An Overview of The Recorded Political History of Canada’s First Nations
From The European Devastation of Colonialism To The Present
(From the European-Canadian Perspective - An Historic Account From The Native Perspective Has Not Been Discovered)
Can anyone imagine what us Canadians, or Americans and Britons would think or do, if somehow an extremely strong and powerful nationstate rich in resources, sent soldiers riddled with infectious biological weapons, advanced artillery and warfare were to invade any one of those countries, taking over and occupying their land, overriding their existing laws, while attempting to convert those citizens from such countries to their own faith or religion while outlawing any and all parts of their own, including speaking their own language, whilst forcing them to live on a square patch of land in what was once their own country?
Today, we can hardly imagine such a thing occurring because those three mentioned countries represent very wealthy first-world nations, so other nations wouldn’t dare, but what if one did from this planet or possibly one from another? I don’t think any of those countries would like it very much, and it would be cause for an all out war for sure. People have a naturally-born right to defend their own person, their family and people, their homes, land and country, but what if such an 'enemy' seemed odd but smilingly cordial to the very faces of the trusting people whom they would commit such atrocious acts towards, in time. From the age of Colonialism that started in the 1600’s to right up until the 1930’s, (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 29) such an act has been subtly but brutally put into affect by the Royal Monarchs of Britain and then the newly founded country of Canada, against the mostly peaceful, curious, and considerate - original citizens of Canada and North America. This is their history, and it is also the history of my ancestors and maybe some of yours.
This basic historic overview will begin with the European's 'Age of Discovery' which lead to the crossing of the paths between the First Nations and the Europeans and the diseases they brought which obliterated two-thirds of the Native population, during the age of colonialism and cover the Europeans’ path through the Maritimes and across Canada, including the vast franchise of the Hudson Bay Company and its influence on varying locations across Canada, wars and conflicts they’ve encountered with the French and new American colonies, and the Friendship Treaties that were signed with the Natives so that they might afford them their support. And when the support of the Native Peoples were no longer needed, with the Dominion and jurisdiction of Canada complete, the eventual imposition of Canadian civility, society and beliefs on Native peoples lives, from the stealing of their land and subsequent confining of them to ‘reserves,’ the eradication of their means of survival and dependence on their economic monetary system, the jurisdiction of their laws and beliefs, the kidnapping of their children and the genocide of almost their entire culture and way of life, including their very languages! The paper will conclude with the first signs of progress that were achieved through discussions in the 1970’s, 1980’s, and 1990's along with the effects such progress has had with First Nations since but despite which, that there is still a very, very, long way to go to restore their culture to a fraction of what it use to be, for it is and always will be, a debt that can never fully be repaid.
European Colonization and The 'New World,' - 1400's
"The Europeans awakened slowly to the possibilities of a new World beyond the seas. Profound economic, political, social, and cultural changes swept through Europe between 1200 and 1500, and created both the impetus and the means to explore the seas that lay beyond the European continent." (Bennett et al. 1989, p. 52) "Historians have traditionally called the period between 1420 and 1620 the "Age of Discovery." (Bennet et al. 1989, p. 57) It has long been viewed as the beginning of an "heroic age" during which European explorers, and later missionaries and settlers, performed noble deeds. The "discoverers," particularly Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, and Jacques Cartier, are portrayed as "adventurous seafarers" who seem almost larger than life. It was, we are told, an era of missions leading to colonization, of bold efforts to implant "civilization" in the New World. (Bennett et al. 1989, p. 57)
"The catastrophe that befell the peoples of the Americas came from Europe. With the exception of the brief Norse settlements in Greenland and Newfoundland, the peoples of Europe were generally unaware of the existence of the Americas until the very end of the fifteenth century. Suddenly, in 1492, news circulated from the Spanish court that a Spanish expedition led by a Genoese mariner, Christopher Columbus, had found land far to the west. Columbus believed he had found Asia, and with it the sea route to the riches of China and India." (Bothwell 2006, p. 12) Ironically, though Columbus found the 'new world,' it was after an Italian sailor from whom "....the continent had a name, "America," after yet another Italian sailor, Amerigo Vespucci, whose descriptions of his voyages proved so popular in Europe that his name and not that of Columbus entered common usage." (Bothwell 2006, p. 14)
What had been discovered was a diverse land, immense in size and heavilly populated by the 'First Peoples' albeit they lived in accord with nature, travelling with the seasons and going where the good hunting was at any given time. Their culture was not one of permanent buildings that could be readily seen for instead of destroying nature to make such permanent villages and cities, they lived in peaceful harmony within it, with various tribes or bands spread across many different regions or 'hunting territories' across Canada. The Europeans, however, conveniently saw America as a wilderness and thought of the Natives as a part of that vast wilderness. "It was a European legal and moral convention to assume that land that had not been extensively used and modified by 'civilized' peoples was in fact empty, and so could be claimed by Christian, civilized Europeans." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 30) Each subsequent visit to explore the lands, meet and trade with its inhabitants, brought familiarity with what the land had to offer, eventually leading in the 1500's to upwards of 17, 000 Europeans tracking to places like Newfoundland each summer to fish, with some crew deciding to winter there despite there not being a permanent settlement at that point. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 31)
Sustained European Contact and Disease - 1500 to 1600's
The more Europeans came within sustained contact with the First People's to trade with them, the more they were exposed to diseases they had never encountered before and hence, did not have any natural immunity towards. "No one knows the extent of the first great smallpox epidemic in 1520-4. It began in the West Indies and Mexico and spread Northward to affect most of North America. It was followed by a devastating epidemic of measles just seven years later. An epidemic caused by an unknown pathogen affected people of the St. Lawrence Valley in 1535, and smallpox struck again in the eastern Great Lakes region in the early 1590's." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 31) Being that relations between the Europeans and the Indigenous Peoples across all of North America were just starting to get underway, there is no way to tell just how populated the continent was or how many Natives might have died due to the devastating epidemics but some have estimated that it could be as high as 18 million lives that were lost. "The cost in human life has been very great: susceptibility to European disease was a major factor in the decline of the indigenous population until the 1920's, to the extent that by the last part of the nineteenth century the indigenous population of the US and Canada dropped to around 300,000. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 31) With those numbers considered, it would not be an exaggeration to believe that in some cases, entire tribes may have been wiped out by disease, greatly reducing the opposition that Europeans may have been met with, upon deciding to permanently settle on Native land which they did next.
