Owned since the 70s and 80s
I own 8 incredible old books on North American Indians from the 70s.... and they tell incredible stories of the brilliant American Native Indians of Canada USA- brilliant, beautiful and as structured as the ancient Romans- I adore our First Nations, Metis and Inuit and North American People...
THE FIRST PEOPLE OF NORTH AMERICA- always... used to have almost a hundred in my younger days...
THIS LAND AND THESE PEOPLE- An Illustated History of Canada-1977 W.L Morton & L.F. Hannon
Heather Robertson- 1970 (original) Reservations are 4 Indians
Mi'kmaq Fisheries - Netukulimk -Towards a Better Understanding
CHARLES DICKENS SON- Francis Dickins who served 1874- 1886s in Canada's
DICKINS OF THE MOUNTED... North West Mounted Police1989
THE NEW WORLD- The First Pictures of America-Stefan Lorant 1965 -First Revised Edition
DESIGNS OF THE ANCIENT MIMBRENOS- with a Hopi Interpretation -Fred Kabotie 1982 2nd Edition
AMERICAN INDIAN- Oliver LaFarge- 1956 First Edition- A pictorial history of the American Indian
CANADA- A Portrait of Faith-1998-2nd Edition
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Canadian Troops in Afghanistan- supporting First Peoples IDLE NO MORE- proving in Canada We all Idle No More
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Our Canada's First Peoples- America's First Peoples- too often the first to sign up... and the first to die for our freedoms... Canadians IDLE NO MORE FOLKS... we Idle No More
Many thanks to Canadian Veteran Richard Blackwolf and his amazing art folks...hero, hero,hero
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BLOGGED:
CANADA-
NOVA SCOTIA- HUMAN RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS- A BIT OF HISTORY OF NOVA SCOTIA - 1500s
onwards /NELSON MANDELA Canadian Citizen loved our Canada and the 1960s Bill of
Rights
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The enduring enigma of Samuel de Champlain
The founder of Quebec remains an elusive figure in Canadian history.
Arrival of Madame Champlain at Quebec 1620, painting by Frank Craig, 1909.
Bridgeman Art Library
Champlain, fires his arquebus into a crowd of Iroquois as his Huron allies pelt their enemies with arrows, in this engraving attributed to the famed French explorer. The attack took place in 1609.
MCCORD MUSEUM/14802
Champlain’s 1632 book, "Les Voyages de la Nouvelle France occidentale, dicte Canada."
Bridgeman Art Library
False portrait of Samuel de Champlain, based on an engraved portrait of Michael Particelli d'Emery by Balthazar Moncornet, dated 1654.
Library and Archives Canada/C-00643
"Foundation of Quebec City by Samuel de Champlain 1608," a work in stained glass at the National Assembly in the parliament of Quebec. Made by Gauthier et frères in 1920.
Hemis/Philippe Renault
"Foundation of the city of Quebec by Samuel de Champlain in 1608." Painting by Ambroise- Louis Garneray, 1848.
Bridgeman Art Library
"Henry IV, King of France and Navarre", circa 1595, French school (16th century).
Huron, Montagnais, and Algonquin warriors perform a war dance in 1609 outside Champlain’s Quebec habitation, under the looming shadow of Cap Diamant, in this 1978 illustration, "Champlain," by Jean-Léon Huens.
Jean-Léon Huens, Champlain, first published in "Great Adventures that Changed our World: the World's Great Explorers, their Triumphs and Tragedies. Reader's Digest Association 1978. © SOFAM (BRUSSELS) / SODART (MONTREAL) 2007.
Map of New France
Four hundred years ago this fall, Samuel de Champlain, in the company of an Algonquin and Wendat war party and a dozen fellow Frenchmen, travelled east through the Kawartha Lakes region of southern Ontario and down to the Bay of Quinte. The warriors were headed for upstate New York, where, in mid-October, they laid siege to an Iroquois village.
The attempt to destroy the settlement was unsuccessful, and when reinforcements failed to arrive, the allies retreated to Huronia. There Champlain passed the winter before returning to Quebec.
Although he would never return to the land of the Wendat, he went on to describe and illustrate the encounter for a French audience in his 1619 Voyages et Descouvertes, and the episode has become one of the touchstone events in accounts of the explorer's life.
The anniversary of this raid was the occasion for a recent Champlain Society-sponsored event at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, part of the current “Ontario 400” celebration of four centuries of francophone presence in the province.
Moderated by Champlain Society President Patrice Dutil, the evening featured the insights of three speakers: author Douglas Hunter, whose 2008 volume God’s Mercies treats Champlain and Henry Hudson, historian José António Brandão, whose primary study is the seventeenth-century Iroquois, and Chief Kirby Whiteduck of the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan First Nation, an authority on the traditional Algonquin culture of the Ottawa Valley.
There is probably no more monolithic figure in our history than Champlain (fittingly, as Dutil pointed out, a stone sculpture of the "Father of New France" adorns the façade of the ROM’s former Canadiana collection).
Champlain looms so great not only because of his accomplishments as an explorer, cartographer and administrator, but also because of the sheer heft of his writings. The “enigma” of Champlain, though, is the frequent ambiguity of his testimony. As Brandão put it, “He left a lot of writings, but not necessarily the kind of thing that allows us to come to firm conclusions.” Our picture of Champlain is further complicated by the almost complete absence of testimony from those who surrounded him.
Recalling his years as a journalist, Hunter said, “Whenever you write about someone you want to hear other perspectives,” but these are almost nonexistent for Champlain.
Still, despite this “silence of his contemporaries,” each of the evening’s three speakers opened other perspectives on the legacy of Champlain, and of the 1615 mission, from a range of sources: archaeological findings, linguistic analysis, traditions of his Native collaborators, and even voices embedded within Champlain’s own works. A picture emerged of a Champlain who is less the heroic solitary figure represented in his own self-portrait (see illustration), than a man intimately connected and often subservient to other players in the world of early New France, both European and Aboriginal.
Hunter undercut the impression that Champlain gives of being virtually the sole trader meeting with Natives at Tadoussac and up the St. Lawrence; a growing body of archaeological evidence reveals that dozens of other French and Basques were engaged in the same commerce, and that goods were making their way into the interior long before the explorer's time. The merchants of St. Malo went so far as to draft a formal complaint about the upstart, noting that he was but one among “an infinity of people from all regions of France.”
Brandão characterized the 1615 raid as a microcosm of the enigma of Champlain, noting wryly that, “It has been so hotly debated for so long that more ink has been spilled discussing the raid than was actual blood at the event.” According to some traditional interpretations, the raid led to generations of enmity between the French and the Iroquois. But Brandão described the event as a relatively minor affair, one of hundreds of such engagements during these years; Champlain's descriptions are so difficult to untangle that we don’t know where the village was located, how many casualties there were, nor just which branch of the Iroquois lived there (while most historians have identified the inhabitants as Onondaga, linguistic evidence suggests that they may have been Seneca).
In fact, the Algonquin and the Wendat were the true protagonists of the event, for the raid was their initiative, and not Champlain’s. Chief Whiteduck, focusing on the relationship between Champlain and the Algonquin chief Tessouat, described the strategies employed by the explorer’s Native allies. In 1613 Tessouat had deflected Champlain in his attempt to ascend the Ottawa, skilfully preserving his own control of the upper reaches of the river. When he did allow Champlain to proceed to Huronia in 1615, it was on Algonquin terms. Champlain’s primary motivation was to explore trade routes westward toward Asia, and to assess the economic potential of the land for the French crown; his participation in the raid on the Iroquois was the price he had to pay for passage. Here Champlain is not an intrepid master of alliances, but rather the servant of his Algonquin and Wendat allies.
In concluding his contribution, Whiteduck, like Tessouat before him, affirmed the place of the Algonquin in these events. Noting that no treaty was ever signed with his people, and recalling the long-term legacy of the colonization of Canada, he concluded: “We were asked ... to be involved in the celebration of Champlain’s journey, and we said that we’re not going to celebrate it, but we'll participate because we want to raise the profile of the Algonquin and the role the Algonquin had. Champlain didn’t single-handedly come over here and create New France.”
Bill Moreau is the editor of the three-volume Writings of David Thompsonpublished in 2009 and teaches at Dunlace Public School in North York, Ontario.
of Canada Pre-History to 1599 Early Exploration Introduction In the beginning, North America and Canada did not exist... at least in the minds of Europeans. They knew of Cathay and of the rich trade possibilities there, but the ocean to the west was a barrier which seemed too vast to cross. When overland trade routes became blocked and the voyage around Africa was found to be long and dangerous, the European nations began to look westward for a shorter journey. Little did they know that they would discover a whole new world complete with its own unique peoples and riches.Pre-History In Canada, 'Indians' are know as 'Aboriginal People', 'Native People', or 'People of the First Nations'. Current archaeological evidence indicates that Natives first arrived in North America 40,000 years BCE (Before the Common Era) by crossing a land bridge which had formed between Asia and Alaska during the latest Ice Age. --- 9000-8000 BCE - Hurons (originally known as the Wendat) settled into Southern Ontario along the Eramosa River (near Guelph). They were concentrated between Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay. Most of the land was still covered in glaciers and the Wendat hunted caribou to survive. --- 7000 BCE - The west coast of Canada was being settled and various cultures built themselves around the salmon fishing available there. The Nuu'chah'nulth (Nootka) of Vancouver Island began whaling. --- 6000 BCE - Different cultures were built around the buffalo by the Plains Indians. They hunted buffalo by herding migrating buffalo off cliffs. Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, near Lethbridge, Alberta, is the most famous hunting grounds and was in use for 5,000 years. --- 5000 BCE - The oldest ceremonial burial site was discovered at L'Anse Amour on the coast of Labrador containing the remains of a 12-year-old boy. He was lying face-down and a slab of rock was laid across his back. Red ochre had been sprinkled on the back of his head and in a circle around the body. Buried with him were a decorative caribou antler pestle, a bone pendant, bird bones, a harpoon head, a bone whistle, and a walrus tusk. It is unknown what standing the boy had in the community to have been buried in such an elaborate and time-consuming manner. --- 2000 BCE - Inuit arrived by small boats long after the land bridge had disappeared and settled in the Arctic regions. --- 800 BCE - The glaciers had receeded and the weather had warmed. The Hurons had became farmers instead of hunters, cultivating corn which will not grow wild. --- 500 BCE-1000 AD - Natives had settled across most of Canada. Hundreds of tribes had developed, each with its own culture, customs, legends, and character. In the northwest were the Athapaskan, Slavey, Dogrib, Tutchone, Tlinget and Guii'Chen. In the Arctic were the Inuit. Along the Pacific coast were the Haida, Salish, Kwakiutl, Nootka, Nis'ga and Gitskan. In the plains were the Blackfoot, Blood, Sarcee and Peigen. In the northern woodlands were the Cree and Chipwyan. Around the Great Lakes were the Annishnaube, Algonquin, Iroquois and Wendat (Huron). Along the Atlantic coast were the Beothuk, Maliseet, Innu, Abenaki and Micmac. All of them, however diverse, had named the 4 corners of their country: Denendeh, Us-Qui, Nunavut and Kanata. 1000 AD (approx.) - The Vikings --- Vikings landed in the New World and attempted conquest over the Natives in Newfoundland and Labrador. Native raids forced them to abandon their attempts to settle. 
