Oronhyatekha
| Oronhyatekha | |
|---|---|
Dr. Oronhyatekha
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
10 August 1841 Six Nations of the Grand River, Ontario, Canada |
| Died | 3 March 1907 (aged 65) Savannah, Georgia, United States |
Oronhyatekha (10 August 1841 – 3 March 1907), ("Burning Sky" or "Burning Cloud" in the Mohawk language, also carried the baptismal name Peter Martin), was a Mohawk physician, scholar, and a unique figure in the history of British colonialism. He was the first known aboriginal Oxford scholar; a successful CEO of a multinational financial institution; a native statesman; an athlete of international standing; and an outspoken champion of the rights of women, children, and minorities. Once thought to be the first Native M.D. in Canada, a recent book on Dr. Peter Edmund Jones, an Ojibwa from New Credit, has shown Jones to have graduated few months before Dr. Oronhyatekha. While all this would be remarkable in any age, that he achieved it during the Victorian era, when racism and assimilation were official state policies, has made him a figure approaching legend in some aboriginal circles.
Born 10 August 1841 on the Six Nations of the Grand River near Brantford, Ontario, he was the sixth son of Peter Martin and Lydia Loft, and one of fourteen children. He first attended the Mohawk Institute residential school and learned the shoemaker trade. He attended the Wesleyan Academy in Wilbraham, Massachusetts. After graduating, he taught for a year among the Indians and then entered Kenyon College for three years.
Oronhyatekha was selected at the age of twenty by the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy (consisting of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora Nations) to give the welcoming address to the Prince of Wales during his visit to the New World. Legend has it that Prince Edward was sufficiently impressed that he urged the young Oronhyatekha to attend the University of Oxford, where he himself had attended, but correspondence between Oronhyatekha and the Prince's physician Henry Acland suggests it was really Acland's idea. Acland taught at Oxford and became Oronhyatekha's mentor and friend for the rest of their lives. Oronhyatekha matriculated at St Edmund Hall, Oxford in May 1862 but returned home shortly afterwards in June of that year to clear his name of charges made by the Six Nations missionary Abraham Nelles.
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