"Perhaps their eagerness for new technology was their downfall. A less curios or adaptable people might have ignored the Europeans and their goods and left them to live or, more probably, die on their own. Without the full co-operation and assistance of natives in showing the Europeans their methods of survival, their territory, and their resources, the early explorers and settlers would have perished in even greater numbers and possibly abandoned their quest, much as the Vikings had done five hundred years before. Instead, with the enthusiasm of natural free-traders, they welcomed the Europeans and their goods into existing trading systems. Any second thoughts came too late." (Morton 1994, p. 23)
Settlement of the Maritimes and The Interior - 1700's
The extreme popularity of Native fur in trade with the Europeans along with the abundant fisheries made the colder climate of Canada much more bearable considering the huge profits that were to be made so it is of little coincidence that the first settlements would eventually be built to nurture this trade on a year-round basis, during the early 17th century in and around the Atlantic Coasts of what has now become Canada and the United States. "European immigration began building in the 1630's with French, English, Dutch, and Swedish establishment of fur-trading posts and with experiments in agricultural settlement by the French and English" [....] with the various European nations establishing colonies in territory controlled by the indigenous nations with which each European nation had regularly allied itself in trade." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 31)
This trend of European immigrants competing for and building on the land of their allied indigenous nations through friendship treaties, continued much into the 17th century, encroaching slowly more and more upon their land and disrupting the ancient trade patterns that existed beforehand and as a result, disease continued to further obliterate the Native population during the entire century. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 31) "Military action against Indians was usually along lines consistent with the pattern of European alliance, but in New England there was military action against Indians for control of land. The military action, from the European colonizers' standpoint, was probably not as effective as disease. The effects of disease on Native populations were so obvious that English colonists could interpret the devastation brought by epidemics as divine sanction for European possession and repopulation of the land." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 32)
The 18th century was most notably marked by continued conflict over permanent areas of land in the New World between the different European nations that were seeking to colonize parts of it and between Britain and its new American colonies, whom were vying for power of their own and to disenfranchise themselves with the 'Mother Country.' Amongst the shifting of alliances and the blurred boundaries between newly established colonized nations, "Amerindian group's own attempts to control trade and land on their own terms, to adapt to the presence of Europeans, and above all to retain a land base for themselves that they might control... a series of strategic partnerships, negotiations, diplomatic ventures, and armed hostility, all orientated towards maximizing each Amerindian group's interests." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 33) At this time, attempts were made by the remaining natives of the New England areas and the American Atlantic coastal regions to ally themselves with each other by putting any past hostilities aside, tired of the wars they had got themselves caught up with amongst the american colonies and the European settlements to the North over the last two centuries. "Groups such as the Delaware, formed a collectivity from Algonquian survivors of groups north of Chesapeake Bay, first moved west to put themselves under the protection of their former antagonists, the Five Nations Iroquois, and then further west to the continental interior and to Upper Canada." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 33)
In 1763, The Royal Proclamation was established which required all negotiations go through the sole agency of the Crown, and "was a central component of an Imperial strategy to ally Indian nations with Britain." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 33) In so many beguiling words, Britain had managed to capture legal grounds for the guidance and governance of the aboriginal people's under what had become British territory. Also, shortly after the American Revolution ended, there was a one-time influx of British Loyalists from the US back into Canadian territory. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 33)
The end of the 1700's "saw increased direct trade between Europeans and Indians in the interior, building on primarily east-west trade routes that had been established in the fur trade among Indian groups. That trade was extended through the watersheds that led to the Hudson Bay." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 33) Trading reached the Pacific coast sometime during the end of the 1700's, shortly after disease had struck reducing their numbers from around 180,000 to 30,000. Russians had already arrived to establish trade, holding that Alaska was their territory, and having established permanent missionaries and trading outposts. However, the fight for trade domains between the two prevalent companies had yet to rage on. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 33)
The Hudson Bay Company, Vast Immigration, Sequestered Reservations & Assimilation - 1800's
The 1800's are most notable for the conflicting trade companies of the Montreal-based NorthWest Company with that of the London-based Hudson's Bay Company, which because of the amount of conflict and tensions between the two trading companies, and the fact that individual and Native trades had a history of coming to rather bloody predicaments, the British government amalgamated the two in 1821, extending their domains. These companies can not go understated for their establishment and widespread economic success and popularity, which successfully created trading routes and settlements across Canada's interior from east to west, which also caused the economic expansion through immigration seeking to make a living in the settlements. Trade relations in the west of British Columbia were mostly peaceful and being that was the case, it was a very beautiful and popular destination for European settlements as well, especially since knowledge of the Europeans had already spread so there was no need to repeat the alliances and warfare that occurred centuries prior with the introduction of the Europeans in the east. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 33)
This was a time of widespread 'displacement and migration.' (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 33) One can only imagine what it must have been like during the 1800's with more and more people coming to trade, immigrants coming from Europe to experience life in the 'New World' which of course was all at the expense of the Native population whom were utterly devastated at this point, if not by disease and death, it was by the fact that their home had been intruded upon and it was too late to ever get back what was once their peaceful way of life, living in accord with nature.
