Talk:Fort Albany First Nation

Fort Albany And Kashechewan Are Separate First Nations

I took out the sentence Part of the original settlement is now the territory of the Kashechewan First Nation., as I don't believe this to be true. Both communities are recognized as separate First Nations. If both are related from previous history, Fort Albany was recognized first and Kashechewan appeared later. If anyone has more information on this please post a message. I know some of the history from this area as I am from the James Bay coast. --sapiyeh 03:02, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I did some quick research on the internet and found a short explanation on the Chiefs of Ontario website on the history of Fort Albany and Kashechewan and added this note to the article. Hopefully it will clear up any confusion. If anyone has further information please post their change to the article or to this discussion page. --sapiyeh 20:54, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Some history regarding the separation of the communities

I have made a few changes to the article based on what I know to be true from having been a resident of Kashechewan for 10 1/2 years(Jan.,1994-June,2004) and hearing stories of the separation of the communities from people in Kashechewan. (One of those who told me about the creation of 2 separate Band Councils in the 1970s was the one who was the chief of the two communities at the time, and other elders told me precisely the same stories as he did, about that separation.)

I should add that I was the resident Anglican pastor for the Kashechewan community in the time of my residence there, and that I continue to visit the community on a regular basis with regard to my work as an Anglican priest.

The changes I made:

The article spoke of the old community as being called "Old Fort Albany". But it only became known as "Old Fort Albany" after the new "Fort Albany" was established. While I will not cite any particular publication to verify this, I have read many articles in various places referring to the old community, and none of them ever spoke of it as being known as "Old Fort Albany" prior to the creation of the new Fort Albany town site. But for a few years the Anglican portion of the community remained on the old community site, after the Roman Catholic portion of the community had moved from it. Hence during that period of time the old community would have been called "Old Fort Albany", while there also existed a "New Fort Albany".

The article spoke of the Old Fort Albany community splitting up in the 1950s. From what I was told by people in Kashechewan the Roman Catholic mission moved prior to the 1950s. I expect that the move of Roman Catholic families came about gradually, to the Fort Albany site, and speculate that some may have not moved until the Anglican families moved to the Kashechewan site. The Anglican people began moving to the site of Kashechewan in the 1950s. I am not certain whether the move was completed in the 1950s or in the early 1960s.

While I have spoken of Anglican and Roman Catholic portions of the old community, there were a few families that were mixed Anglican-Roman Catholic. Just as there have also always been a few RC families in Kashechewan, and some Anglicans in Fort Albany.

I can cite the Indian Status card of every such card carrying member of the Fort Albany and Kashechewan First Nations, to the effect that all such cards refer to the "Albany" Band, and not to the "Fort Albany" or "Kashechewan" Bands. Hence while the Fort Albany and Kashechewan First Nations are two separate Bands, there is some way in which the separation has never been complete, in Indian Affairs terms.

The name "Kashechewan", by the way, should actually have been "Keeshechewan". "Keeshechewan" is the Cree name for the Albany River. This was the name which the residents of the community chose, at the time of the move to the Kashechewan site. But when the sign for the new post office at the new townsite arrived, it had on it the mispelling "Kashechewan"!

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Notability of council list

The lists of historical band council compositions were recently removed. I have reinstated them, since the reason for removing them (ostensibly per Wikipedia:NOTDIRECTORY) is invalid. Rather, I would point future editors to this section of the guidelines on stand-alone lists, "For instance, articles about schools often include (or link to) a list of notable alumni/alumnae, but such lists are not intended to contain everyone who verifiably attended the school [...] On the other hand, a list within an article of past school presidents, headmasters or headmistresses can contain the names of all the people who held this post, not just those who are independently notable." (emphasis mine). I think it is uncontroversial to say that being the elected leader of a nation is a notable enough post to warrant a complete list, even if the individual persons who held those posts are not independently notable. James Hyett (talk) 19:19, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

@James Hyett: You quoted the wrong guideline. The guideline you mentioned is for stand-alone lists, and the example you gave reads, "a list within an article of past school presidents, headmasters or headmistresses". This article is not a stand-alone list about people; it's an article about a First Nation. Please see MOS:EMBED, which specifically states, "Embedded lists should be used only when appropriate", and then links to the very policy I used when I deleted all this cruft. Respectfully, please revert your edit. Thanks. Magnolia677 (talk) 22:32, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

The example is about the use of a list within a theoretical article on a school, not in fact about a standalone list article. The guideline indicates that it would be appropriate to include an embedded list of people who held those notable positions within such an article.

