Frederick Onondeyoh Loft

Born in 1861 on the Six Nations Reserve in what is currently Ontario, Frederick Loft, also known as Onondeyoh (“Beautiful Mountain”), was a prominent Mohawk activist who campaigned for Indigenous rights, including closing residential schools, which he called “veritable death-traps.” He enlisted in the Canadian Army in 1917 by lying about his age (he said he was 45 but he was really 56) and sailed for Britain shortly afterwards. He wrote a letter about his time in London shortly before he left for the front, discussing his impressions of the Canadian camp at Windsor: “The King’s Park is a grand spot, where we have been camping, drilling etc. There is really a riot of beauty in the English country side with all its bridges and gardens of flowers by every home. Grand roads for motoring. Houses, lodges and towns & cities look quaint & old-fashioned. There is a quiet dignity about it all.” He also related his time at the usual tourist highlights in London, including Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, and the Tower of London: “I visited the Tower of London; it and Westminster Abbey appeal to me much. The Tower is gorgeous in its display of the ancients in implements of warfare, also of the modern. The Crown Jewels are there in their glory and magnificence. Why I could not pretend to [?] what is to be seen there to feast thus upon for days. Truly every British subject who has seen London could not but say every subject of Britain should be more than proud of the greatest city in the Empire.” As a representative of the Grand River Iroquois Confederacy, he met with King George V at Buckingham Palace in early 1918, just before leaving to return to Canada.

Details text from https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/bts/2018/10/29/first-world-war-native-stories/. Image credit: Libraries and Archives Canada.