Chief Jacob Berens

1832/35 - 1916

Mr. Berens was a Ojibwa chief born between 1832 and 1835 in Berens River, Manitoba and son of Mahqwah (Maskwa, Bear) and Amo (Bee, Victoria) and married Mary McKay in 1862 and together had eight children and died in 1916 in Berens River.

Jacob Berens belonged to the third generation of a family which had migrated from the region of Lake Superior in the second half of the 1700's. His grandfather was Ozaawashkogaad (Yellow Legs), a widely known religious leader. Both Jacob and his father Mahqwah conducted Midewiwin (Grand Medicine Society) and shaking tent ceremonies and were long remembered for their power and abilities.

In 1875, Jacob Berens was a leader in negotiating Treaty # 5 with the Canadian government and its representatives Lieutenant Governor Alexander Morris and James McKay due to the developments of the steamships on Lake Winnipeg and the influx of Icelandic settlers on the western shores of the lake. The election of Jacob Berens as the first treaty chief over a large area reaching up the river to Little Grand Rapids, Manitoba and Pikangikum, Ontario and later these communities acquired their own chiefs and band status.

Beren’s people faced other profound changes during his four decades as chief which saw sustained commercial fishing beginning on Lake Winnipeg in 1883 and the following year Indian agent at Berens River, Angus McKay reported that the band was concerned about the encroachment of their whitefish and sturgeon fisheries. In 1899, more than two million pounds of whitefish was taken from the lake and these numbers peaked at seven and a half million pounds in 1904. Many native people, including Jacob’s son William, valued the new jobs offered by the commercial fishermen but the harm done to subsistence fishing brought strong complaints from the native communities around the lake.