1360 --- The Church of Rome sent Norwegian Paul Knutsson to reclaim Greenland. Records indicate that Knutsson sailed westward into Hudson Strait and Hudson Bay and then south into James Bay. It is believed that Knutsson travelled inland along the Albany River all the way to Lake Nipigon, north of Lake Superior. 1398 --- Micmac legends indicate that a 'White Man' (believed to be Norwegian Henry Sinclair) landed in present-day Nova Scotia. Sinclair was told of red-haired, green-eyed men with beards (Lief Ericsson?) who had arrived centuries earlier and taught the Micmac how to fish with nets. Navigation records in Venice, Italy, may substantiate this. 1420 --- Basque whalers began fishing off the coast of Labrador. 1492 - Christopher Columbus - New World --- Christopher Columbus 'officially' discovered North America but mistook it for the Orient. Landing in the Carribean, he mistakenly thought he was in the Indies. This began a new era of exploration for Europe. 1494 --- Spain gained control of virtually all of North and South America through the Treaty of Tordesillas. 1497 - John Cabot - Claiming Canada --- May 2 - John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto Montecataluna), along with his sons Sebastian and Sancio, set sail from Bristol, England, aboard the ship Matthew. Unlike the Spanish, who were concentrating their conquests in South and Central America, Cabot sailed west. --- June 24, St. John's Day - Cabot went ashore, probably on Cape Breton Island, and claimed Terre Nova in the name of King Henry VII.
1498 --- John Cabot died. Cabot began his second voyage to Terre Nova, but a severe storm damaged one ship which managed to return to England. Four other ships, including Cabot's, were lost at sea. 1501 - Slavery --- Approximately 50 natives (probably Beothuk) were forcibly kidnapped, probably from the shores of Labrador, and taken to Lisbon by Alberto Cantino. The natives' upper bodies were superbly built for hard labour and the Portuguese believed they had found a new source of slaves. However, most had died en route and those who survived and landed in Lisbon died soon afterward from various European diseases. Another ship, captained by Gaspar Gorte Real and carrying 50 more 'slaves', was lost at sea. 1502 --- England recorded its first shipment of fish from the New World. --- Three natives were presented to King Henry VII as slaves. 1504 (circa) - St. John's Harbour --- A small fish-processing village was set up at present-day St. John's, Newfoundland. The harbour and the processing plant were used by all the major European countries who fished the Grand Banks. St. John's Harbour became a focal point for ships leaving and arriving in the New World. 1506 --- Portugal began to levy taxes against all the fish caught in the Grand Banks. 1507 - Terra Nova --- A world map, compiled in Rome, shows the eastern coast of Canada including Hudson Bay. Newfoundland is marked as Terra Nova (New World). 1508 --- Sebastian Caboto (son of John Cabot) sailed north from Labrador and is believed to have reached Hudson Bay, which he believed to be the Pacific Ocean. Lack of food and a mutinous crew forced his return to England. --- Slave trader Thomas Aubert of Dieppe may have travelled up the St. Lawrence River as far as present-day Quebec. 1518 - Wild Horses of Sable Island --- Baron de Lery, of Portugal, established a colony on the northern tip of Nova Scotia and another on Sable Island, off the southern tip. Horses and cows were taken to both colonies. The colonies failed soon after, but the horses on Sable Island survived and their descendents still live wild there today. 1520 --- Portuguese maps indicate the Gulf of St. Lawrence - 4 years before Jacques Cartier would discover it. 1523 - New France & Acadia --- Giovanni da Verrazzano claimed the New World on behalf of King François I of France and named the land 'Nova Gallia' ('New France'). Verrazzano also named Arcadie (Acadia). He also reported several close 'run-ins' with the Spanish who were sailing the northern waters. 1525 --- Spanish slave trader Estoban Gomez captured a number of Natives from Nova Scotia and Maine. 1534 - Jacques Cartier's 1st Voyage - Chief Donnacona --- April 20 - Jacques Cartier's first voyage to the New World in search of a passage to Cathay (the Orient). He discovered and charted the Gulf of St. Lawrence. He met Iroquoian Chief Donnacona and kidnapped his sons in order to take them back to France as proof of the New World.
--- The name 'Canada' was born. The name ('Kanata') was first used in maps and journals by Jacques Cartier. 1535 - Jacques Cartier's 2nd Voyage - Stadacona & Hochelaga --- May - Jacques Cartier returned to the New World with Dom Agaya and Taignoagny, the sons of Chief Donnacona whom Cartier had kidnapped in 1534. With Dom Agaya and Taignoagny as guides, Cartier sailed into the Gulf of St. Lawrence and discovered the St. Lawrence River, which would ultimately be Cartier's most significant discovery. He also discovered the Iroquoian villages of Stadacona (present-day Quebec) and Hochelaga (present-day Montreal)
1535-1536 - Jacques Cartier - Winter & Scurvy --- Cartier was stranded in Canada over the winter and discovered a cure for scurvy. In May 1536, Cartier returned to France after having once again kidnapped Dom Agaya and Taignoagny, along with their father, Chief Donnacona.
--- Canada's first tourists arrived in Newfoundland. Thirty gentlemen, under the charge of Richard Hore of London, soon ran out of food and were forced to resort to cannibalism. After a French fishing boat rescued them, the ship was captured and the crew abandoned to an unknown fate. Hore returned to England. 1540 or 1541 --- Iroquoian Chief Donnacona died of undisclosed caused and was buried in France. 1541 - Jacques Cartier's 3rd Voyage - First Settlement in Canada --- Cartier's third voyage in which he founded Charlesbourg-Royal at the mouth of the Cap Rouge River, the first attempted settlement in Canada.
1542 - Jacques Cartier - Failure, Retirement & Suspension --- Iroquoians, enraged over the death of Chief Donnacona, kept Charlesbourg-Royal under seige throughout the Winter. Cartier abandoned Charlesbourg-Royal and returned to France with 'gold'.
1543 --- The first New France had collapsed completely. French exploration in the New World was abandoned temporarily. 1544 --- The Basque founded Tadoussac at the mouth of the Saguenay River. Tadoussac had long been a trading centre, but the Basques 'winterized' it and built a trading post and fish processing plant. 1557 --- September 1 - Jacques Cartier died in St. Malo. He was 66. 1565 --- The first oil spill in Canada occured in the Strait of Belle Isle, Labrador, when a Basque galleon sank with 189,000 litres (50,000 gallons) of oil aboard. 1567 --- Samuel de Champlain was born in Brouage, France. 1576 - Martin Frobisher - Northwest Passage --- Martin Frobisher of England made the first of three attempts to find a Northwest Passage over the top of North America. He discovered the Inuit (previously named 'Eskimos' by early explorers) who he mistook for Asians.
1577 - Martin Frobisher - Meta Incognita --- Frobisher's second voyage. The Arctic was claimed for England and named 'Meta Incognita' ('Of Limits Unknown').
1578 - Martin Frobisher - Gold Fever --- Frobisher's third voyage. Frobisher was to settle Meta Incognita and begin mining the gold. The first English attempt to settle Canada failed dismally when the 'gold' turned out to be iron pyrite.
--- Troilus de Mesgouez, Marquis de la Roche, was appointed Viceroy of New France and was given the authority to colonize it. (see 1598) --- Aristocrat Humphrey Gilbert was granted a patent by Queen Elizabeth I to settle the New World. (see 1583)
1582 - Ten Lost Days --- England adopted the Gregorian Calendar. As a result, October 4 was followed by October 15. Ten entire days in 1582 simply did not exist. 1583 - Sir Humphrey Gilbert - First English Settlement --- Humphrey Gilbert settled at St. John's Harbour, Newfoundland and proclaimed himself Lord Paramount. His self-serving actions lead to the early downfall of the first English settlement Canada. (see 1578)
1584 --- Gilbert set sail to the south, but the ship carrying the maps and charts ran aground. Not able to continue, Gilbert turned back but his ship sank during a storm near the Azores. Gilbert was lost. (see also 1578 and 1583) 1598 --- Marquis de la Roche de Mesgouez was appointed Lieutenant General of New France by King Henri IV. --- March - De la Roche settled on Sable Island with 60 colonists, mostly prisoners escaping prison terms and death. Only 12 people survived the first winter and the settlement was abandoned the next year. De la Roche forfeited his title. 1599 - Marie de l'Incarnation --- François Grave du Pont (a.k.a. Pontgrave) and Pierre Chauvin de Tonnetuit were appointed Lieutenant General of New France. --- Marie Guyard (Marie de l'Incarnation) was born in Tours, France. Widowed at age 32 with a 13-year-old son, Claude, Marie placed Claude in the care of her sister and took the veil, taking the name Marie de l'Incarnation. (see 1639) 
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http://www3.sympatico.ca/goweezer/canada/can0000.htm-------------------
First Nations in Canada
Table of contents
- Early First Nations: The six main geographical groups
- History of First Nations - Newcomer Relations
- A Changing Relationship: From allies to wards (1763-1862)
- Legislated Assimilation - Development of the Indian Act (1820-1927)
- New Perspectives - First Nations in Canadian society (1914-1982)
- Towards a New Relationship (1982-present)
Introduction
First Nations in Canada is an educational resource designed for use by young Canadians; high school educators and students; Aboriginal communities; and anyone interested in First Nations history. Its aim is to help readers understand the significant developments affecting First Nations communities from the pre-Contact era (before the arrival of Europeans) up to the present day.The first part of this text —"Early First Nations" — presents a brief overview of the distinctive cultures of the six main geographic groups of early First Nations in Canada. This section looks at the principal differences in the six groups' respective social organization, food resources, homes, modes of transportation, clothing, and spiritual beliefs and ceremonies.
Parts two through six of this text trace the relationship between First Nations and newcomers to Canada from the very first encounter up to the government's historic apology in June 2008 to all former students of Indian Residential Schools. In this apology, the Government of Canada expressed deep regret for the suffering individual students and their families experienced because of these schools. The government also acknowledged the harm that residential schools and assimilation policies had done to Aboriginal people's cultures, languages and heritage.
Today the Government of Canada is working in partnership with First Nations in this new era of reconciliation to build stronger First Nations communities. All across the country, this crucial collaborative work is taking place in areas as diverse as First Nations economies, education, governance, social services, human rights, culture and the resolution of outstanding land claims.
Part 1 – Early First Nations: The Six Main Geographical Groups
Before the arrival of Europeans, First Nations in what is now Canada were able to satisfy all of their material and spiritual needs through the resources of the natural world around them. For the purposes of studying traditional First Nations cultures, historians have therefore tended to group First Nations in Canada according to the six main geographic areas of the country as it exists today. Within each of these six areas, First Nations had very similar cultures, largely shaped by a common environment.The six groups were: Woodland First Nations, who lived in dense boreal forest in the eastern part of the country; Iroquoian First Nations, who inhabited the southernmost area, a fertile land suitable for planting corn, beans and squash; Plains First Nations, who lived on the grasslands of the Prairies; Plateau First Nations, whose geography ranged from semi-desert conditions in the south to high mountains and dense forest in the north; Pacific Coast First Nations, who had access to abundant salmon and shellfish and the gigantic red cedar for building huge houses; and the First Nations of the Mackenzie and Yukon River Basins, whose harsh environment consisted of dark forests, barren lands and the swampy terrain known as muskeg.
The following section highlights some of the wide variations in the six groups' social organization, food resources, and homes, modes of transportation and clothing -- as well as spiritual beliefs widely shared by all Early First Nations.
Social Organization
Most Woodland First Nations were made up of many independent groups, each with its own hunting territory. These groups usually had fewer than 400 people. A leader generally won his position because he possessed great courage or skill in hunting. Woodland First Nations hunters and trappers had an intimate knowledge of the habitats and seasonal migrations of animals that they depended on for survival.Unlike Woodland First Nations, Iroquoian First Nations did not migrate in search of food. Excellent farmers, these southern peoples harvested annual food crops of corn, beans and squash that more than met their needs. An abundance of food supplies made it possible for the Iroquoian First Nations (now known as the Haudenosaunee, or People of the Longhouse) to found permanent communities and gave them the leisure time to develop complex systems of government based on democratic principles.
