Europeans and Amerindians: Some Comparative Aspects of Early Contact

Les nations européennes qui tentèrent d'établir un empire dans le nouveau monde partagèrent la même attitude fondamentale même si leurs façons de traiter les Amérindiens ont différé. Toutes et chacune croyaient qu'en tant que nation chrétienne elles avaient un droit d'hégémonie sur les terres et les peuples non-chrétiens, voire même, dans le cas des Amériques, elles considéraient qu'elles n'avaient pas à tenir compte des désirs des autochtones.Le fait d'établir une suzeraineté supposait, cependant, qu'une entente quelconque s'établisse entre les Européens et les Amérindiens, qu'il s'agisse d'une « conquête » ou d'un « accord » obtenu plus ou moins volontairement. Assez curieusement, on appela ces ententes des « traités ». Certains furent écrits à l'européenne, d'autres furent conclus à l'amérindienne et certains empruntèrent aux deux façons. Règle générale, l'Espagne n'eut recours au traité écrit que vers la fin du 18e siècle et le Portugal, lui, ne l'utilisa que très rarement. La France préféra presque toujours la manière amérindienne sauf dans les cas où la contrepartie était alliée à d'autres nations européennes. L'Angleterre, de son côté, opta très tôt pour le contrat écrit de même que la Hollande qui fut la première à acheter les terres qu'elle occupait, établissant ainsi un genre de titre de propriété.Malgré ces diverses façons de faire, les nations européennes restèrent constantes dans leur attitude première et, en aucun temps, n'acceptèrent-elles les Amérindiens en tant que peuples souverains dans la famille des nations ; de même, elles ne les considérèrent jamais comme ayant un statut social correspondant aux leurs. C'est cette attitude, bien plus que la bonté ou la cruauté, qui a profondément affecté la situation de l'Amérindien à mesure que l'Européen s'emparait des Amériques

Campaigns to Capture Young Minds: A Look at Early Attempts in Colonial Mexico and New France to Remold Amerindians

Both French and Spanish authorities saw the education of Amerindians as an essential tool in assimilating them to European ways. Both groups thought that the natives were either uneducated, and therefore clean slates for new teachings, or else sufficiently capable of understanding the superiority of foreign ways. In either case, education was the necessary vehicle for turning the natives towards European habits and norms of behaviour. The approach of each group was different. The Spanish, through the Franciscans, were able to take over an existing system, altering it to suit their own needs. They therefore devised a sophisticated system of institutions quickly, establishing a college by 1536. These efforts enjoyed a huge initial success, largely because the natives in their defeat experienced little difficulty in substituting one set of authority figures for another set already found wanting. The French were not conquerers, and did not face a native society in crisis, as had the Spanish. The French Franciscan friars also initiated christianizing education quickly after first settlement, but the Jesuits superceded them within two decades. The natives agreed to their ministrations because the French made it a condition of trade. Huron society differed radically from that of the Mexico, in its egalitarian structure and flexible institutions. The Huron, an unconquered people in a transitional phase of social and economic life, treated the missionaries as guests and often dictated the conditions of contact. In spite of quite different circumstances, the educational efforts of both groups seem to have reached a similar conclusion: native groups were neither as maleable nor as easy to assimilate as the Europeans had thought.Les colonisateurs français et espagnols s'entendaient pour voir dans l'éducation des Amérindiens un outil indispensable d'assimilation. Des deux côtés, ils pensaient que les autochtones étaient soit sans éducation, constituant dès lors un terrain propice à de nouveaux apprentissages, ou bien qu'ils étaient en mesure de comprendre la supériorité de l'éducation étrangère. Dans les deux cas, l'éducation était l'instrument nécessaire si l'on voulait voir les autochtones s'adapter aux us et coutumes des Européens. L'approche de chaque groupe était différente. Les Espagnols, par l'intermédiaire des Franciscains, furent à même de reprendre un système existant et de le modifier selon leurs propres besoins. Ils développèrent donc rapidement un savant réseau d'institutions scolaires, établissant un collège vers 1536. Leurs efforts obtinrent un immense succès, surtout parce que les autochtones conquis montrèrent peu de difficulté à passer d'une autorité à une autre qui correspondait à leurs désirs. Les Français ne se présentaient pas en conquérants, et ils n 'eurent pas, comme les Espagnols, à affronter une société autochtone en crise, les Récollets français entreprirent l'éducation chrétienne dès leur premier établissement. Puis les Jésuites leur succédèrent en moins de vingt ans. Les autochtones acceptèrent leur ministère parce que les Français en faisaient une condition du commerce. Les Hurons différaient radicalement des Indiens du Mexique par leur organisation démocratique et par la souplesse de leurs institutions. Ce n'est pas en peuple conquis que les Hurons entrèrent dans cette phase de transition de leur vie sociale et économique. Ils traitèrent les missionnaires comme des hôtes et dictèrent souvent les conditions des échanges. En dépit de circonstances bien différentes, les efforts des deux groupes touchant l'éducation arrivèrent au même résultat; les autochtones ne furent ni aussi maleables ni aussi faciles à assimiler que les Européens l'avaient pensé

Review of \u3ci\u3eLakol Wokiksuye: La Memoire Visuel des Lakota\u3c/i\u3e By Helga Lomosits and Paul Harbaugh