"When the possibility of war between the two countries (of Canada and the United States) diminished after the signing of a formal treaty in 1817, the importance of Indians as Military allies decreased and a period of oppressive attempts to control them began." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 34) Also between 1814 and the first world war, over 50 million people migrated from Europe to Canada and the United States, with 4 million of them settling in Canada. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 34) This dramatic increase of immigrants came at the expense of more land being taken away from the remaining Natives in order to facilitate homes and agricultural land to these new immigrants. Whats worse, is that the Canadian governments felt as though disease and plagues had all but wiped out the majority of Natives and that the ones whom remained were of a lesser hierarchy on the ladder of evolution then they, themselves appeared to be, thinking influenced by Darwin's popularity.
"An imperial policy of 'civilization' of Indians as communities began in 1830. It marked the beginning of the reserve period in Canada. Indians were to congregate on land reserved for them, apart from the rest of Canadian society, and, as communities, to adapt to Canada's changing social order by learning to farm." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 35) However, the first peoples who lived east of Lake Superior and around Rupert's Land which was still owned by the Hudson Bay Company, still maintained their autonomy over their lands in the areas, having done well over the generations in trading, which allowed them to maintain a measure of their normal way of life. "They effectively controlled the Plains, the western and northern woodlands and parklands, and the Arctic." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 35) However, as immigrants from Europe began to increase in the area of British Columbia by 1840, the government needed more land so the first reserves were put into place which saw an increase in government control over what was still autonomous natives. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 35) By the 1870's, governments went from looking to assimilate communities to individuals, and moved the sequestered reserves to closer proximity to immigrant communities as a way of working them into the system. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 35) Also, the first residential school systems were put into affect. "The government encouraged missionary activity and the nineteenth-century debate over which came first, civilization or Christianization, seems to have had its popular origins in this period." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p.35)
Prior to the time of confederation, aboriginal peoples still maintained control over themselves, their land, and way of life; however, once the Indian act of 1876 was put into place, this all changed. No longer were aboriginals able to maintain control over their way of life, despite their efforts. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 35) "Thus the establishment of reserves and the policy of wardship of Indians during an anticipated period of assimilation were cornerstones of the policies governing indigenous nations within Confederation. The policies that characterize the reserve period were begun in the 1830's, were modified in the 1850s and again in the late 1860s, and then were implemented as each area of the country was alienated from effective Native control. [...] The reserve era was one of control and containment of Indians, primarily under authority provided by the Indian Act." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 36) Luckily, in the regions to the far and very cold north, the Inuit, also referred to as the Northern Dene, were not imprisoned on such small patches of land and managed to stay relatively free. However, for others it wasn't such a good thing for all land was land owned by the crown so if Native peoples were to receive land that could be all their own, they needed to have a reserve given to them and some where their treaties had supplied them with these lands, hadn't yet received them nor others whom didn't qualify as 'status natives' such as the Metis whom were of mixed ancestry. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 37)
Assimilation, The Inevitable Resistance, & Discussions - 1900's
Europeans had not only moved onto Native lands, but they took the land away, and with it their own autonomy, their very children and with the children whom were the next generations, their language and culture, whilst forcing them to obey by a whole new set of laws and policies that they might never have fully understood or even agreed to. No longer could they hunt and harvest foods on the lands that were once theirs, to provide for their families, but were forced to become increasingly dependent on government support. "The era between the two world wars was one of particular economic hardship for many Canadians, and particularly so for the many First Nations people whose traditional subsistence base of agriculture and resource harvest had been destroyed." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 37)
The first Canadian wide organization of Native resistance began in 1919 with a Mohawk army officer by the name of Loft, whom "was an organizer of the League of Indians of Canada (Cutland, 1991). (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 37) Regional coalitions of First Nations groups began organizing in the 1920s and 1930s, one of which in Alberta was responsible for eventual government establishment of Metis settlements in the only province to set such land aside." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 37) This period marked a dramatic increase in Native population since the beginnings of sustained contact and what is worse is that as the rest of the country was involved in economic post-war development, the same miserable economic conditions were still being inflicted upon Natives, furthering the divide between the two peoples. So, "after World War II it became increasingly clear to government that the inequities perpetuated in the name of wardship had to change, but change was slow and often apparently in the wrong direction" (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 37) such as with the 1951 Indian Act revision which reinforced control.
Resistance of the 1960's
"A major change came in 1960 when registered and treaty Indians--quite abruptly and with negligible consultation--were recognized as citizens of Canada. The federal government took over administration of Indian and territorial schools from the missionary groups who had operated them since at least the 1850's, and many of the residential schools were phased out. The courts took on more importance as contentious issues were increasingly being settled there." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 37) Then, in 1969 the Canadian government announced in a famous 'white paper,' that Native peoples were to be no different than the European descendants whom had participated in encroaching upon their land, and were to be equal to them under the law with no more Indian Act or reserves. For people who literally have had everything taken away from them while being increasingly controlled and abused, this was yet another act of horror to be inflicted upon them by yet another government in another generation, continuing the trend of always being pushed aside under the disguise of pretty-sounding words.
