Dehskan Ziibi

Deshkan Ziibi, the Antler River, is the Anishinaabe name for the river later called the Thames. Its branches drain the country between Lake Huron and Lake Erie before flowing west towards Lake St Clair. The Chippewas of the Thames and neighbouring peoples maintained their own relationships with the river and its lands long before British settlement expanded along its banks.

In 1793 Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe named the river the Thames and chose its forks as a possible site for the capital of Upper Canada. During the War of 1812, Chippewa warriors fought in the defence of the river at the Battle of Moraviantown in 1813. In the years that followed, the Chippewas of the Thames made the Longwoods Treaty with the British; written versions were recorded in 1819, 1820 and 1822.