The Huron-Wendat, for example, had a three-tier political system, consisting of village councils, tribal councils and the confederacy council. All councils made decisions on a consensus basis, with discussions often going late into the night until everyone reached agreement.
On the Plains, the individual migratory groups, each with their own chief, assembled during the summer months for spiritual ceremonies, dances, feasts and communal hunts. Even though each group was fiercely independent, Plains First Nations had military societies that carried out functions such as policing, regulating life in camp and on the march, and organizing defences.
The social organization of several Plains First Nations was influenced by their neighbours and trading partners—the First Nations of the Pacific Coast. As a result, the Dakelh-ne (Carrier), Tahltan and Ts'ilh'got'in (Chilcotin) adopted the stratified social systems of the Pacific Coast Nations, which included nobles, commoners and slaves.
In addition to these three distinct social orders, Pacific Coast First Nations had a well-defined aristocratic class that was regarded as superior by birth. The basic social unit for all First Nations in this part of the country was the extended family (lineage) whose members claimed descent from a common ancestor. Most lineages had their own crests, featuring representations of animal or supernatural beings that were believed to be their founders. The most famous method of crest display was the totem pole consisting of all the ancestral symbols that belonged to a lineage.
The people of the Mackenzie and Yukon River Basins lived in a vast homeland where game animals were very scarce and the winters were long and severe. As was true of most First Nations across the country, those of the Mackenzie and Yukon River Basins were primarily occupied with day-to-day survival. As such, First Nations were divided into several independent groups made up of different family units who worked together. Each group hunted a separate territory, with individual boundaries defined by tradition and use. A group leader was selected according to the group's needs at a particular time. On a caribou hunt, for example, the most proficient hunter would be chosen leader.
Food Resources
All First Nations across the country hunted and gathered plants for both food and medicinal purposes. The actual percentage of meat, fish and plants in any First Nation's diet depended on what was available in the local environment.The Woodland First Nations (and all First Nations in the northern regions) hunted game animals with spears and bows and arrows. These First Nations also used traps and snares—a type of noose that caught the animal by the neck or leg. Northern hunters, such as the Gwich'in, built elaborate routing fences with stakes and brush. The Gwich'in used these fences to stampede animals into the area where snares had been set to trap them. To provide for times of hardship, the people dried large stores of meat, fish and berries during the summer. During the winter, to keep frozen meat safe from animals such as the wolverine, some First Nations of the Mackenzie and Yukon River Basins stored their food high in a tree with its trunk peeled of bark.
Even though the Haudenosaunee had plenty of meat, fish and fowl available to them in the wild, they lived mainly on their own crops—corn, beans and squash, which were called "The Three Sisters." The men cleared the land for planting, chopping down trees and cutting the brush, while the women planted, tended and harvested the crops. After about 10 years, when the land became exhausted, the people would relocate and clear new fertile fields.
Because the buffalo was the main object of their hunt, Plains First Nations had a hunting culture that was highly developed over thousands of years. Communal hunts took place in June, July and August when the buffalo were fat, their meat prime and their hides easily dressed.
A single buffalo provided a lot of meat, with bulls averaging about 700 kilograms. Eaten fresh, the meat was roasted on a spit or boiled in a skin bag with hot stones, a process that produced a rich, nutritious soup. Just as common was the dried buffalo meat known as jerky, which could be stored for a long time in rawhide bags. Women also prepared high-protein pemmican—dried meat pounded into a powder, which was then mixed with hot, melted buffalo fat and berries. A hunter could easily carry this valuable food stuff in a small leather bag. Pemmican later became a staple in the diet of fur traders and voyageurs.
Salmon was the primary food source for the First Nations of the Plateau. Even the Tahltan hunters of the north assembled each spring at the fishing places to await the arrival of the first salmon. People used dip nets and built weirs in the shallows of swift waters to trap schools of fish. Of the thousands of salmon caught each year, a very small proportion was eaten fresh. The remainder was cleaned, smoked and stored for winter in underground pits lined with birch bark. Wild vegetable foods—chiefly roots and berries—also formed an important part of the diet of the Plateau First Nations, particularly the Interior Salish.
The vast food resources of the ocean—salmon, shellfish, octopus, herring, crabs, whale and seaweed—made it possible for Pacific Coast First Nations to settle in permanent locations. Unlike the Haudenosaunee who relocated every 10 years or so, Pacific Coast First Nations usually built permanent villages. Some village sites show evidence of occupation for more than 4,000 years. Like Plateau First Nations, those of the Pacific Coast dried most of their salmon in smokehouses so that it could be stored and eaten later. Fish oil also played an important part in people's diet, serving as a condiment with dried fish during the winter months. A highly valued source of oil was eulachon, a type of smelt.
The Coast Tsimshian, Haida and Nuu-chah-nulth all hunted sea lion and sea otter, going out into the ocean with harpoons in slim dugout canoes. However, the most spectacular of all marine hunts was the Nuu-chah-nulth's pursuit of the whale. Nuu-chah-nulth whaling canoes were large enough for a crew of eight and the harpooner, who was armed with a harpoon of yew wood about four metres long and sat directly behind the prow.
Homes
Because of their migratory way of life, First Nations of the Woodland, Plains and Mackenzie and Yukon River Basins all built homes that were either portable or easily erected from materials found in their immediate environments. Woodland and northern peoples' homes were essentially a framework of poles covered with bark, woven rush mats or caribou skin, called tipis.Plains First Nations' tipi poles were usually made from long slender pine trees. These were highly valued because replacements were not easy to find on the Prairies. The average tipi cover consisted of 12 buffalo hides stitched together. To prevent drafts and to provide interior ventilation, an inner wall of skins about two metres high was often fastened to the poles on the inside. Women made, erected and owned the tipis.
Unlike nomadic First Nations, the Haudenosaunee had relatively permanent villages. The longhouse was the most striking feature in an Haudenosaunee village. This structure consisted of an inverted U shape made of poles, which were then covered with slabs of bark. Longhouses were usually about 10 metres wide, 10 metres high and 25 metres long. Each longhouse was headed by a powerful matriarch who oversaw her extended family's day-to-day affairs.
Among First Nations of the Plateau, the subterranean homes of the Interior Salish were unlike those of other First Nations in the country. The Interior Salish dug a pit, usually about two metres deep and from six to twelve metres wide, in well-drained soil, typically near a river. This location meant that clean water, fish and a means of transport were all readily accessible. The Interior Salish then covered the pit with a framework of poles and insulated this dwelling with spruce boughs and earth that was removed from the pit. An opening approximately 1.25 metres square was left at the top and served as both the doorway and smoke-hole. People entered the house with the help of steps carved into a sturdy, slanting log, the top of which protruded out of the opening of the pit house.
Massive forests of red cedar along the Pacific Coast allowed the First Nations who lived in this part of the country to build huge homes. Excellent carpenters, these First Nations used chisels made of stone or shell and stone hammers to split the soft, straight-grained cedar into wide planks. One of the largest traditional homes ever recorded from the pre-contact era was in a Coast Salish village. It was 170 metres long and 20 metres wide. Because Pacific Coast houses were so large, they could accommodate several families, each with its own separate living area and hearth.
Modes of Transportation
Woodland First Nations constructed birch bark canoes that were light, durable and streamlined for navigating the numerous rivers and lakes in this area. Canoe builders stitched bark sheets together and then fastened them to a wooden frame using watup—white spruce root that had been split, peeled and soaked. The vessel's seams were waterproofed with a coating of heated spruce gum and grease.In the Mackenzie and Yukon River Basins, birch trees did not grow as large as in the southern regions of the country. However, many northern First Nations were able to construct long canoes, using spruce gum to seal the seams between the smaller pieces of bark.
Some Haudenosaunee also built bark-covered canoes. However, these First Nations mainly travelled by land. Exceptional runners, the Haudenosaunee could cover extremely long distances in a very short time.
When the horse was introduced on the Plains by European explorers around 1700, the peoples of the Plains First Nations readily adapted and became skilled riders. Within 100 years of its introduction, the horse was an essential part of Plains First Nations culture—in hunting, warfare, travel and the transportation of goods. Before that, the principal means of transporting goods and household possessions was the dog and travois—two long poles hitched to a dog's sides, to which a webbed frame for holding baggage was fastened.
Pacific Coast First Nations travelled almost exclusively by water, using dugout canoes made of red cedar. Size varied according to a canoe's function. A small hunting canoe for one or two men would be about five metres long. The Haida built very large canoes. Some Haida canoes were more than 16 metres long and two metres wide, and could carry 40 men and two metric tons of cargo.
The actual construction process of a canoe could last three to four weeks and had its own rituals, including prayer and sexual abstinence for the canoe maker. These talented men stretched a canoe hull using a steam-softening process. Water was poured into the hollow and brought to a boil with hot stones. Wooden stretchers were then inserted to hold the sides of the canoe apart while it cooled.
For winter travel, all First Nations built some form of snowshoe with a wood frame and rawhide webbing. The shape and size of snowshoes varied due to what sort of terrain was being travelled.
Clothing
All First Nations across the country, with the exception of the Pacific Coast, made their clothing—usually tunics, leggings and moccasins—of tanned animal skin. Woodland and northern First Nations used moose, deer or caribou skin. Plains First Nations mostly used light animal skins, such as buffalo, antelope, elk or deer.Women prepared the animal skins and used a smoke tanning process to preserve the hides. Bone needles were used to sew the garments with sinew from the back or legs of a caribou, moose or deer. In winter, people wore robes of fur for extra warmth. Caribou skins were particularly valued by First Nations of the Mackenzie and Yukon River Basins because caribou hair is an excellent insulator.
Whenever weather permitted, men from Pacific Coast First Nations went unclothed. Coast Tsimshian women wore skirts of buckskin, but elsewhere on the Pacific Coast the women's skirts were woven of cedar bark that had been shredded to produce a soft fibre. Neither men nor women of Pacific Coast First Nations had footwear of any kind. In rainy weather these coastal people wore woven bark rain capes and wide-brimmed hats of woven spruce roots. The Nuu-chah-nulth and Kwakwaka'wakw also made a distinctive long robe woven from yellow cedar bark. Some of these robes were interwoven with mountain goat wool and the most luxurious had borders of sea otter fur.
Any decorative touches on clothing came from nature. Many Woodland, Haudenosaunee and northern First Nations used dyed porcupine quills to embroider designs on their clothing and moccasins. Men and women coloured their clothing with red, yellow, blue and green dyes derived from flowers, fruits, roots and berries. The men of the Plains First Nations also regularly wore face paint, and a red dye derived from the clay was a very popular colour.
Spiritual Beliefs
All First Nations believed that their values and traditions were gifts from the Creator. One of the most important and most common teachings was that people should live in harmony with the natural world and all it contained.In oral stories and legends that Elders passed from one generation to another, First Nations children learned how the world came into being and that they were a part of the whole of creation. People gave thanks to everything in nature, upon which they depended for survival and development as individuals and as members of their communities. First Nations treated all objects in their environment—whether animate or inanimate—with the utmost respect.
This deep respect that First Nations cultivated for every thing and every process in the natural world was reflected in songs, dances, festivals and ceremonies. Among the Woodland First Nations, for example, a hunter would talk or sing to a bear before it died, thanking the animal for providing the hunter and his family with much-needed food.
In keeping with their farming culture, the Haudenosaunee held six to eight festivals a year relating to the cultivation of the soil and ripening of fruits and berries. There was a seven-day festival to give thanks when corn was planted, for example, and another when it was green. A third festival was held when corn was harvested.