The response that came from the National Indian Brotherhood which was later renamed the Assembly of First Nations was this:
The message was that injustice had been perpetuated but that government had not got the main point about the nature of the injustice. Rather than an equality in law as assimilated individuals, indigenous people--as groups and not as individuals--had rights that derived from their status as indigenous people. There were rights to land that had never been ceded, rights that derived from treaties, rights that inhered in the nature of indigenous people's relationships with land, and rights to govern themselves. Those rights had not been granted by the government and could not be removed by government: treaty rights had been negotiated and could not be unilaterally changed; other rights were inherent in Aboriginal status in Canada. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 38)
Discussions of the 1970's
Then in 1970's land disputes brought to Canadian Courts by the Nisga'a, Cree and Inuit "made First Nations' claims about land and rights credible to the federal government. [...] For the first time since Confederation there was a government willingness to discuss a remedy for the negative consequences of the policies of the reserve era." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 38) A process was set up by which claims could be addressed but the system was so slow that it was felt that centuries would literally go by, before all the claims had a chance to be heard. The 1970s also saw the first talks of a return to self-government of First Nations which included their schools and access to secondary education through funding. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 38)
Discussions of the 1980's
The decade of the 1980's began with Canada's negotiations to patriate themselves from Britain, which seemed to be the last step to what was Britain's colonization of the New World which Canada became. First Nation's testimony was a necessary requirement of this process and so they provided strong contemporary support and representations of what had occurred during the centuries of colonization with their ancestors, which resulted in considerable media and public awareness of the issues that they faced in the past and still faced. The results were Canada's successful partition from Britain as an independent country with indigenous rights being written into the Canada's new Constitution, along with their right to self-government reenacted. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 38)
Furthermore, in 1985 a new bill was passed called Bill-C31 which had previously taken away the status of any woman who married a non-native, which was an act that was founded in patriarchy and sexist inequality as a result for the same was not held true for men who married non-natives and were able to not only keep their status as registered Natives within Canada, and the rights that such status enabled them but pass such rights to their new wives as well. The resulting action was that a large amount of women were given status and First Nations were charged with defining the criteria for Native membership. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 38)
The Assembly of First Nations also played an instrumental part in what was the 1987 Meech Lake Accord. The accord sought to resolve issues that were the result of Canada being a Nation founded by two countries - England and France, with both having colonized parts of Canada. The Meech Lake Accord was seen as being "symbolic that a treaty Indian member of the Manitoba legislature, Elijah Harper, was able in 1990 to delay--and thus obviate--passage of the Accord and its acceptance by the rest of Canada. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 39)
Discussions of the 1990's
The second attempt to resolve the issues first brought up with the Meech Lake Accord occurred in 1992 via the Charlottetown Accord, with Quebec wanting to become separate from Canada through a referendum vote. Despite First Nations participation in creating the accord and the benefits that it would bring to the First Nations, they still voted against Quebec separating from Canada along with the majority of it's citizens. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 39)
Discussions Continue in the 2000's
In October of 2002, Bill C-7: The First Nations Governance Act was introduced to parliament, but it "died on the Order Paper with no prorogation of Parliament on 12 November 2003. (Parliament of Canada, Bill: C-7)
"On December 15, 2010 Bill C-3 Gender Equity in Indian Registration Act received Royal Assent and is in effect as of January 31, 2011. Bill C-3 will ensure that eligible grand-children of women who lost status as a result of marrying non-Indian men will become entitled to registration (Indian status). Because of this legislation, approximately 45,000 persons will become newly entitled to registration." (Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, Bill: C-3)
Between October 17th and 19th, 2012 a 2nd Provincial Native Education Summit entitled "Rekindling The Flame" was held and hosted in Kingsclear, NB, by the Kingsclear First Nation, to talk about what the issues facing Native Peoples with regard to attaining a full education are. We are still waiting for the results of this summit, but to find out what the issues were and which ones were considered a priority to be addressed first, click here.
Looking To The Future
There is an old Shakespeare quote that states "whats done is done," and the author of this paper interprets that to mean that we can not go back into the past regardless if its five minutes beforehand or 500 years past for indeed, 'whats done is done.' That being said, we can never forget whats been done either. It is said that we learn valuable lessons from the mistakes that we make and that we must remember these valuable lessons if history is not to repeat itself, especially history that has been of such a cruel sort through the pain and misery of sickness and death, through warfare and murder, of robbing people of their land, right to self-governance, abducting of people's children, and assimilation of their culture and entire way of life. We can never forget that the first World War started with the colonization of North America and with the death of Natives in the tens of millions.
But so too does another quote come to mind, one by a famous poet named Alexander Pope, "To err is human; to forgive, divine." Not one person on either side of the Colonization fence is alive today. The Royal Monarchs of all the Nations who sent their sea-faring adventurers in search of new lands are all dead, and all the Natives that were alive to witness such a life-changing apocalypse so too, have passed on. What is left are the descendants, including the current monarchs and those whom are of immigration descent and now in political positions, to help make the wrongs of the generations past, right again for the indigenous First People's of this land. For it is they, whom are descendant from the very people that such atrocities were committed against and they whom are still living and feeling the affects of those whom before them were so casually disregarded and tossed to the side, having been considered a primitive, savage, and much lower on the evolutionary ladder to be held in high esteem and treated with respect. In the words of even our contemporary, host Mike Holmes of HGTV, we need to 'Make It Right!' For though what has been done, is done, it is and will always be a debt that can never fully be repaid, but through communication, increased acquisition of land, the right to self-governance, and proper, ample funding we can help give back a measure of what was deprived of them. In the beginning, First Nations were seen as being internal and sovereign colonies within Canada, and it is the belief of this author that whatever is needed to have them return to such a way of life, should be so, including the shift to restore the most popular Native Language by making all of Canada a bilingual country and ensuring that First Nations History is taught in all public schools.
By Maryann Morgan, December 6, 2012
Today, we can hardly imagine such a thing occurring because those three mentioned countries represent very wealthy first-world nations, so other nations wouldn’t dare, but what if one did from this planet or possibly one from another? I don’t think any of those countries would like it very much, and it would be cause for an all out war for sure. People have a naturally-born right to defend their own person, their family and people, their homes, land and country, but what if such an 'enemy' seemed odd but smilingly cordial to the very faces of the trusting people whom they would commit such atrocious acts towards, in time. From the age of Colonialism that started in the 1600’s to right up until the 1930’s, (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 29) such an act has been subtly but brutally put into affect by the Royal Monarchs of Britain and then the newly founded country of Canada, against the mostly peaceful, curious, and considerate - original citizens of Canada and North America. This is their history, and it is also the history of my ancestors and maybe some of yours.
