. The Mississaugas traded goods with “English fur traders [who] would extend credit to the Mississaugas.” The word “new” was dropped from the reference to the community by official council motion in December 2018.

The Mississaugas earned a reputation as a trustworthy people who, when extended credit, would always pay back the fur traders the following spring. The term First Nation is derived from the fact that the Mississaugas are Indigenous (First) people of this continent and are a separate Nation which should be dealt with on a government-to-government basis.

Map