This is a more relevant guideline than NOTDIRECTORY, which discourages the use of Wikipedia to list (for instance) everyone named John Smith. I am not trying to include a list of all band members of FAFN, but rather a list of people who have led the nation throughout history. Per the guideline I cited, that is an entirely appropriate thing to include in this article.

Furthermore, I wonder if you might explain why you had deleted the lists of all the band councils, but not of the HBC chief factors. Surely, if a list of modern indigenous leaders of a First Nation is cruft, a list of historical merchants who ran a beleaguered outpost is just as bad. The way I see it, it doesn't make sense to leave one in and not the other. James Hyett (talk) 02:21, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Articles on towns don't list all the non-notable mayors to have ever served, and they don't even name the current town council much less all the historical town council members. So why would we include the equivalent info for tribal bands? The mere existence of verifiable facts doesn't mean those facts are DUE in a global encyclopedia. JoelleJay (talk) 01:09, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

While they are not included in the articles for the places themselves, I can find several well-populated categories of Canadian,English, and indeed worldwide mayors, including for settlements such as Sandwich, Kent with a comparable population to Fort Albany. That becomes a question of whether the list should be in the article or stand alone. Your point is taken regarding councils, though given the collective nature of much First Nations governance (i.e. the council sometimes has as much importance as the chief), it feels appropriate. James Hyett (talk) 14:40, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

@James Hyett: The examples you provided are all stand-alone lists, and each article clearly identifies them as "list articles". Fort Albany First Nation is not a list article, and you have confused which guidelines are applicable. If you want to add long lists of non-notable people, you will have to create list articles for them. Just because "it feels appropriate" to add them here does not mean you should disregard a guideline established by consensus. Magnolia677 (talk) 20:00, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Admittedly, those are stand-alone lists. I acknowledged that in my comment. However, the guideline I cited in the original post in this thread, while it is in the guideline on stand-alone lists, specifically mentions "a list within an article". I shall work on creating a standalone list article, following the examples in those categories I linked to, since that is the more sustainable course of action. But I have not misunderstood the guideline as written. James Hyett (talk) 20:58, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

There is no proper list article of all the mayors of Sandwich, there's just a malformed stub called "mayor of Sandwich" that names seven mayors spanning the 13th to 17th centuries and provides a picture of one from the 1900s. If you were to make one for council members or even chiefs, what are the independent SIGCOV RS you would use that cover the topic as a whole (this would of course exclude simple lists of members)? JoelleJay (talk) 22:59, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by RS, could you explain the jargon? Fort Albany First Nation undeniably has significant enough coverage to warrant an article (as does Fort Albany the historical HBC fort), and the band council, being the government of the nation, is an essential part of that coverage. I have now made the list article here: List of Chief Factors and chiefs of Fort Albany. Perhaps we could continue this conversation on that page's Talk page, if you still feel it needs to be deleted. James Hyett (talk) 16:40, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

It just struck me as I was going about my day that RS meant "reliable source". Do you disagree that there are enough independent reliable sources cited in this article? James Hyett (talk) 18:02, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

There are a lot of references for individual people on the list page, but are there any secondary independent sources providing significant coverage of the history of the council as a whole? For example, the presidents of the US obviously played important roles in the development of the country, but to have a standalone List of presidents of the United States there needed to be reliable sources that themselves contained groups of presidents that they covered in substantial detail as a set. There has to be evidence that the topic of the list article has received SIGCOV directly. JoelleJay (talk) 21:42, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I see where you're coming from. The standard of List of US presidents is rather difficult to reach, especially for topics related to indigenous people in North America, who have been historically underrepresented. The guideline I cited at the beginning of this thread states that holders of notable titles is an appropriate topic for a list. While we don't exactly have essays discussing the significance of the Office of Chief of Fort Albany First Nation (ie in the same way we might have books on the Office of President of the United States), the fact that the chief is often the spokesperson for the nation, the nation's at the regional Mushkegowuk Council, and the leader of the community, it should be uncontroversial to state that the chief title is notable enough to warrant a list article, especially one that is supplemented by this present article (whose history section I am hoping to expand soon past the HBC years).