First Nations of the Pacific Coast had many rituals to give thanks and celebrate the annual salmon run. These rituals included a welcoming ceremony and offerings to the first salmon of the year.
For the principles that guided their day-to-day conduct, many First Nations shared value systems similar to the Seven Grandfather Teachings of the Anishnaabe peoples. These teachings stressed Wisdom, Love, Respect, Bravery, Honesty, Humility and Truth as the values that enable people to live in a way that promotes harmony and balance with everyone and everything in creation.
Part 2 – History of First Nations – Newcomer Relations
First Encounters – Military and Commercial Alliances
(First Contact to 1763)
Indigenous peoples occupied North America for thousands of years before European explorers first arrived on the eastern shores of the continent in the 11th century. These newcomers were Norse explorers and settlers, moving ever-westward from Scandinavia to Iceland and Greenland, and eventually to the island of Newfoundland. There they founded North America's first European colony at L'Anse aux Meadows. Although this colony was short-lived, it marked the beginning of European exploration and migration that would radically change the lives of North America's Indigenous peoples.European Colonial Settlements and the Fur Trade
In the 1500s Europeans returned to the eastern shores of North America to establish settlements. By that time, many Europeans had heard from returning fishermen about the wealth of resources that the New World offered. Attracted by the Grand Banks' teeming cod stocks, Basque, Breton, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Irish and English fishermen had already made contact and traded with the Mik'maq and Maliseet peoples of the Eastern seaboard. As they returned each summer to fish and dry-cure their catch, these fishermen developed an informal trade system with First Nations, exchanging European goods for furs.There was soon a network of competing colonies throughout the Americas as the various European powers pushed to expand their own wealth and influence in this New World. In North America, the British and the French quickly became the dominant powers. By the early 1600s the British had established several colonies and begun settlement on a large scale. The bases of France's North American empire were the colonies of Acadia in the Maritimes and New France in the St. Lawrence Valley.
Soon after founding these colonies, the two powers cemented alliances with First Nations to support their commercial interests, which included the fur trade. The British allied with the Iroquois Confederacy (now known as the Haudenosaunee, or People of the Longhouse, this group consisted of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca First Nations) and the First Nations of the Allegheny Mountain range. The French allied with First Nations north of the St. Lawrence River (the Huron, Algonquin, Odawa and Montagnais) and in Acadia (the Mi'kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy). Using the long-established indigenous trade routes of the Interior, the English and French and their First Nations allies developed a vast trade focused on beaver pelts, that spread across North America. This trade spurred new European explorations throughout the Great Lakes basin, into the Prairies and down the Mississippi River.
Military Alliances and Conflict
French and British explorers, fur traders and soldiers followed the trade routes inland. There they established a network of forts and posts to supply their First Nations trading partners and confirm their presence. First Nations quickly adapted to this new commerce, which brought them European goods such as iron wares and firearms. The fur trade was so profitable and important that the various European and First Nations interests often clashed violently throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. Competition between groups such as the Haudenosaunee mentioned above and the Huron resulted in all-out warfare. In the mid-1600s, the Huron were driven from their traditional territories around Georgian Bay.In 1701, this tumultuous era came to an end when France and 40 First Nations signed a treaty in Montreal known as the Great Peace. Through the agreement, the various First Nations in the Great Lakes basin promised to stop violent attacks and to share the lands, as "a dish with two spoons." Moreover, just prior to the Montreal conference, Haudenosaunee leaders had agreed to sell all of the lands of the Great Lakes to the British in exchange for their protection and the continued right to hunt and fish throughout the territory. The Haudenosaunee not only attained a stable peace with the French and its allies, but also secured British protection for their lands and interests.
As French and British colonies pushed further inland, their competition for control of the rich Interior of North America became a new theatre of war in the power struggles erupting across Europe. These power struggles, particularly between the British and the French, transformed their respective commercial partnerships with First Nations into vital military alliances that brought much needed support to both camps. Desperate for military assistance ahead of what would turn out to be the final French–British conflict in North America (the Seven Years' War of 1756–1763), British administrators created the Indian Department in 1755 to coordinate alliances with the powerful Haudenosaunee. The new Department also tried to resolve concerns regarding colonial fraud and abuses against First Nations and their lands along the colonial frontier.
In 1760, the fall of Montreal—the last French stronghold on the St. Lawrence—put an end to French colonial efforts in what would become Canada. The British victory led to a realignment of the First Nations alliances that had been in place for more than 150 years. Across the former colonies of New France and Acadia, the British undertook a series of treaties to secure the neutrality of First Nations and to establish peaceful relations. In the Maritime region, where lands had been hotly contested since the early 1700s, the British and the Mi'kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy peoples entered into dozens of these "Peace and Friendship" treaties. In 1760, the Aboriginal allies of New France called upon the British to recognize their neutrality in the Seven Years War and concluded the Treaty of Swegatchie and the Murray Treaty.
Although Sir William Johnson, Superintendent of the Indian Department, worked hard at smoothing relations with the sceptical former allies of the French, he was not entirely successful. Shortly after the fall of Montreal, the Odawa leader Pontiac, doubting British intentions and motives, led a series of attacks against British military positions throughout the Great Lakes region. Nevertheless, a combination of military and diplomatic missions enabled Johnson and the Indian Department to establish peaceful, if somewhat uneasy relations with the various First Nations of the Interior.
The Royal Proclamation of 1763
The Treaty of Paris in 1763 ended more than 150 years of European competition and conflict. Through this agreement, France ceded its colonial territories in what is now Canada, including Acadia, New France and the Interior lands of the Great Lakes and the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. Britain was now the primary European power throughout much of North America, controlling all of the valuable commercial fur trade. Despite this dominance, the British did not fully control the continent. British administrators realized that the success of Britain's North American colonies depended upon stable and peaceful relations with First Nations. To help achieve this, King George III issued a Royal Proclamation in 1763, which specified how the colonies were to be administered. This wide-ranging document established a firm western boundary for the colonies. All the lands to the west of this boundary became "Indian Territories" where there could be no settlement or trade without the permission of the Indian Department.The Proclamation established very strict protocols for all dealings with First Nations. From 1763 onward, the Indian Department became the primary point of contact between First Nations and the colonies. In addition, only the Crown could purchase land from a First Nation, which was done by officially sanctioned Crown representatives negotiating with an interested First Nation in a public meeting. All other land purchases were to be considered invalid and were dismissed.
The original intent of the Royal Proclamation was to slow the uncontrolled western expansion of the colonies and tightly control the relationship between First Nations and colonists. But crucially, the Proclamation also became the first public recognition of First Nations rights to lands and title.
Part 3 - A Changing Relationship – From Allies to Wards
(1763–1862)
Until the late 18th century, the relationship between First Nations and the British Crown was still very much based on commercial and military interests. The Indian Department had one primary goal for the British administration throughout the Great Lakes basin—to maintain the peace between the small number of British soldiers and traders stationed at far-flung trading posts and the far more numerous and well-armed First Nations. Under Sir William Johnson's direction, the Indian Department acted as an intermediary between the military and First Nations leaders, securing lands for forts; assuring access to trade, furs and goods; issuing yearly presents; and organizing peace conferences. As Johnson made clear in a letter to the British government, the powerful position of First Nations meant that British commercial interests could only flourish in the Interior if the Crown took definite steps to protect those interests.Treaties and a Growing Colony
The outbreak of the American War of Independence and Britain's subsequent recognition of the United States of America in 1783 had a dramatic impact on the relationship between the British Crown and its First Nations allies. The loss of the American colonies brought some 30,000 United Empire Loyalist refugees to the remaining British colonies in North America. A powerful group of people who had lost everything because of their support for the British cause, these Loyalists asked colonial administrators for new lands.Settlers were not the only refugees from the newly independent United States. First Nations who fought alongside the British were also dispossessed by the war, especially the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy (this group consisted of the Five Nations Confederacy mentioned above, plus the Tuscarora First Nation). Their lands were unilaterally ceded to the Americans by the 1783 Treaty of Versailles. "His Majesty's Loyal Allies" from the Iroquois Confederacy were now refugees in Montreal and were asking for compensation for their efforts on the Crown's behalf. In response, officials from the Indian Department negotiated a series of land surrender treaties with the various Anishinaabeg peoples (Odawa, Ojibwa and Algonquin First Nations) inhabiting the lands along the St. Lawrence River and around the Great Lakes. These land surrenders, which largely preceded the arrival of settlers to the area, allowed for the remarkably peaceful establishment of an agricultural colony. To help compensate their First Nations allies for the losses incurred during the war with the Americans, the British Crown set aside two parcels of lands as reserves for the Six Nations—one at the Bay of Quinte and the other along the Grand River.
In the last decades of the 18th century, British military leaders and the Indian Department still placed great value on their strong military alliances with First Nations. They feared future conflict with the new American state to the south and saw the numerous First Nations warriors as essential to their colony's defence. The Indian Department worked to bolster the damaged alliances by trying to secure fair deals on land surrenders and by protecting First Nations lands. The Department also issued yearly presents and weaponry during gatherings and conferences with First Nations chiefs and leaders, even those in American territories. These alliances were tested and proved to be strong as war did eventually break out between Britain and its former American colonies. During the War of 1812, First Nations fought alongside the British and Canadian colonists against the American invasion of what is now southern Ontario.
Shifting Relationships
Once peace returned to North America, new immigrants and colonists continued to arrive. Less than 50 years after the first land surrenders for settlers in Upper Canada, the non-First Nations population outnumbered the settler population in the Great Lakes basin. To provide land for new settlers' farms, the pace of land surrenders increased. Some 35 sales were concluded, covering all the lands of Upper Canada—from the productive agricultural lands in the south to the natural resource-rich lands of Lake Superior and Georgian Bay.As settlers demanded more and more property, they began to pressure the colonial administration for the lands held by First Nations. Instead of a bastion of colonial defence, the colony's First Nations populations were now regarded as an impediment to growth and prosperity. Not only had military threats to the colonies faded with the end of the War of 1812, but the colonial militia was able to draw on the ever-growing settler population to meet the colony's defensive needs. In the decades following the War of 1812, British administrators therefore began to regard First Nations as dependents, rather than allies.
By the 1830s, with more and more lands surrendered for settlement, only pockets of First Nations lands remained in Upper Canada. For the most part, the land surrender treaties did not create sizeable reserves for the First Nations signatories. First Nations thus increasingly lost access to hunting grounds and became a dispossessed people on their former lands. A treaty concluded in 1836 by the Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, Sir Francis Bond Head, established Manitoulin Island in Georgian Bay as a reserve for the dispossessed First Nations population. The goal was to encourage these landless peoples to relocate to the island where they would be removed from the more harmful aspects of colonial society (specifically alcohol and prostitution) and where they would adapt to the new colonial reality at a controlled pace. However, few First Nations actually relocated to Manitoulin Island. Most continued to live on small plots of lands set aside by the treaties or on the lands of religious missions trying to convert them to Christianity. Some squatted on Crown Lands, living an increasingly destitute life. Meanwhile, the Crown continued to conclude land surrender treaties with First Nations until 1862.
As settlement lands were filled, attention turned for the first time to northern areas where minerals had been discovered along the shores of Lake Superior and Lake Huron. As a result, the Robinson-Huron and Robinson-Superior treaties of the 1850s were negotiated with the various Anishinaabeg peoples inhabiting the area. These two treaties, unlike any previously negotiated treaties, would become the template for future agreements with First Nations in the West. Specifically, the two Robinson treaties ceded First Nations lands and rights to the Crown in exchange for reserves, annuities and First Nations' continued right to hunt and fish on unoccupied Crown lands. This formula to conclude agreements with numerous bands for large tracts of lands would become the model for the Post-Confederation Numbered Treaties.