A principal problem with this presentation is the technical quality of the pictorial reproductions, which is somber indeed. Moreoever, the world shown here is almost entirely male: the crowd scenes include comparatively few women, and only one woman\u27s portrait (Annie Red Shirt\u27s) is admitted. What does this reflect-the bias of the photographers, the realities of the age, or perhaps a combination of both? The presentation of the material, well organized and clear as it is, also would have profitted from numbered pages. Although some statements here and there in the text are questionable-that the cost of the frontier wars, for example, was a million dollars for every Indian killed-the work\u27s multi-dimensional approach brings new life to a much-debated aspect of Amercan frontier history

Review of \u3ci\u3eAboriginal People and Colonizers of Western Canada to 1900\u3c/i\u3e By Sarah Carter

This critical survey of Western Canadian history seeks to set the record straight. Sarah Carter takes issue with prevalent versions, much of which she sees as distorted because of inadequate or suppressed information, as well as from biases and misconceptions. As she points out, in some cases there have been actual misrepresentations: the accounts of explorer Samuel Hearne (1745-92), who reached the Arctic Ocean overland, and artist Paul Kane (1810- 71), who recorded Plains Indian life in his paintings while keeping a diary, were altered by publishers with an eye to sales. A consistent underestimation of the role of Indians in the fur trade and during the time of treaty-signing can be traced to a pervasive racial stereotyping. In countering these and other failings, Carter does not confine herself to pointing them out; she also provides alternative interpretations, particularly where she has new information. While this approach makes for a more richly textured history than has been standard fare for the Canadian West in the past, its limitation lies in Carter\u27s being as much a historian of her time as those she criticizes. For one thing, she tends to idealize Indian societies, a reflection of the mood of our times. She also slips up on details, referring, for example, to the disappearance of the buffalo herds as the extermination of the buffalo, and analyzing the effects of the extermination of the species on Amerindian societies. That the disappearance of the herds was not the equivalent to the disappearance of the species is confirmed by the thriving animals in national parks. As for the proclaimed Aboriginal social principle of respectful relationships among equal parties, this has been by no means universally honored. The largest Stone Age empire the world has known was that of the Inca of Peru, and it was highly centralized, even to the use of language. In North America, social structures ranged from those of the hierarchical Natchez and peoples of the Northwest Coast to those of the various branches of the egalitarian Cree. Although it is easy to argue with Carter\u27s goal of creating a definitive history for Western Canada, she has still enlarged and enlivened the popular view. As is the rule with history in general, however, the revisions will never end, as there will always be new questions, not to mention new information

Review of \u3ci\u3eMany Tender Ties: Women in Fur-Trade Society, 1670-1870\u3c/i\u3e By Sylvia Van Kirk

The bittersweet story of women in the fur trade of the Canadian Northwest has been a long time in the telling. According to standard historical interpretations, trading furs was an exclusively male domain; related activity, particularly if it involved women, was seen as peripheral, and often as libertine. As Sylvia Van Kirk makes clear, however, that is a one-sided view at best; the previously dismissed social aspect of the fur trade was far more important than has generally been assumed. The Hudson\u27s Bay Company did its official best to prevent alliances from developing between its men and Amerindian women. This placed the men in an anomalous position: they had come to trade, but they were restricted in the most effective means of establishing the necessary relationships. Not only did Amerindians prefer to deal with kin, but the gathering and preparation of furs involved a considerable amount of female labor, from making clothes and equipment for hunters and trappers, to cleaning and drying pelts. London could thunder all it liked, but women played an essential role in the commerce that was the principal reason for the company\u27s existence. Out of this unlikely situation arose a surprisingly stable society that flourished as long as the fur trade remained dominant. As Van Kirk points out, its basis was the much-maligned marriage a la facon du pays, the custom of the country. This custom was, of course, Amerindian; during the early days of the trade, when dependence upon Amerindian expertise was at its highest, such native practices were widely adopted. Pressures toward European values and standards, however, grew with each succeeding mixed-blood generation. Once European agricultural/industrial settlement took hold and began to expand and European women appeared in the Canadian Northwest early in the nineteenth century, the shift in social values reached a critical point. Increasingly, Amerindian or even mixed-blood wives and mothers became social embarrassments to their families, particularly to the children. Not everyone accepted this with equanimity. In 1856,]ames Ross wrote: What if mama is an Indian! ... Who more attached to her children or more desirous of their happiness. Who more attentive to their wantsanxious about their welfare? None. She has all these qualities in a wonderful degree. Sadly, personal qualities were not at issue, and many once-prominent fur-trade families sought to obscure and even deny their Amerindian heritage. Van Kirk argues well that such a denial has meant a loss for Canada, whose heritage is much richer than Euro-centered histories allow. This warmly sympathetic recounting of some of the human consequences of interaction between disparate cultures adds to our understanding of the fur trade in Canada. The University of Oklahoma Press is to be commended for so promptly reprinting this work, first published in Winnipeg

Perrot (Nicolas) : Mémoire sur les mœurs, coustumes et religion des sauvages de l'Amérique septentrionale ; Lahontan (Baron de) : Voyages du Haron de La Hontan dans l'Amérique septentrionale. Mémoires de l'Amérique septentrionale

Dickason Olive Patricia. Perrot (Nicolas) : Mémoire sur les mœurs, coustumes et religion des sauvages de l'Amérique septentrionale ; Lahontan (Baron de) : Voyages du Haron de La Hontan dans l'Amérique septentrionale. Mémoires de l'Amérique septentrionale. In: Revue française d'histoire d'outre-mer, tome 61, n°225, 4e trimestre 1974. pp. 618-619