Anyway, we do have some coverage of the chief position specifically (and councils incidentally), we do have this list of chiefs compiled by the Canadian government in 1993, and we have articles about elections, which is ultimately what the list serves as a record of. James Hyett (talk) 15:18, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm just chiming in as a stand-alone expert. I generally resist the inclusion of wp:non-notable people on lists. Mostly because it's harder to justify given Wikipedia's policies (as Magnolia677 has demonstrated above). I agree that this content is not easily justified for this article, however, I'm not sure a stand-alone article isn't warranted. Native American nations (first-nations) are an interesting examination of wp:reliable sources as they are proper nations. This means their media is likely nationwide. However, that alone does not make it "national" media. But it is more national than the Lawrence Mi local press. I have one thought: perhaps a separate article about Fort Albany First Nation governance would provide a richer source of independent sources. Then a list of tribal officials would more naturally be justified within the article. I don't have any expertise on creating this type of article, I only know that a stand-alone list would be hard to defend. But with an article about the nation's governance, there are likely historical experts (both tribal and colonial) and colonial newspapers talking about it. That way, the nation's own press wouldn't be the only source but could be used to add depth of membership. I hope this helps. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 08:18, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Merge proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was not to merge these two pages, but support emerged for the idea of splitting the European history of this location into a separate article centring on the historical Fort, which will be at Fort Albany (Ontario). James Hyett (talk) 13:48, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

---

I propose merging Battle of Fort Albany (1693) into the History section of this article. The article on the 2nd Battle of Fort Albany is two sentences long, with a sparse edit history, and can easily be incorporated into this longer article, thereby bolstering the section on early colonial history. At present, I feel the period of British and French fighting over the area is not explained with the same amount of depth that other history is. My only uncertainty about this merge is that I cannot find other examples of battle articles being merged into articles about their locations. But my primary merge rationale is the length of the battle article. James Hyett (talk) 15:30, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

@Magicpiano and Benjamin Trovato: pinging you two as the only content editors of the Battle article.

@Trappist the monk, Alaney2k, Magnolia677, Ba2kell, Indefatigable, Ser Amantio di Nicolao, Canterbury Tail, BasilLeaf, Oculi, Bearcat, Fungus Guy, and Peter K Burian: pinging you as a bunch of editors on this page. James Hyett (talk) 15:43, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Support: I'd support merging. If the battle had a substantial article, then obviously it would warrant being kept, but if all we can write or source about it is two sentences — and it was created in 2010, meaning that two sentences is all anybody's been arsed to write about it in 13 years — then just being handled in the parent article makes a lot more sense. I don't at all think this would be unprecedented, by the way — there are almost certainly lots of battles that don't have their own standalone articles at all, and are just briefly mentioned in the articles on the places they happened, and the main reason you're having trouble finding examples of that is how would somebody find examples of that without preexisting knowledge of specific examples of that? Bearcat (talk) 15:53, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Oppose: I do not support the merge as proposed. This article (Fort Albany First Nation) is not about a location, but rather about an indigenous people (the term "First Nation" in Canada is used like the term "Tribe" in the US). I think it would be inappropriate to merge an article about a battle fought between the English and the French into an article about an indigenous people who were apparently not combatants. AFAIK there is no separate article about the Fort Albany location, but there are at least three articles about battles fought at this site. Perhaps a better merge would be to merge the articles about the 1693 battle and the 1709 battle into the existing longer article about the 1687 battle? All three of these battle articles are already referenced in the history section of this article. Ba2kell (talk) 19:27, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Hmm.. I think Wikipedia articles are getting too long. If I were doing it I would keep the 3 battle articles, move the HBC business to a new article called Fort Albany (HBC) or similar and leave the rest as an account of the first nation. Benjamin Trovato (talk) 04:18, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Oppose: In fact, I'd be willing to say "Hard No." The only reason it's called the Fort Albany FN is because it is (one of) the subsequent First Nation to form from the tribal signatories to Treaty 9 when the treaty delegation reached the HBC fort of said name. They were a loose grouping of tribes and family groups who lived in/around the area of the HBC fort, and traded there, but were lumped together and tied to the Fort according to colonial mindsets. Suggestion: Create a page for the fort at Fort Albany, Ontario (currently a redirect). Move the European history and battles there, but maintain the FN page. FUNgus guy (talk) 23:56, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm glad to see your suggestion, as well as the one from Ba2kell above. The idea of splitting the article in two, one on the historical Hudson's Bay Company fort and one on the First Nation, is tempting; there isn't much literature that necessarily draws a link of continuity between the two institutions. However, as I thought about it more, I don't think separating the history of the two institutions is as clear-cut as it may seem. The lives of European traders and Indigenous people in the colonial era were deeply intertwined, commercially, politically, and socially. The "Old Post", which FAFN and Kashechewan refer to as the "first settlement" of their ancestors near their current site, was set up in the late 19th century-- in order to have a more permanent camp closer to the fort. The fur trade only really stopped in this area in the 1950s.