The Hudson's Bay Company
While Britain established its new colony on the St. Lawrence, the Company of Adventurers, better known as the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), continued to trade as it had done since 1670. With an exclusive monopoly and a charter for all the lands of the Hudson Bay watershed, the HBC traded with the First Nations of what is now Northern Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba. In search of rich supplies of furs for the European market, this trade extended along the coasts of the Hudson and James bays. Only peripherally affected by the nearly continuous colonial conflict between France and Britain, the HBC was able to establish a series of posts at strategic major rivers. These early posts, such as Fort Albany and York Factory, became the base for an extensive trade alliance with the Cree. In exchange for a wide variety of goods (knives, kettles, beads, needles and blankets), the Cree traded vast amounts of animal furs from the Interior. As the fur trade grew more lucrative, the Cree became a sort of intermediary between the Company and the Interior groups. They collected furs and pelts from other First Nations hunters and took them to the HBC posts on the coast. Because of the HBC's monopoly over all trade on lands where the waters flowed into Hudson Bay, this trade relationship proved very profitable for both parties.Not all parties, however, were happy with the Company's monopoly over some of the richest fur territories in North America. Following the transfer of New France to the British, French traders based in Montreal began to look for new sources of fur. Several new companies began to challenge the HBC, the most successful being the Northwest Company. Using the system of Interior trading posts and routes established by the French before 1763, the Nor'Westers, as they were known, exploited the lands of the Upper Great Lakes by going out to trade and collect the furs themselves. The Northwest Company, aided by the paddling and hauling skills of French-Canadian, Métis and First Nations voyageurs, went directly to the source of the furs. In this way, they were able to redirect a large quantity of furs away from the Cree intermediaries and the HBC posts far to the north. Using the Ottawa River route from Montreal up to Lake Nippissing and across to Lake Superior, the Northwest Company controlled the bulk of the fur trade heading to Montreal and across to Europe. From their company's primary post, Fort William (near present-day Thunder Bay), the Nor'Westers extended their reach into the vast Prairies of North America.
By going into the Interior and trading directly with First Nations hunters, the Northwest Company disrupted the long-standing relationship between the HBC and its Cree intermediaries. Faced with a sharp decline in fur stocks, the HBC governors in London responded by adopting their rival's tactics and abandoning the use of First Nations middlemen. During the first two decades of the 19th century, the HBC and Northwest Company pushed further down the North and South Saskatchewan, the Assiniboine and the Athabasca rivers (among others) in a race to get to First Nations hunters and their fur stocks. This competition not only pitted the traders against each other, but First Nations also joined the fray in an attempt to secure the best prices and goods for their furs. In 1821, after a bloody decade of violence and conflict on the Prairies, the two companies merged into a new and reinvigorated Hudson's Bay Company. The renewed HBC now stretched across the northern half of the continent and held a near total monopoly on trade from the Pacific Coast to Hudson Bay and down to Montreal.
This long history of trade, commerce and competition brought about major changes for the First Nations populations of the northern Plains. Above all, the European desire for fur radically transformed Indigenous economies. Rather than small-scale hunting for furs, First Nations were dedicating more and more time and resources to the seemingly endless European demand for animal pelts. The HBC's desire for bison pelts and pemmican (a type of preserved bison meat popular among traders and voyageurs) transformed the Plains First Nations' buffalo hunt from one of subsistence to extensive commercial exploitation. Trade patterns shifted towards the northern HBC posts and later to the Interior trading posts that were scattered across the Prairies. Traders who had to ship goods down the rivers to central depots such as Fort William hired First Nations men as labourers and porters. All of these activities contributed to a wide-scale diffusion of European goods, especially iron wares, knives and firearms, and to First Nations' dependence on these goods.
A second major impact of the extended fur trade was increased contact between First Nations, traders and settlers, which would have a dramatic effect on First Nations over the long term. The far-flung and isolated trading posts became gathering places for many groups—not only for trade with the HBC, but also for traders and First Nations themselves. This proximity to traders meant easy access to alcohol, which would have devastating effects on First Nations.
In 1812, the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, the Earl of Selkirk, established a colonial settlement where the Red and Assiniboine rivers meet. Plagued by poor planning and the ongoing conflict between the HBC and the Northwest Company, this initial attempt to organize a colony in the Interior ended in failure. However, a few settlers and Company men did remain in the area and lived in the Interior year-round. Eventually, these people helped form a more established community along the Red River. Decades of intermarriage between HBC traders and voyageurs with First Nation women created a new and distinct Aboriginal group—the Métis—centred at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine rivers. This close-knit community merged and adopted European and First Nations customs and lifestyles to meet the needs of the growing frontier settlement.
Part 4 - Legislated Assimilation – Development of the Indian Act
(1820–1927)
"Civilizing the Indian"
As First Nations' military role in the colony waned, British administrators began to look at new approaches to their relationship. In fact, a new perspective was emerging throughout the British Empire about the role the British should play with respect to Indigenous peoples. This new perspective was based on the belief that British society and culture were superior; there was also a missionary fervour to bring British "civilization" to the Empire's Indigenous people. In the colonies of Upper and Lower Canada, the Indian Department became the vehicle for this new plan of "civilization." The British believed it was their duty to bring Christianity and agriculture to First Nations. Indian agents accordingly began encouraging First Nations to abandon their traditional lifestyles and to adopt more agricultural and sedentary ways of life. As we now know, these policies were intended to assimilate First Nations into the larger British and Christian agrarian society.Starting in the 1820s, colonial administrators undertook many initiatives aimed at "civilizing" First Nations. One early assimilation experiment took place at Coldwater-Narrows, near Lake Simcoe in Upper Canada. A group of Anishinaabe were encouraged to settle in a typical colonial-style village where they would be instructed in agriculture and encouraged to adopt Christianity and abandon hunting and fishing as a means of subsistence. But because of poor management by the Indian Department, chronic underfunding, a general lack of understanding of First Nations cultures and values, and competition between various religious denominations, the Coldwater-Narrows experiment was short-lived and a dismal failure.
Indian Legislation
Despite initial problems, the "civilization" program was to remain one of the central tenets of Indian policy and legislation for the next 150 years. One of the first such pieces of legislation was the Crown Lands Protection Act, passed in 1839. This Act made the government the guardian of all Crown lands, including Indian Reserve lands. The Act responded to the fact that settlement was occurring faster throughout the 1830s than the colony could manage. Squatters were already settling on unoccupied territory, both Crown lands and Indian reserves. The statute was thus the first to classify Indian lands as Crown lands to be protected by the Crown. The Act also served to secure First Nations interests by limiting settlers' access to reserves. More legislation protecting First Nations interests were passed in 1850, limiting trespassing and encroachment on First Nations reserve lands. This legislation also provided a definition of an "Indian", exempted First Nations from taxation and protected them from creditors. In 1857, the British administration introduced the Gradual Civilization Act. This legislation offered 50 acres of land and monetary inducements to literate and debt-free First Nations individuals provided they abandoned their traditional lifestyle and adopted a "civilized" life as a "citizen".In 1860, the Management of Indian Lands and Property Act (Indian Land Act) brought about another fundamental change in First Nations' relations with the Crown. This Act transferred authority for Indian affairs to the colonies, enabling the British Crown to dispense with the last of its responsibilities towards its former allies. However, colonial responsibility for the management of "Indians and Indian lands" very soon became a federal responsibility with the creation of the new Dominion of Canada under the 1867 British North America Act. The new nation continued the centralized approach to Indian affairs used by the British. In addition, in 1869 Canada extended its influence over First Nations by the purchase of Rupert's Land (the Hudson's Bay Company lands). The new Dominion was now responsible for addressing the needs and claims of First Nations from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains.
Indian Policy in British Columbia
On the West Coast, the relationship between European settlers and the region's First Nation inhabitants developed quite differently from that between settlers and First Nations in the Great Lakes basin. For nearly 50 years, the commercial aspirations of the Hudson's Bay Company had overshadowed settlement in the West. With a trade monopoly for the entire British half of the Oregon territory, the HBC was content to keep its diplomatic dealings with the West Coast First Nations restricted to commercial matters relating to the fur trade.In 1849, the HBC received a new mandate to establish a colony on Vancouver Island. James Douglas, the HBC's Chief Factor and later colonial Governor after 1854, signed 14 treaties with various Coast Salish communities on Vancouver Island between 1850 and 1854. Under these treaties, the First Nations surrendered land required for settlement around various HBC posts in exchange for lump sum cash payments and goods, and the continued right to hunt and fish. The creation of the colony of British Columbia in 1859 and the rise of local control over colonial administration had a deep and lasting impact on First Nations in the region. Led by colonial surveyor and later lieutenant governor, Joseph Trutch, the colonial assembly slowly retracted the policies established by Douglas during the 1850s. Treaty making did not continue after 1854 because of British Colombia's reluctance to recognize First Nations land rights, unlike all other British colonial jurisdictions. This denial of Aboriginal land title persisted even after British Colombia joined Confederation and ran contrary to the Dominion's recognition of this title in other parts of the country.
The Numbered Treaties
Between 1871 and 1921, Canada undertook a series of land surrender treaties throughout its new territories. The objectives of these surrenders were to fulfil the requirements under the transfer; to secure Canadian sovereignty; to open the land for settlement and exploitation; and to reduce possible conflict between First Nations and settlers. Adhering to the form of the 1850 Robinson Treaties, the Crown negotiated 11 new agreements covering Northern Ontario, the Prairies and the Mackenzie River up to the Arctic. As in the Robinson Treaties, these Numbered Treaties set aside reserve lands for First Nations and granted them annuities and the continued right to hunt and fish on unoccupied Crown lands in exchange for Aboriginal title. Also included in these new treaties were schools and teachers to educate First Nations children on reserves; farming, hunting and fishing equipment; and ceremonial and symbolic elements, such as medals, flags and clothing for chiefs. First Nations were not opposed to this process and in many cases pressured Canada to undertake treaties in areas when it was not prepared to do so. First Nations signatories had their own reasons to enter into treaties with the Crown. On the whole, First Nations leaders were looking to the Crown for assistance in a time of great change and upheaval in their communities. Facing disease epidemics and famine, First Nations leaders wanted the government to help care for their people. They also wanted assistance in adapting to a rapidly changing economy as buffalo herds neared extinction and the HBC shifted its operations to the North.Throughout the negotiations and in the text of the Numbered Treaties, First Nations were encouraged to settle on reserve lands in sedentary communities, take up agriculture and receive an education. The Treaty Commissioners explained that the reserves were to help First Nations adapt to a life without the buffalo hunt and that the government would help them make the transition to agriculture. These 11 treaties included land surrenders on a massive scale. The Numbered Treaties can be divided into two groups: those for settlement in the South and those for access to natural resources in the North. Treaties 1 to 7 concluded between 1871 and 1877, led the way to opening up the Northwest Territories to agricultural settlement and to the construction of a railway linking British Columbia to Ontario. These treaties also solidified Canada's claim on the lands north of the shared border with the United States. After a 22-year gap, treaty making resumed between 1899 and 1921 to secure and facilitate access to the vast and rich natural resources of Northern Canada.
The Indian Act
The Indian Act is one of the most frequently amended pieces of legislation in Canadian history. It was amended nearly every year between 1876 and 1927. The changes made were largely concerned with the "assimilation" and "civilization" of First Nations. The legislation became increasingly restrictive, imposing ever-greater controls on the lives of First Nations. In the 1880s, the government imposed a new system of band councils and governance, with the final authority resting with the Indian agent. The Act continued to push for the whole-scale abandonment of traditional ways of life, introducing outright bans on spiritual and religious ceremonies such as the potlatch and sun dance.