This basic historic overview will begin with the European's 'Age of Discovery' which lead to the crossing of the paths between the First Nations and the Europeans and the diseases they brought which obliterated two-thirds of the Native population, during the age of colonialism and cover the Europeans’ path through the Maritimes and across Canada, including the vast franchise of the Hudson Bay Company and its influence on varying locations across Canada, wars and conflicts they’ve encountered with the French and new American colonies, and the Friendship Treaties that were signed with the Natives so that they might afford them their support. And when the support of the Native Peoples were no longer needed, with the Dominion and jurisdiction of Canada complete, the eventual imposition of Canadian civility, society and beliefs on Native peoples lives, from the stealing of their land and subsequent confining of them to ‘reserves,’ the eradication of their means of survival and dependence on their economic monetary system, the jurisdiction of their laws and beliefs, the kidnapping of their children and the genocide of almost their entire culture and way of life, including their very languages! The paper will conclude with the first signs of progress that were achieved through discussions in the 1970’s, 1980’s, and 1990's along with the effects such progress has had with First Nations since but despite which, that there is still a very, very, long way to go to restore their culture to a fraction of what it use to be, for it is and always will be, a debt that can never fully be repaid.
European Colonization and The 'New World,' - 1400's
"The Europeans awakened slowly to the possibilities of a new World beyond the seas. Profound economic, political, social, and cultural changes swept through Europe between 1200 and 1500, and created both the impetus and the means to explore the seas that lay beyond the European continent." (Bennett et al. 1989, p. 52) "Historians have traditionally called the period between 1420 and 1620 the "Age of Discovery." (Bennet et al. 1989, p. 57) It has long been viewed as the beginning of an "heroic age" during which European explorers, and later missionaries and settlers, performed noble deeds. The "discoverers," particularly Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, and Jacques Cartier, are portrayed as "adventurous seafarers" who seem almost larger than life. It was, we are told, an era of missions leading to colonization, of bold efforts to implant "civilization" in the New World. (Bennett et al. 1989, p. 57)
"The catastrophe that befell the peoples of the Americas came from Europe. With the exception of the brief Norse settlements in Greenland and Newfoundland, the peoples of Europe were generally unaware of the existence of the Americas until the very end of the fifteenth century. Suddenly, in 1492, news circulated from the Spanish court that a Spanish expedition led by a Genoese mariner, Christopher Columbus, had found land far to the west. Columbus believed he had found Asia, and with it the sea route to the riches of China and India." (Bothwell 2006, p. 12) Ironically, though Columbus found the 'new world,' it was after an Italian sailor from whom "....the continent had a name, "America," after yet another Italian sailor, Amerigo Vespucci, whose descriptions of his voyages proved so popular in Europe that his name and not that of Columbus entered common usage." (Bothwell 2006, p. 14)
What had been discovered was a diverse land, immense in size and heavilly populated by the 'First Peoples' albeit they lived in accord with nature, travelling with the seasons and going where the good hunting was at any given time. Their culture was not one of permanent buildings that could be readily seen for instead of destroying nature to make such permanent villages and cities, they lived in peaceful harmony within it, with various tribes or bands spread across many different regions or 'hunting territories' across Canada. The Europeans, however, conveniently saw America as a wilderness and thought of the Natives as a part of that vast wilderness. "It was a European legal and moral convention to assume that land that had not been extensively used and modified by 'civilized' peoples was in fact empty, and so could be claimed by Christian, civilized Europeans." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 30) Each subsequent visit to explore the lands, meet and trade with its inhabitants, brought familiarity with what the land had to offer, eventually leading in the 1500's to upwards of 17, 000 Europeans tracking to places like Newfoundland each summer to fish, with some crew deciding to winter there despite there not being a permanent settlement at that point. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 31)
Sustained European Contact and Disease - 1500 to 1600's
The more Europeans came within sustained contact with the First People's to trade with them, the more they were exposed to diseases they had never encountered before and hence, did not have any natural immunity towards. "No one knows the extent of the first great smallpox epidemic in 1520-4. It began in the West Indies and Mexico and spread Northward to affect most of North America. It was followed by a devastating epidemic of measles just seven years later. An epidemic caused by an unknown pathogen affected people of the St. Lawrence Valley in 1535, and smallpox struck again in the eastern Great Lakes region in the early 1590's." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 31) Being that relations between the Europeans and the Indigenous Peoples across all of North America were just starting to get underway, there is no way to tell just how populated the continent was or how many Natives might have died due to the devastating epidemics but some have estimated that it could be as high as 18 million lives that were lost. "The cost in human life has been very great: susceptibility to European disease was a major factor in the decline of the indigenous population until the 1920's, to the extent that by the last part of the nineteenth century the indigenous population of the US and Canada dropped to around 300,000. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 31) With those numbers considered, it would not be an exaggeration to believe that in some cases, entire tribes may have been wiped out by disease, greatly reducing the opposition that Europeans may have been met with, upon deciding to permanently settle on Native land which they did next.