Ba2kell claims that this article is not about a location but about an indigenous people. Taking Indigenous ways of thinking into consideration, I don't think it is appropriate to separate a discussion of the people from the land (i.e. the location). Thinking about Wiki precedent, is it standard practice to have separate articles about the location a settlement is built on and the settlement itself? While it's essential to acknowledge in this article that the present-day First Nation is not simply a continuation of the 17th-century institution established by a British trading company, I do believe there is a clear historical reason why this (mostly) sedentary community of formerly nomadic people ended up on this site. The exploration of that reason-- the presence of an important HBC Fort at the site-- makes for a richer article. James Hyett (talk) 16:10, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

The FN page is about a tribal government and its people, many of whom live off-reserve. The ancestors of the FN members lived in the area long before HBC came in, and their descendants still live there long after the Fort was abandoned. As for your concern about Wiki precedent, I'll direct your attention to Moose Factory, with a separate page for the island, the First Nation, and the reserves Factory Island 1 and Moose Factory 68.

I appreciate your thoughts, but I feel that having two separate pages would be best. One for the tribal government, and one for the HBC fort. As Ba2kell stated, a lot of the history of the Fort had nothing to do with the Indigenous folks living around there. Of course, there is a lot of collective history as well, so I think the 2 pages could be complimentary to each other. I feel a combined page of European fort, battles, First Nation government, peoples, and land would be way too large for a Wiki article. FUNgus guy (talk) 22:16, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out Moose Factory. I'm now concerned that splitting up articles about individual reserves and the First Nation governments that run them (which does seem to be the norm) is really not how we should be doing things on Wikipedia. But that's a different conversation.

I hear you on splitting this article between the Fort and the First Nation, although to be fair, you haven't been entirely accurate about what Ba2kell said: they were responding to the initial merge proposal about the 1693 battle, which indeed didn't include any Indigenous nations as combatants. I would still suggest that a lot of the history of this location (post-French/English conflict) is intertwined between the European traders and the Indigenous people, see for instance the paragraph about the incident with Wappisis in the current article. How do you see the history section splitting? James Hyett (talk) 14:46, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

I would propose moving all the European history to the new page (and, I realize now, should probably be Fort Albany (Ontario), as it's an historic fort, not a municipality..). Then a condensed history of the Indigenous/European interaction on the FN page, with a prominent "main article:" link under the Euro history section to the HBC Fort page, and links to the battles that have pages, if relevant to the FN. FUNgus guy (talk) 03:21, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose merging these two articles, but I support User:Fungus Guy's suggestion: "Create a page for the fort at Fort Albany, Ontario (currently a redirect). Move the European history and battles there, but maintain the FN page." Also agree that the previous practice of creating separate stubs for First Nation governments and reserves is not helpful. Yuchitown (talk) 16:19, 18 January 2024 (UTC)Yuchitown

• Oppose - per Ba2kell and FUNgus

PersusjCP (talk) 17:28, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose per Ba2kell and FUNgus. Also agree with Yuchitown about creating a separate page for the fort.  oncamera  _{(talk page)} 20:58, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose as Battle of Fort Albany (1693) is part of a series of articles about the Nine Years' War in North America.Weatherford (talk) 21:55, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.