The concept of enfranchisement (the legal act of giving an individual the rights of citizenship, particularly the right to vote) also remained a key element of government policy for decades to come. As very few First Nations members opted to become enfranchised, the government amended the Act to enable automatic enfranchisement. An 1880 amendment, for example, declared that any First Nations member obtaining a university degree would be automatically enfranchised. An 1933 amendment empowered the government to order the enfranchisement of First Nations members meeting the qualifications set out in the Act, even without such a request from the individuals concerned. In 1927, the government added yet another new restriction to the Act. In response to the Nisga'a pursuit of a land claim in British Columbia, the federal government passed an amendment forbidding fundraising by First Nations for the purpose of pursuing a land claim without the expressed permission of the Department of Indian Affairs. This amendment effectively prevented First Nations from pursuing land claims of any kind.
Indian Education and Residential Schools
In 1883, Indian Affairs policy on First Nations education focused on residential schools as a primary vehicle for "civilization" and "assimilation". Through these schools, First Nations children were to be educated in the same manner and on the same subjects as Canadian children (reading, writing, arithmetic and English or French). At the same time, the schools would force children to abandon their traditional languages, dress, religion and lifestyle. To accomplish these goals, a vast network of 132 residential schools was established across Canada by the Catholic, United, Anglican and Presbyterian churches in partnership with the federal government. More than 150,000 Aboriginal children attended residential schools between 1857 and 1996.
Part 5 - New Perspectives – First Nations in Canadian Society
(1914–1982)
Despite decades of difficult and painful living conditions for First Nations under the restrictive regulations of the Indian Act, many First Nations answered the call to arms during both World Wars and the Korean War. Approximately 6,000 Aboriginal soldiers from across Canada served in the First World War alone. By the late 1940s, social and political changes were underway that would mark the start of a new era for First Nations in Canada. Several First Nations leaders emerged, many of them drawing attention to the fact that thousands of their people had fought for their country in both World Wars. First Nations across the country began to create provincially based organizations that forcefully expressed their peoples' desire for equality with other Canadians, while maintaining their cultural heritage.Rolling Back Paternalism
In 1946, a special joint parliamentary committee of the Senate and the House of Commons undertook a broad review of Canada's policies and management of Indian affairs. For three years, the committee received briefs and representations from First Nations, missionaries, school teachers and federal government administrators. These hearings brought to light the actual impact of Canada's assimilation policies on the lives and well-being of First Nations. The committee hearings were one of the first occasions at which First Nations leaders and Elders were able to address parliamentarians directly instead of through the Department of Indian Affairs. First Nations largely rejected the idea of cultural assimilation into Canadian society. In particular, they spoke out against the enforced enfranchisement provisions of the Indian Act and the extent of the powers that the government exercised over their daily lives. Many groups asked that these "wide and discretionary" powers be vested in First Nations chiefs and councillors on reserves so that they themselves could determine the criteria for band membership and manage their own funds and reserve lands. While the joint committee did not recommend a full dismantling of the Indian Act and its assimilationist policies, it did recommend that unilateral and mandatory elements of the Act be scaled back or revised. The committee also recommended that a Claims Commission be established to hear problems arising from the fulfilment of treaties.Despite the committee's recommendations, amendments to the Indian Act in 1951 did not bring about sweeping changes to the government's Indian policy, nor did it differ greatly from previous legislation. Contentious elements of the Act such as the involuntary enfranchisement clause were repealed, as were the provisions that determined Indian status. However, the amendments did introduce some changes. For example, sections of the Act banning the potlatch and other traditional ceremonies, as well as a ban on fundraising to pursue land claims, were repealed. Bands were also given more control over the administration of their communities and over the use of band funds and revenues. National pension benefits and other health and welfare benefits were to be extended to First Nations. While the 1951 Act did limit some of the authority of the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development over individual bands, the government continued to exercise considerable powers over the lives of First Nations.
Despite the fact that the Indian Act still limited First Nations' control over their own affairs, by 1960 social and economic conditions on reserve began to improve. That year First Nations were at long last extended the right to vote in federal elections, another recommendation of the 1946 joint committee. First Nations veterans played a big role in this important advance, pointing out that, despite having fought for Canada in two World Wars, they were still deprived the right to vote. Other improvements for First Nations included the provision of better healthcare services in the mid-1950s. With these improvements, the Status Indian population increased rapidly. In addition, many more First Nations children had access to schooling, including secondary and post-secondary education. In general, however, the living conditions of First Nations still fell far short of the standards of other Canadians.
The White Paper
In 1969, the government began to examine a radically new approach to its Indian policy. This approach was based on the view that all Canadians held the same rights regardless of ethnicity, language or history. Arguing that the "special status" of First Nations and Inuit had put them at a disadvantage, and that both of these groups should be fully integrated into Canadian society, the government tabled a policy paper commonly known as the White Paper. This paper called for a repeal of the Indian Act, an end to federal responsibility for First Nations and termination of special status. It also called for the decentralization of Indian affairs to provincial governments, which would then administer services for First Nations. The White Paper further recommended that an equitable way be found to bring an end to treaties. In this way, the government hoped to abolish what it saw as a false separation between First Nations and the rest of Canadian society.First Nations overwhelmingly rejected the White Paper. The complete lack of consultation with the people who would be directly affected—First Nations themselves—was central to their criticism. It became apparent that while many people regarded the Indian Act as paternalistic and coercive, the Act nevertheless protected special Aboriginal status within Confederation and therefore specific rights. In the face of such strong negative reaction not only from First Nations, but also from the general public, the government withdrew the White Paper in 1971. The government's attempt to change its relationship with First Nations created a new form of Aboriginal nationalism. First Nations leaders from across the country united in new associations and organizations determined to protect and promote their peoples' rights and interests. These organizations proposed their own policy alternatives. The Indian Association of Alberta, for example, argued in a paper entitled Citizens Plus that Aboriginal peoples held rights and benefits that other Canadians did not. Rallying around this concept, First Nations leaders argued that their people were entitled to all the benefits of Canadian citizenship, in addition to special rights deriving from their unique and historical relationship with the Crown.
The federal government slowly began to change its approach and scale back its paternalistic presence in the lives of First Nation, for example, by withdrawing all Indian agents from reserves. The government also began to fund Aboriginal political organizations. This funding allowed these groups to focus on the need for full recognition of their Aboriginal rights and the renegotiation of existing treaties.
Comprehensive Land Claims
As First Nations organizations such as the National Indian Brotherhood (later the Assembly of First Nations) increasingly challenged the government's Indian policy, the courts also began to weigh in on the issue. In the early 1970s, three landmark court decisions brought about an important shift in the recognition of the rights of First Nations in Canada. In Northern Quebec, a proposed hydro-electric project in the James Bay region announced in 1971 became a focal point for Cree and Inuit protests. Arguing that the lands of Northern Quebec were not covered by any existing treaties and that they still held Aboriginal rights over those lands, the Cree Nation and Inuit of Northern Quebec filed for an injunction to block the project until their claim of rights and title was addressed. In an unprecedented decision in Canadian law, in 1973 the Superior Court of Quebec ruled in favour of the Cree and Inuit, deciding that there remained an unfulfilled obligation to resolve Aboriginal title in Northern Quebec.That same year, the courts once again brought the issue of First Nations claims under public scrutiny. After decades of persistence, the Nisga'a people in British Columbia succeeded in bringing their case before the Supreme Court of Canada. Led by Frank Calder, the Nisga'a argued that Aboriginal title to lands was part of Canadian law. In their 1973 decision in the Calder case, six of the seven Supreme Court justices ruled in favour of the Nisga'a, confirming the legality of Aboriginal title. In a third court case in 1973, the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories ruled in what has become known as the Paulette Caveat that Canada had not fulfilled its obligations under the terms of Treaties 8 and 11 in the Territories. As such, Aboriginal rights and title could not be fully relinquished to the Crown.
A review of these three monumental court decisions led the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (now Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada or AANDC) to announce its willingness to negotiate land claims based on outstanding Aboriginal title. The Department's new Comprehensive Claims Policy, the aim of which was to settle land claims through a negotiated process, was announced in August 1973. Through this new policy, Aboriginal rights and title would be transferred to the Crown by an agreement that guaranteed defined rights and benefits for the signatories (i.e. land title, fishing and trapping rights, financial compensation and other social and economic benefits). The first agreement under this new policy was with the Cree and Inuit of Northern Quebec. Soon after the 1972 James Bay ruling, the Cree, Inuit and the federal and Quebec governments began negotiations in an attempt to settle Aboriginal claims and allow the hydro-electric development project to resume. Under the final agreement signed in November 1975, the concerned Cree and Inuit groups surrendered their Aboriginal title to about 981,610 square kilometres of the James Bay/Ungava territory in Northern Quebec. In return, these parties were awarded a $225-million settlement, to be paid over 20 years. The Cree and Inuit also received tracts of community lands with exclusive hunting and trapping rights, the establishment of a new system of local government on lands set aside for their use, and First Nations control over their education and health authorities. In addition, the agreement set out measures relating to policing and the administration of justice, continuing federal and provincial benefits, and special social and economic development measures.
Since 1975, the Comprehensive Claims Policy has been modified in response to Aboriginal concerns and positions. Most notably, new options were added in 1986 relating to the transfer of rights and title (as well as a broader scope of rights and other issues). A cap on the number of ongoing negotiations was lifted in 1991.
The negotiation of comprehensive claims is a long and painstaking process, requiring many years to complete. From 1975 to 2009, there were 22 comprehensive claims agreements, commonly known as "modern treaties," concluded across Northern Quebec, the Northwest Territories, Yukon and British Columbia. Two of the most important agreements concluded are the Nunavut and Nisga'a agreements. Signed in 1993, the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement was the first treaty with Inuit in Canada and laid the groundwork for the creation of the Territory of Nunavut on April 1st, 1999. One year earlier in British Columbia, after over a century of claims and 24 years of negotiation, the Nisga'a Agreement was ratified by the Nisga'a, Canada and the province of British Columbia. The Nisga'a Final Agreement of 2000 was the first modern treaty in British Columbia.
Specific Claims Policy
As part of the wider review of how Canada dealt with First Nations claims, AANDC created a companion policy to Comprehensive Claims that addressed claims of a more specific nature. While the idea of addressing specific First Nations claims was first proposed in the 1948 joint committee report, it was not acted upon until 1973. From this point forward the Comprehensive Claims Policy would deal with issues stemming from claims to Aboriginal title, whereas the Specific Claims Policy addressed claims relating to the failure to fulfill any "lawful obligations" flowing from the Indian Act or existing treaties. To accompany the policy, the Office of Native Claims was created to guide claims through the process. However, the claims process proved difficult and cumbersome, leading many First Nations to complain it was ineffective and inefficient. After amendments to the policy in the mid-1980s and again in the early 1990s, the government created the Indian Specific Claims Commission to review AANDC's decisions regarding claims and to make recommendations.While these changes to the policy did allow for more claims to be addressed, the complexity, volume and diversity of the claims were increasingly difficult to manage. Lengthy delays were common. In 2006, the Senate Standing Committee on Aboriginal Peoples recommended that the government establish a dedicated fund for the payment of specific claims settlements and an independent body with a mandate and power to resolve specific claims. In response, AANDC invited First Nations organizations to become directly involved in formulating the new Specific Claims Policy. As a result, in 2008 the Specific Claims Tribunal Act created an independent adjudicative tribunal with the authority to make binding decisions on the validity of claims and on compensation.