"Perhaps their eagerness for new technology was their downfall. A less curios or adaptable people might have ignored the Europeans and their goods and left them to live or, more probably, die on their own. Without the full co-operation and assistance of natives in showing the Europeans their methods of survival, their territory, and their resources, the early explorers and settlers would have perished in even greater numbers and possibly abandoned their quest, much as the Vikings had done five hundred years before. Instead, with the enthusiasm of natural free-traders, they welcomed the Europeans and their goods into existing trading systems. Any second thoughts came too late." (Morton 1994, p. 23)
Settlement of the Maritimes and The Interior - 1700's
The extreme popularity of Native fur in trade with the Europeans along with the abundant fisheries made the colder climate of Canada much more bearable considering the huge profits that were to be made so it is of little coincidence that the first settlements would eventually be built to nurture this trade on a year-round basis, during the early 17th century in and around the Atlantic Coasts of what has now become Canada and the United States. "European immigration began building in the 1630's with French, English, Dutch, and Swedish establishment of fur-trading posts and with experiments in agricultural settlement by the French and English" [....] with the various European nations establishing colonies in territory controlled by the indigenous nations with which each European nation had regularly allied itself in trade." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 31)
This trend of European immigrants competing for and building on the land of their allied indigenous nations through friendship treaties, continued much into the 17th century, encroaching slowly more and more upon their land and disrupting the ancient trade patterns that existed beforehand and as a result, disease continued to further obliterate the Native population during the entire century. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 31) "Military action against Indians was usually along lines consistent with the pattern of European alliance, but in New England there was military action against Indians for control of land. The military action, from the European colonizers' standpoint, was probably not as effective as disease. The effects of disease on Native populations were so obvious that English colonists could interpret the devastation brought by epidemics as divine sanction for European possession and repopulation of the land." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 32)
The 18th century was most notably marked by continued conflict over permanent areas of land in the New World between the different European nations that were seeking to colonize parts of it and between Britain and its new American colonies, whom were vying for power of their own and to disenfranchise themselves with the 'Mother Country.' Amongst the shifting of alliances and the blurred boundaries between newly established colonized nations, "Amerindian group's own attempts to control trade and land on their own terms, to adapt to the presence of Europeans, and above all to retain a land base for themselves that they might control... a series of strategic partnerships, negotiations, diplomatic ventures, and armed hostility, all orientated towards maximizing each Amerindian group's interests." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 33) At this time, attempts were made by the remaining natives of the New England areas and the American Atlantic coastal regions to ally themselves with each other by putting any past hostilities aside, tired of the wars they had got themselves caught up with amongst the american colonies and the European settlements to the North over the last two centuries. "Groups such as the Delaware, formed a collectivity from Algonquian survivors of groups north of Chesapeake Bay, first moved west to put themselves under the protection of their former antagonists, the Five Nations Iroquois, and then further west to the continental interior and to Upper Canada." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 33)
In 1763, The Royal Proclamation was established which required all negotiations go through the sole agency of the Crown, and "was a central component of an Imperial strategy to ally Indian nations with Britain." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 33) In so many beguiling words, Britain had managed to capture legal grounds for the guidance and governance of the aboriginal people's under what had become British territory. Also, shortly after the American Revolution ended, there was a one-time influx of British Loyalists from the US back into Canadian territory. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 33)
The end of the 1700's "saw increased direct trade between Europeans and Indians in the interior, building on primarily east-west trade routes that had been established in the fur trade among Indian groups. That trade was extended through the watersheds that led to the Hudson Bay." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 33) Trading reached the Pacific coast sometime during the end of the 1700's, shortly after disease had struck reducing their numbers from around 180,000 to 30,000. Russians had already arrived to establish trade, holding that Alaska was their territory, and having established permanent missionaries and trading outposts. However, the fight for trade domains between the two prevalent companies had yet to rage on. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 33)
The Hudson Bay Company, Vast Immigration, Sequestered Reservations & Assimilation - 1800's
The 1800's are most notable for the conflicting trade companies of the Montreal-based NorthWest Company with that of the London-based Hudson's Bay Company, which because of the amount of conflict and tensions between the two trading companies, and the fact that individual and Native trades had a history of coming to rather bloody predicaments, the British government amalgamated the two in 1821, extending their domains. These companies can not go understated for their establishment and widespread economic success and popularity, which successfully created trading routes and settlements across Canada's interior from east to west, which also caused the economic expansion through immigration seeking to make a living in the settlements. Trade relations in the west of British Columbia were mostly peaceful and being that was the case, it was a very beautiful and popular destination for European settlements as well, especially since knowledge of the Europeans had already spread so there was no need to repeat the alliances and warfare that occurred centuries prior with the introduction of the Europeans in the east. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 33)
This was a time of widespread 'displacement and migration.' (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 33) One can only imagine what it must have been like during the 1800's with more and more people coming to trade, immigrants coming from Europe to experience life in the 'New World' which of course was all at the expense of the Native population whom were utterly devastated at this point, if not by disease and death, it was by the fact that their home had been intruded upon and it was too late to ever get back what was once their peaceful way of life, living in accord with nature.
"When the possibility of war between the two countries (of Canada and the United States) diminished after the signing of a formal treaty in 1817, the importance of Indians as Military allies decreased and a period of oppressive attempts to control them began." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 34) Also between 1814 and the first world war, over 50 million people migrated from Europe to Canada and the United States, with 4 million of them settling in Canada. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 34) This dramatic increase of immigrants came at the expense of more land being taken away from the remaining Natives in order to facilitate homes and agricultural land to these new immigrants. Whats worse, is that the Canadian governments felt as though disease and plagues had all but wiped out the majority of Natives and that the ones whom remained were of a lesser hierarchy on the ladder of evolution then they, themselves appeared to be, thinking influenced by Darwin's popularity.
