Noel Jeddore facts for kids

Noel Joseph Jeddore We’jitu also Newell Jeddore Gietol, Geodol (December 18, 1865 – May 14, 1944) was Saqamaw "grand chief" of the Mi'kmaq at Miawpukek in Bay d'Espoir on the south coast of Newfoundland in the Coast of Islands region. Jeddore served as chief from July 26, 1919 until he was forced into exile to Eskasoni, Nova Scotia, in 1924. He was born at Indian Point, Bay d'Espoir and he died at Eskasoni, Cape Breton.

Saqamaw

The name "Jeddore" can be traced back to We’jitu Isidore, (ca. 1656 – ca. 1769) who "was a Kji-Saqamaw or grand chief of the Mi’kmaq of the provinces of New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and Quebec." Prior to the passage of the 1876 Indian Act, the Mi'kmaq were governed by the Grand Council - Santé Mawiómi - made up of representatives from the seven district councils in Mi'kma'ki. The chief of the Newfoundland Mi'kmak was Reuben Lewis, who was elected as probationary chief in 1900 following the death of Joe Bernard. In June 1907 Reuben Lewis was to "go in state with the principal men of Conn River to Sydney to be invested with the full right of chieftainship and the possession of the gold medal which is the badge of office." As chief, Noel Jeddore was given guardianship of the gold medal first given to the previous district Chief Maurice Lewis by the Grand Council. Maurice Lewis came to Miawipukek originally from Cape Breton in 1815. When he left Miawpukek Jerrold hung the medal on the statue of St. Anne near the Catholic Church. The priest, St. Croix, who deposed Chief Noel Jeddore in 1924 "was also responsible for dismantling traditional governing structures in the community."

Lewis as chief made settled disputes about territorial trapping areas and his decisions were final. Noel Jeddore was known as Saqamaw Jeddore or Geodol to the Mi'kmaq of Miawpukek/Conne River. In a 1907 publication Newfoundland and It's Untrodden Ways by Millais (1865 – 1931) the author included his favourable observations of the Jeddore family and other Conne River Mi'kmaq during his visits to Newfoundland in "two short hunting seasons in 1905-1906." Millais observed that in the absence of a Catholic priest Conne River at Christmas time, Joe Jeddore was "high priest."

Miawpukek

Miawpukek was a summer camp until Jeannot Pequidalouet - the eastern Mi'kmaq chief of Cape Breton, who had previously overwintered in Newfoundland - began to create a permanent settlement in Miawpukek from in the 1760s. In his MA thesis Butler citing Jackson described how under the leadership of Jeddore, the Mi’kmaq in the Bay D’Espoir "lived in greater isolation and so were able both to retain their language well into the twentieth century and to continue their traditional practices of living as hunter-gatherers and commercial trappers." Jackson described how, the "uninhabited wilderness of the southern interior offered an abundant variety of small game: fox, muskrat and beaver. Thousands of woodland caribou roamed the bush and barrens." Prior to the early nineteenth century Mi'kmaq lived a nomadic life moving in cycles and seasons between Newfoundland and Cape Breton. In the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century they made a transition to semi-sedentary life as hunter-gatherers living "on the country" on Newfoundland itself in permanent communities lime St. George's Bay and Miawpukek in Bay d'Espoir. In a 1907 publication Newfoundland and It's Untrodden Ways by John Guille Millais' (1865 – 1931) the author included his favourable observations of the Jeddore family and other Conne River Mi'kmaq during his visits to Newfoundland in "two short hunting seasons in 1905-1906." Like William Cormack who had undertaken an expedition in 1822 to the interior of Newfoundland with his Mi'kmaq guide Joseph Sylvester, a young Mi'kmaq hunter from Miawpukek, Bay d'Espoir, he provided details on the lives of the Newfoundland Mi'kmaq.

Newfoundland Governor William MacGregor visited Bay d'Espoir in September 1908. In his report he described how the lives of Mi'kmaq on the reserve were becoming more difficult with the encroachment of the railway, a mill and settlers which contributed to the depletion of natural resources on their traditional hunting lands. MacGregor described how the Mi'kmaq there were "hunters and trappers, and are ignorant alike of agriculture, of seamanship, and of fishing... They pay 60 to 70 cents a pound for their tobacco, 20 to 30 cents for gunpowder, and 10 cents for shot. They sell their fur locally where they make their small family purchases." Although he acknowledged that they were healthy and free of tuberculosis, resourceful, self-sufficient, "easy to govern", "seldom quarrel", with "no intoxicating liquor and seldom obtain any", he predicted that their future on the reserve was bleak. The only two cows on the reserve were owned by the Jeddore brothers. MacGregor explained that the Chieftainship was "not hereditary, but is conferred, when a vacancy occurs, on the man the people prefer."