"Existing Aboriginal and Treaty Rights"
The federal government entered into constitutional discussions with provincial premiers between 1977 and 1981 to reform and repatriate the Constitution. Aboriginal political organizations tried unsuccessfully to get a seat at the negotiations table. When a 1981 constitutional proposal was announced, Aboriginal and treaty rights were excluded. However, after several months of concerted lobbying, First Nations, Inuit and Métis organizations succeeded in having two clauses included in Section 35 of the Constitution, to recognize "existing Aboriginal and treaty rights" and to provide a definition of Aboriginal peoples that included all three groups. At conferences held between 1983 and 1987, attempts were made to define "existing Aboriginal and treaty rights." However, those rights remained undefined because of disagreements between the provinces, Canada and Aboriginal groups. Given this lack of consensus on a clear definition of "existing Aboriginal and treaty rights," responsibility has fallen to the courts to define the extent and scope of these rights and to direct government policies and programs so that they respect these rights and prevent any infringement of them.
Part 6 - Towards a New Relationship
(1982 – present)
Bill C-31
Since the mid-1800s, government policy had dictated that First Nations women automatically lost their Indian "status" if they married non-Aboriginal men. This automatic enfranchisement was entrenched in successive legislation for more than a century. For decades, many First Nations members, especially women, criticized this section of the Indian Act as blatant discrimination. By the 1980s, criticism of this aspect of the Act was widespread throughout Canadian society. Spurred by a series of 1970s court challenges attacking the legality of this loss of status for First Nations women, the government consulted with First Nations leaders across the country on how best to amend the Act.Parliament passed Bill C-31 in 1985. This amendment to the Indian Act removed discriminatory provisions, eliminated the links between marriage and status, gave individual bands greater control in determining their own membership, and defined two new categories of Indian status. Through this amendment, some 60,000 persons regained their lost status. In addition, Bill C-31 distinguished between band membership and Indian status. While the government would continue to determine status, bands were given complete control over membership lists.
The Oka Crisis and RCAP
The need to deal with the long-standing grievances of First Nations became more urgent following the events at Oka, Quebec, in the summer of 1990. A conflict that would grab near-immediate national attention was sparked on July 11th of that year when the Quebec Provincial Police tried to dismantle a roadblock that had been set up outside Montreal in mid-March by a group of Mohawks from Kanesatake. This First Nation community had erected the roadblock to prevent the nearby town of Oka from expanding a golf course onto sacred Mohawk lands. One police officer was killed during the raid. For 78 days, armed Mohawk warriors faced off against the Quebec Provincial Police, and later the Canadian Armed Forces, before voluntarily withdrawing from their barricade after an agreement was reached between all parties.Following what became known as the Oka Crisis, First Nations leaders and political commentators across the country debated the impact of the standoff. Supporters of the Mohawk Warriors Society argued that the conflict raised the profile of Aboriginal issues in a way that Aboriginal leaders had been unable to do previously. However, others argued that any gains made were offset by increased racism toward Aboriginal peoples, a loss of credibility for the Aboriginal rights movement and rising militancy among discontented Aboriginal youth.
In an attempt to address the concerns of First Nations leaders, and mere days before the conclusion of the Oka Crisis, the government announced a new agenda to improve its relationship with First Nations. The new measures included progress on land claim settlements, the creation of the Indian Specific Claims Commission, improved living conditions, an improved federal relationship with Aboriginal peoples and a review of the role of Aboriginal peoples in Canadian society. A few months later, in 1991, the government established the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP). The Commission's mandate was to propose specific solutions to issues that had long plagued the relationship between Aboriginal peoples, the government and Canadian society as a whole.
The Commission published its final report in 1996, which included 440 recommendations covering a wide range of Aboriginal issues. The RCAP report is a significant body of work that has been widely used to inform public debate and policy making.
Self-Government
In 1983, in response to First Nations' demands for greater autonomy, the House of Commons established a parliamentary committee (the Penner Committee) to investigate Aboriginal self-government. Following its study, the committee stated in its report that this right was inherent to all First Nations and should be entrenched in the Constitution alongside Aboriginal and treaty rights.In 1995, the government launched the Inherent Right Policy to negotiate practical arrangements with Aboriginal groups to make a return to self-government a reality. This process involved extensive consultations with Aboriginal leaders at the local, regional and national levels, and took the position that an inherent right of Aboriginal self-government already existed within the Constitution. Accordingly, new self-government agreements would then be partnerships between Aboriginal peoples and the federal government to implement that right. The policy also recognized that no single form of government was applicable to all Aboriginal communities. Self-government arrangements would therefore take many forms based upon the particular historical, cultural, political and economic circumstances of each respective Aboriginal group. Since the introduction of the policy, there have been 17 self-government agreements completed, many of which are part of larger Comprehensive Claims agreements.
National Aboriginal Day
The growing recognition of Aboriginal rights in Canadian law led to calls for greater recognition of the contributions of Aboriginal peoples to Canadian society. Shortly after the adoption of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, the National Indian Brotherhood, the leading body representing First Nations in Canada, called for the creation of a yearly "National Aboriginal Solidarity Day" on June 21st. Pressure for a national day of recognition continued to grow during the following decade as new ways were sought to bridge the divide between Aboriginal peoples and Canadians, especially in the wake of the 1990 Oka Crisis. In 1995, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples recommended the designation of a "National First Peoples Day" as a way to focus attention on the history, achievements and contributions of Aboriginal peoples in Canada. This message was repeated later that year during the Sacred Assembly, a national conference chaired by Elijah Harper, which called for a national holiday to celebrate the contributions of Aboriginal peoples. On June 13, 1996, after considerable consultation with Aboriginal organisations, June 21st was officially declared National Aboriginal Day.Since its inauguration, National Aboriginal Day has become part of the annual nationwide Celebrate Canada! festivities held from June 21st to July 1st. June 21st was chosen because of the cultural significance of the summer solstice and because many Aboriginal groups mark this day as a time to celebrate their heritage. Setting aside a day for Aboriginal peoples is part of the wider recognition of their important place within the fabric of Canada and the ongoing contributions to Canadian society made by First Nations, Métis and Inuit.
Residential Schools Apology
As the government continued to transfer control of local affairs to individual First Nations, education also began to be decentralized. New education policies began to emerge in the 1970s, with First Nations developing education systems that incorporated both the fundamental elements of a modern curriculum, as well as aspects of their respective traditions, languages and cultures. Special grants for training First Nations teachers, traditional language classes and lessons in First Nations history and culture helped strengthen these new education systems. With these advances, the residential school system increasingly fell out of favour and was slowly phased out. The final residential school, located in Saskatchewan, was closed in 1996.While First Nations took charge of educating their children, the legacy of the residential school system became increasingly apparent. More and more stories surfaced regarding abuse and mistreatment of children by school administrators and teachers. In 1990, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs leader Phil Fontaine called on the government and the churches involved with residential schools to acknowledge and address the decades of abuse and mistreatment that occurred at these institutions. In its final report, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples noted the deep and lasting negative impacts this policy had on those who attended the residential schools, as well as their families, communities and cultures. As claims and litigation against the government and churches continued to mount, the first steps toward reconciliation began in the 1990s. The various churches involved in running these institutions were the first to offer their apologies to residential school survivors. In 1998, the government also acknowledged its role in the abuse and mistreatment of Aboriginal students during their time at residential schools.
After nearly a decade of negotiations, in 2007 the Government announced a landmark compensation package (the Common Experience Package) for residential school survivors, worth nearly $2 billion. The settlement included a common experience payment, an independent assessment process, commemoration activities, measures to support healing and the creation of an Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission to act as an independent body and to provide a safe and culturally appropriate place for former students and others affected by the residential school system to share their experiences.
The Government of Canada offered an historic formal apology on June 11, 2008, to all former students of residential schools and asked their forgiveness for the suffering they experienced and for the impact the schools had on Aboriginal cultures, heritage and languages. The apology also made clear the government's commitment to address the legacy of residential schools through continuing measures, including the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
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| The Beginnings of the Fur Trade | |||
| In the 1600s Europeans formed powerful companies that would dominate the fur trade and create alliances with First Nations group for over two centuries. The Algonquian-speaking people became allies of the French, the Iroquoian-speaking people became allies of the British. The Europeans and First Nations recognized each other as sovereign nations, and created alliances that were mutually beneficial. The treaties and alliances between the Europeans and First Nations people in the 17th century show the mutual respect for each other's sovereignty, and recognize each other's right to maintain their own customs. |  Champlain heads towards his fort at Quebec, (C.W. Jefferys) | ||
| New France | |||
| Champlain founded Quebec and New France in 1608. In 1627, the Company of New France was created, and the king of France gave the company a fur trade monopoly, on condition that it bring settlers to populate New France. Individual explorers like Étienne Brulé, seeing the rich abundance of fur in the interior, quickly turned into entrepreneurs. | |||
| Champlain and the Anishinabe People | |||
 The Anishinabe people  Peace negotiations in Montreal, 1701  Champlain in Anishinabe territory (JD Kelly) | In 1615-16, Champlain over-wintered with Anishinabe people on the shores of what is now called Georgian Bay. Champlain spoke admiringly of these hard-working farmers, whom he called Hurons. He wrote::
The French developed an alliance with the Hurons, who sold them furs. Unfortunately, this alliance provoked the Iroquois, who were enemies of the Hurons, and allies of the British. The Iroquois increased their attacks on the Hurons around Lake Huron & Georgian Bay, until they virtually wiped them out by the mid 1600s. In 1616 Champlain had recorded that the Neutral Indians were a powerful agricultural nation of 4,000 warriors occupying southwestern Ontario. Between 1650-1653 the Iroquois raided them and exterminated them as a separate tribe. In August, 1701, representative from more than 20 Anishnaabe nations assembled in Montreal for Peace negotiations sponsored by the French Governor Callière. The Hurons & Iroquois promised to live in peace. The chiefs signed with totemic marks -images of animals and birds. | ||
 Forts of New France |  Fort Rouillé in Toronto, 1749 | ||
| As they expanded their empire, the French built fur-trading forts at strategic locations where Natives could bring their furs to trade. Native villages would grow up around the forts, as tribal groups came to trade their furs, and seek jobs. In later years many cities and towns - Montreal, Kingston, Toronto, Detroit, Michilmakinac - would grow up where fur trade forts had been. The French fur trade Empire eventually consisted of a line of forts through much of the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi River. |  Map of New France | ||
 Coureur de Bois | Voyageurs & Coureurs-des-bois | ||
| French Canadian Voyageurs were the main labour force for the fur trade of New France. They paddled the canoes, and carried the supplies and fur bales over the portages for the fur trading companies. When the French king made laws forbidding trading by anyone except the monopoly company, many young men broke the law, and moved out into the wilds to trade for furs. They became known as coureurs-des-bois (runners in the woods). The French Canadian coureurs-des-bois and voyageurs became known for their distinctive style of dress. A blue capote, a beaded pipe bag hung from a bright red sash, beaded moccasins and the inevitable pipe, became standard items. | |||
 Typical Coureur de Bois |  Métis costume | ||
| Beaver Hats |  | ||
The beaver pelt, so readily available, also became a popular statement among men, as a hat. Throughout the years there would be many modifications of the hat style, such as the Wellington or the Paris Beau.  Riding a Rapids (Frances Anne Hopkins) | |||
 Riding a Rapid (Arthur Heming) Frances Anne Hopkins, CW Jefferys, JD Kelly, and Arthur Heming have painted some of the most famous voyageur and fur trade scenics in Canadian history. Countless generations of Canadian school children got their sense of history from seeing their images reproduced in text and picture books. | The Life of a Voyageur | ||