"An imperial policy of 'civilization' of Indians as communities began in 1830. It marked the beginning of the reserve period in Canada. Indians were to congregate on land reserved for them, apart from the rest of Canadian society, and, as communities, to adapt to Canada's changing social order by learning to farm." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 35) However, the first peoples who lived east of Lake Superior and around Rupert's Land which was still owned by the Hudson Bay Company, still maintained their autonomy over their lands in the areas, having done well over the generations in trading, which allowed them to maintain a measure of their normal way of life. "They effectively controlled the Plains, the western and northern woodlands and parklands, and the Arctic." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 35) However, as immigrants from Europe began to increase in the area of British Columbia by 1840, the government needed more land so the first reserves were put into place which saw an increase in government control over what was still autonomous natives. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 35) By the 1870's, governments went from looking to assimilate communities to individuals, and moved the sequestered reserves to closer proximity to immigrant communities as a way of working them into the system. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 35) Also, the first residential school systems were put into affect. "The government encouraged missionary activity and the nineteenth-century debate over which came first, civilization or Christianization, seems to have had its popular origins in this period." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p.35)
Prior to the time of confederation, aboriginal peoples still maintained control over themselves, their land, and way of life; however, once the Indian act of 1876 was put into place, this all changed. No longer were aboriginals able to maintain control over their way of life, despite their efforts. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 35) "Thus the establishment of reserves and the policy of wardship of Indians during an anticipated period of assimilation were cornerstones of the policies governing indigenous nations within Confederation. The policies that characterize the reserve period were begun in the 1830's, were modified in the 1850s and again in the late 1860s, and then were implemented as each area of the country was alienated from effective Native control. [...] The reserve era was one of control and containment of Indians, primarily under authority provided by the Indian Act." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 36) Luckily, in the regions to the far and very cold north, the Inuit, also referred to as the Northern Dene, were not imprisoned on such small patches of land and managed to stay relatively free. However, for others it wasn't such a good thing for all land was land owned by the crown so if Native peoples were to receive land that could be all their own, they needed to have a reserve given to them and some where their treaties had supplied them with these lands, hadn't yet received them nor others whom didn't qualify as 'status natives' such as the Metis whom were of mixed ancestry. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 37)
Assimilation, The Inevitable Resistance, & Discussions - 1900's
Europeans had not only moved onto Native lands, but they took the land away, and with it their own autonomy, their very children and with the children whom were the next generations, their language and culture, whilst forcing them to obey by a whole new set of laws and policies that they might never have fully understood or even agreed to. No longer could they hunt and harvest foods on the lands that were once theirs, to provide for their families, but were forced to become increasingly dependent on government support. "The era between the two world wars was one of particular economic hardship for many Canadians, and particularly so for the many First Nations people whose traditional subsistence base of agriculture and resource harvest had been destroyed." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 37)
The first Canadian wide organization of Native resistance began in 1919 with a Mohawk army officer by the name of Loft, whom "was an organizer of the League of Indians of Canada (Cutland, 1991). (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 37) Regional coalitions of First Nations groups began organizing in the 1920s and 1930s, one of which in Alberta was responsible for eventual government establishment of Metis settlements in the only province to set such land aside." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 37) This period marked a dramatic increase in Native population since the beginnings of sustained contact and what is worse is that as the rest of the country was involved in economic post-war development, the same miserable economic conditions were still being inflicted upon Natives, furthering the divide between the two peoples. So, "after World War II it became increasingly clear to government that the inequities perpetuated in the name of wardship had to change, but change was slow and often apparently in the wrong direction" (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 37) such as with the 1951 Indian Act revision which reinforced control.
Resistance of the 1960's
"A major change came in 1960 when registered and treaty Indians--quite abruptly and with negligible consultation--were recognized as citizens of Canada. The federal government took over administration of Indian and territorial schools from the missionary groups who had operated them since at least the 1850's, and many of the residential schools were phased out. The courts took on more importance as contentious issues were increasingly being settled there." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 37) Then, in 1969 the Canadian government announced in a famous 'white paper,' that Native peoples were to be no different than the European descendants whom had participated in encroaching upon their land, and were to be equal to them under the law with no more Indian Act or reserves. For people who literally have had everything taken away from them while being increasingly controlled and abused, this was yet another act of horror to be inflicted upon them by yet another government in another generation, continuing the trend of always being pushed aside under the disguise of pretty-sounding words.
The response that came from the National Indian Brotherhood which was later renamed the Assembly of First Nations was this:
The message was that injustice had been perpetuated but that government had not got the main point about the nature of the injustice. Rather than an equality in law as assimilated individuals, indigenous people--as groups and not as individuals--had rights that derived from their status as indigenous people. There were rights to land that had never been ceded, rights that derived from treaties, rights that inhered in the nature of indigenous people's relationships with land, and rights to govern themselves. Those rights had not been granted by the government and could not be removed by government: treaty rights had been negotiated and could not be unilaterally changed; other rights were inherent in Aboriginal status in Canada. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 38)
Discussions of the 1970's
Then in 1970's land disputes brought to Canadian Courts by the Nisga'a, Cree and Inuit "made First Nations' claims about land and rights credible to the federal government. [...] For the first time since Confederation there was a government willingness to discuss a remedy for the negative consequences of the policies of the reserve era." (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 38) A process was set up by which claims could be addressed but the system was so slow that it was felt that centuries would literally go by, before all the claims had a chance to be heard. The 1970s also saw the first talks of a return to self-government of First Nations which included their schools and access to secondary education through funding. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 38)
Discussions of the 1980's
