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Kahnawake surnames

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Kahnawake surnames

The Mohawk Nation reserve of Kahnawake, south of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, includes residents with surnames of Mohawk, French, Scots and English ancestry, reflecting its multicultural history. This included the adoption of European children into the community, as well as intermarriage with local colonial settlers over the life of the early village. Located along the St. Lawrence River south of the city of Montréal on the shores of the St-Louis rapids, it dates to 1667 as a Jesuit settlement called Mission Saint-François-Xavier du Sault-Saint-Louis. The original mission was located in what is now La Prairie and was called Kentake by its first Oneida settlers.

During the 1670s, the Catholic mission grew as many Mohawk families arrived; they rapidly outnumbered the more than twenty other Native groups that were represented there. Following four displacements, the mission was moved to its present-day location in 1716, where it was called Kahnawake, or "at the rapids". In the Mohawk language, Kahnawake residents refer to themselves by the autonym Kahnawakehro:non. Some families from here were co-founders of Akwesasne upriver, now known also as the St. Regis Reservation, as its territory extends across the St. Lawrence River into New York State. Their descendants also moved to the present-day reserve of Kanesatake.

The origins of some of Kahnawake's European family names were first published by Father Forbes in 1899. Below is detailed history of Kahnawake's most common surnames of European / North American origin.

Beauvais: the first Beauvais was André Karhaton, who married Marie-Anne Kahenratas before 1743. He was a young man from the Beauvais family of La Prairie who was adopted and raised in Kahnawake.

Canadien: this name comes from the wife of Charles Tehosteroton, granddaughter of Big John Canadian, whose father is unknown.

Curotte: this name is based on the French name Cureau or Curot. Pierre Curotte Taronhiorens married Marie-Joseph Karenhatirontha before 1748. Pierre's origins are vague, but he may have been a stolen or illegitimate child.

D'Ailleboust: this name originates from Ignace Soteriioskon dit D'Ailleboust, born in about 1733 (and died in 1797) from the marriage of Catherine Kawennakaion and La Prairie resident Antoine D'Ailleboust, sieur de Coulogne et de Mantet. The name is now spelled Diabo.

Several D'AiIlleboust from Montreal, Chateauguay and surrounding areas owned native slaves known as "panis", a term believed by historians from be a corruption of Panismahas, a sub-group of the Pawnee.

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