The decade of the 1980's began with Canada's negotiations to patriate themselves from Britain, which seemed to be the last step to what was Britain's colonization of the New World which Canada became. First Nation's testimony was a necessary requirement of this process and so they provided strong contemporary support and representations of what had occurred during the centuries of colonization with their ancestors, which resulted in considerable media and public awareness of the issues that they faced in the past and still faced. The results were Canada's successful partition from Britain as an independent country with indigenous rights being written into the Canada's new Constitution, along with their right to self-government reenacted. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 38)
Furthermore, in 1985 a new bill was passed called Bill-C31 which had previously taken away the status of any woman who married a non-native, which was an act that was founded in patriarchy and sexist inequality as a result for the same was not held true for men who married non-natives and were able to not only keep their status as registered Natives within Canada, and the rights that such status enabled them but pass such rights to their new wives as well. The resulting action was that a large amount of women were given status and First Nations were charged with defining the criteria for Native membership. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 38)
The Assembly of First Nations also played an instrumental part in what was the 1987 Meech Lake Accord. The accord sought to resolve issues that were the result of Canada being a Nation founded by two countries - England and France, with both having colonized parts of Canada. The Meech Lake Accord was seen as being "symbolic that a treaty Indian member of the Manitoba legislature, Elijah Harper, was able in 1990 to delay--and thus obviate--passage of the Accord and its acceptance by the rest of Canada. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 39)
Discussions of the 1990's
The second attempt to resolve the issues first brought up with the Meech Lake Accord occurred in 1992 via the Charlottetown Accord, with Quebec wanting to become separate from Canada through a referendum vote. Despite First Nations participation in creating the accord and the benefits that it would bring to the First Nations, they still voted against Quebec separating from Canada along with the majority of it's citizens. (Morrison & Wilson 2004, p. 39)
Discussions Continue in the 2000's
In October of 2002, Bill C-7: The First Nations Governance Act was introduced to parliament, but it "died on the Order Paper with no prorogation of Parliament on 12 November 2003. (Parliament of Canada, Bill: C-7)
"On December 15, 2010 Bill C-3 Gender Equity in Indian Registration Act received Royal Assent and is in effect as of January 31, 2011. Bill C-3 will ensure that eligible grand-children of women who lost status as a result of marrying non-Indian men will become entitled to registration (Indian status). Because of this legislation, approximately 45,000 persons will become newly entitled to registration." (Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, Bill: C-3)
Between October 17th and 19th, 2012 a 2nd Provincial Native Education Summit entitled "Rekindling The Flame" was held and hosted in Kingsclear, NB, by the Kingsclear First Nation, to talk about what the issues facing Native Peoples with regard to attaining a full education are. We are still waiting for the results of this summit, but to find out what the issues were and which ones were considered a priority to be addressed first, click here.
Looking To The Future
There is an old Shakespeare quote that states "whats done is done," and the author of this paper interprets that to mean that we can not go back into the past regardless if its five minutes beforehand or 500 years past for indeed, 'whats done is done.' That being said, we can never forget whats been done either. It is said that we learn valuable lessons from the mistakes that we make and that we must remember these valuable lessons if history is not to repeat itself, especially history that has been of such a cruel sort through the pain and misery of sickness and death, through warfare and murder, of robbing people of their land, right to self-governance, abducting of people's children, and assimilation of their culture and entire way of life. We can never forget that the first World War started with the colonization of North America and with the death of Natives in the tens of millions.
But so too does another quote come to mind, one by a famous poet named Alexander Pope, "To err is human; to forgive, divine." Not one person on either side of the Colonization fence is alive today. The Royal Monarchs of all the Nations who sent their sea-faring adventurers in search of new lands are all dead, and all the Natives that were alive to witness such a life-changing apocalypse so too, have passed on. What is left are the descendants, including the current monarchs and those whom are of immigration descent and now in political positions, to help make the wrongs of the generations past, right again for the indigenous First People's of this land. For it is they, whom are descendant from the very people that such atrocities were committed against and they whom are still living and feeling the affects of those whom before them were so casually disregarded and tossed to the side, having been considered a primitive, savage, and much lower on the evolutionary ladder to be held in high esteem and treated with respect. In the words of even our contemporary, host Mike Holmes of HGTV, we need to 'Make It Right!' For though what has been done, is done, it is and will always be a debt that can never fully be repaid, but through communication, increased acquisition of land, the right to self-governance, and proper, ample funding we can help give back a measure of what was deprived of them. In the beginning, First Nations were seen as being internal and sovereign colonies within Canada, and it is the belief of this author that whatever is needed to have them return to such a way of life, should be so, including the shift to restore the most popular Native Language by making all of Canada a bilingual country and ensuring that First Nations History is taught in all public schools.
By Maryann Morgan, December 6, 2012
References
- Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada. (2012) Registration Process for Bill C-3 Applicants. Retrieved on December 6th, 2012. From: http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1305747570701/1305747904278
- Bennett Paul W., Jaenen, Cornelius J., Brune, Nick., Skeoch, Alan. (1989). Canada: A north American nation. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited
- Bothwell, Robert. (2006). The penguin history of Canada. Toronto: Penguin Canada
- Conrad, Margaret, and Finkel, Alvin. (2007). Canada: A national history. Second Edition. Toronto: Pearson Canada Inc.
- Ertler, Klaus-Dieter, Loschnigg, Martin and Volkl Yvonne. (2011). Canadiana: Cultural constructions of migration in Canada. Frankfurt: Peter Lang
- Frideres, James S. (1998). Aboriginal peoples in Canada: Contemporary Conflicts. Fifth Edition. Scarborough: Prentice Hall Allyn and Bacon Canada.
- Masters, D. C. (1958). A short history of Canada. Princeton: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc.
- Morton, Desmond. (1994). A shorty history of Canada. Second Revised Edition. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Inc.
- Morrison, Bruce R. & Wilson, C. Roderick. (2004). Native people's: The Canadian experience. Third Edition. Don Mills: Oxford University Press.
- PAPA People Assisting Parents Association. (2012). A Condensed Timeline of Events. Retrieved On December 2nd, 2012, From: http://www.pa-pa.ca/Natives.html
- Parliament of Canada. (2012). Bill C-7: The First Nations Governance Act. Retrieved December 6, 2012. From: http://www.parl.gc.ca/About/Parliament/LegislativeSummaries/bills_ls.asp?lang=E&ls=c7&Parl=37&Ses=2&source=library_prb
- Robertson, Heather. (1991). Reservations are for Indians. Second Edition. Toronto: James Lorimer & Company Ltd.
- See, Scott W. (2001). The history of Canada. The Greenwood histories of the modern nations. Connecticut: Greenwood Press.