| The French Canadian voyageurs paddled upstream from Montreal to the Great Lakes and the Mississippi. There were many rapids that only a light canoe could cross, and many portages where the canoe had to be unloaded, goods and canoe hauled overland, then reloaded to continue the trip. These men worked sixteen to eighteen hours a day, paddling the canoes loaded with trade goods, through fast-flowing waterways. It was hard work. Their day began at 2:00 a.m., with a six-hour paddle until breakfast. Lunch was pemmican eaten in the canoe. Once every hour, paddling ceased and each man lit his pipe. They stopped for a smoke every 6 or 8 kilometers, so the routes were measured in "pipes". Paddling continued until well after dusk; when they made camp and ate supper. | |||
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| The Beginning of the Métis | |||
| Europeans traveling in the wilds had to create alliances with First Nations people who knew and controlled the waterways and transportation routes. The coureurs-des-bois needed Indian women to cook, prepare their food supplies for winter, make and repair their clothes, heal their wounds, and especially to make their moccasins and snowshoes, which were essential for travel. Some of these relationships developed into families. The children of these unions, between French Canadians and their First Nations wives, would eventually become the Métis Nation of Canada. Métis comes from a French word meaning mixed. Sometimes the country wives stayed behind with the kids, while the voyageur returned home to Quebec, to return the next summer. Other voyageurs made a firmer commitment, and took jobs at the fur trade posts and stayed permanently. The Hudson's Bay Company saw this 'mixing' as bad for morals, while the North West Company saw it as good for business. But fur trade post chiefs from both companies took Indian wives, like those in Victoria, BC, Fort Edmonton, Winnipeg, and York Factory. These unions were looked on as entirely legal and moral among the First Nations people in the west. But more than one white man tried to hide the fact of his co-habiting with an Indian, from "the folks back home." Sir George Simpson, one of the most powerful men in Canada, dumped his country (Indian) wife, when he returned to Britain, so he could marry his cousin! |  Having a pipe (Arthur Heming)  The trader picks a bride (Alfred Miller) | ||
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| Contact, Trade and Alliances between First Nations and Europeans | ||||||
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| Long before Europeans arrived, First Nations people were active traders, and had well established trading patterns and alliances throughout North America. Archaeologists have found plenty of evidence of early trade of items such as pottery, silver, and copper tools. Champlain founded Quebec and New France in 1608. The French eventually extended their influence and trade alliances from the east coast of Canada, along the St. Lawrence River, into the Great Lakes, and down the Mississippi River. The British established their foothold in North America north of French Canada, around Hudson's Bay, and to the south, with 13 colonies that eventually became the United States. |  Early contact between Europeans and First Nations | |||||
 Samuel de Champlain |  The trading post (CW Jefferys) Fur trade brigade (Frances Anne Hopkins)  Native seed bead design | |||||
| Beads | ||||||
| During the early exploration of Canada, Europeans traded cast metal beads made of silver, brass, and German silver to improve relations with First Nations people. The most popular types were the large ceramic pony beads and the tiny seed bead. The pony beads were a quarter-to-half-an-inch large and were used for bone chokers and breastplates. They were usually a red, black or turquoise colour. The seed beads were called 'Manido-min-esag' meaning 'little spirit seeds, gift of the Manido,' by the Anishnabe. They were used in loom-beading and appliqué embroidery, replacing much of the desire for quillwork. Below Strutting Pigeon shows the variety of ways beads could be used on the head, neck, and clothing. | ||||||
 Strutting Pigeon (George Catlin)  Early trade was based on mutual respect | ||||||
| Competition & Warfare | ||||||
| When the Europeans arrived, First Nations were eager to trade furs for metal knives, axe heads, pots, needles, muskets, cloth, and glass beads. The trade goods were quickly dispersed along First Nations' traditional trade routes, and the fur trade expanded rapidly. There was fierce competition, often leading to warfare, between the French and British and their First Nations in North America all during the 1600s and 1700s. British Americans and their Indian allies launched attacks into Canada at various times. The French and their Indian allies would retaliate. In effect the traditional wars among the First Nations people were continued on during the 1600s and 1700s but backed up now by powerful European partners who were themselves traditional enemies. But traditional tribal warfare was now using much more sophisticated and destructive weaponry. And what had been war between Iroquois and Hurons was now superceded by war between the English (Americans) and the French. During the War of 1812 Indian allies played important roles in the conflict. Chief Tecumseh and General Brock formed a partnership that helped capture Detroit from the Americans. John Norton and his Iroquois warriors played a key role into striking fear into the American invaders at the Battle of Queenston Heights, on the Niagara Frontier, creating a psychology of panic that demoralized the American army leading to its defeat and retreat. | ||||||
 French-allied First Peoples attack the English
BORDERS
First Nations peoples did not recognize the borders that Europeans drew on paper that divided up their tribal areas between them. Many, to this day, officially refused to recognize the border between the US and Canada, until formal treaty negotiations settle outstanding land claims. |  British trade areas north and south of French Quebec | |||||
| Alliances |  First Nations shared natural medicines with early settlers | |||||
| Alliances and trade were mutually beneficial to the Europeans and to the First Nations. The Indians had tools, skills, and knowledge, that helped the white man adapt to the new world. First Nations knew the waterways and travel routes. They also had medicines that saved the lives of the newcomers. The most important was spruce tea, which was full of vitamin C and prevented or cured scurvy, a dreadful vitamin-deficiency disease that killed many white people. European trade goods such as metal pots, axe heads, knives, needles, and guns, greatly improved the Indian lifestyle when these tools and weapons replaced those made of stone, pottery and horn. Glass beads replaced porcupine quills coloured with natural dyes. | ||||||
As early as the 1830s Europeans and many First Nations people bemoaned the change that trade with the white cultures was having on the native way of life.
George Catlin himself mocked the change from a proud Indian chief to an epaulette sporting befrocked dandy with beaver top hat swaggering with umbrella, sword, and fan, while smoking a cigarette. Had First Peoples dropped too much of their own identity in their haste to embrace the new? | Epidemics | |||||
| Unfortunately, the Europeans also brought deadly diseases - measles, influenza, smallpox - to which the Indians had no immunities. After contact with the whites, many Native populations were decimated by epidemics. A smallpox epidemic in 1862 may have killed off one third of the Northwest Coastal people. Three quarters of the Micmac in New Brunswick probably died as a result of epidemics in the first hundred years after the white man came in the early 1600s. Samuel Hearne suggested that nine tenths of the Chipewyan may have died of a small pox epidemic in the 1700s. | ||||||
 Native drawing of a person suffering from small pox | ||||||
Topics in this section:Aboriginal SettlementEuropean Discovery of Canada Acadia: The First French Settlement (1604 - 1758) Louisbourg Other Interesting or Important Documents Aboriginal Settlement Aboriginal people lived in what's now Canada long before any European landed on its shore. Archaeologists believe that North American Aboriginals originated in Asia and came over the land bridge connecting Siberia and North America during the Ice Age. It is believed by scientists that Aboriginals first lived in Canada anywhere from 10,000 to 13,000 years ago. However, some Aboriginal tribes believe that life on Earth began with their creation in North America, and entirely reject the notion they immigrated here at all.
European Discovery of Canada Europeans first discovered the east coast of Canada in 1497, when explorer John Cabot claimed either Newfoundland or Cape Breton Island for England. This discovery opened up new cod fishing and whaling grounds off the east coast that attracted English, French, Spanish and Portuguese fishermen. The latter two groups, however, would become more interested in exploring to the coastal areas south of this region. The French, however, sent explorer Jacques Cartier in 1534 and 1535 in the hopes of establishing an inland presence in the region. Six years later, he returned for a third time to the area, and established a small settlement near where Québec City stands today. The settlement didn't survive a harsh winter, however. France decided to abandon the colony, save for a few fishermen and fur traders who remained. Acadia: The First French Settlement (1604 - 1758) In 1603, Pierre de Monts received a fur-trading monopoly over New France from King Henry IV of France. In return, however, he was now responsible for the following two tasks:
The following year, Champlain settled at Port-Royal on the Bay of Fundy. That colony, too, would be unsuccessful and became an abandoned location in 1607. The Port-Royal location would be re-established twice in 1610 and the early 1630s. Though France gained the location through treaty in 1632, the British and French would fight over it throughout the 17th century. In 1713, France gave most of the land and fishing rights on the eastern coast to Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht, except for Île Royale (Cape Breton), Île Saint-Jean (Prince Edward Island) and the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon.
Louisbourg The French would develop Louisbourg on Île Royale as a commercial trading and military outpost in response to the new British presence in the region under the Treaty of Ghent. By 1740, it had become a major garrison that was home to 2,000 people, including 600 soldiers. In 1755 and again in 1758, however, Louisbourg was seized by British lieutenant-governor Charles Lawrence. He deported most of the Acadians to New England in what's now the United States. About a third of these people died on ships during their deportation. Many of these Acadians, though, were able to escape and resettle back in regions of what's now New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Louisbourg, on the other hand, was completely destroyed in 1760. Lawrence issued a proclamation opening up settlement of Acadian lands to British settlers - many came from New England. Some of the land, particularly on Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island, was given to friends of the British Crown.
Other Interesting or Important Documents
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| 1497 - 1760 1608 - 1763 1775 - 1812 1811 - 1870 1814 - 1830 1830 - 1867 1842 - 1903 1851 - 1885 1870 - 1896 1896 - 1914 Sources |
https://web.archive.org/web/20150214015749/http://www.canadiana.ca/citm/themes/pioneers/pioneers2_e.html
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Early Canadian History |
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Have
your parents or grandparents ever told you the story of how your family first
moved to Canada? People who come to Canada from another country are called
immigrants. Everyone in Canada, except for Aboriginals, comes from an immigrant
family.
Aboriginals were the first
people to live in Canada. They were not all alike. Aboriginals spoke many
different languages and lived all over Canada. They survived through hunting,
agriculture, and by trading with other Aboriginal communities. Then, in the
1500s (more than 400 years ago) Europeans began to visit Canada. At first they
were just interested in Canada's abundant resources of furs, fish, and lumber.
Soon they developed permanent communities and began to populate Canada. These
were Canada's first immigrants.
The two largest European
immigrant groups were the English and the French. Other settlers came from
countries like Spain, Portugal, Holland, and Russia. These diverse origins
explain why Canada is known as a nation of immigrants. Chances are that your
family was once an immigrant family. Ask your parents to tell you your family's
immigration story.
Each group had its own language
and customs. With all these different people trying to live together, there was
often confusion and conflict. Throughout Canada 's history, large and powerful
groups have not always treated small groups fairly. Groups with strong
differences have had a hard time understanding each other.
Canada today is a mixture of
many different nations, languages, and religions. Each group of people has
contributed in a unique way to Canadian history and its way of life. Even though
there were many different groups, the English settlers had the most power. That
influenced the shape of Canadian
life.
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USA
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AMERICAN INDIANS or NATIVE AMERICANS
Various Authors
Edited By: R. A.Guisepi
The International History Project
The first people to inhabit the Americas are referred to as
Indians. Their settlements ranged across the Western Hemisphere and were
built on many of the sites where modern cities now rise. They hunted deer,
buffalo, and other game and cultivated land where today crops are still
grown. Their hunters, warriors, and traders used paths now followed by roads
and railroads. Indian words dot the map of the United States . Twenty-seven
states and large numbers of cities, towns, rivers, and lakes bear names from
the languages of the first Americans.
Native American farmers were the first in the world to
domesticate potatoes, tomatoes, and many other food plants that help feed the
peoples of the world today. The Native Americans were also the first to raise
turkeys. They found uses for such Native American plants as rubber, tobacco,
the sugar maple, and the cinchona tree (for quinine).
The Native
Americans had lived in America for thousands of years when the first European
explorers set foot on their land. When Christopher Columbus landed in the New
World , he called the native people indios (Spanish for Indians)
because he thought he had reached India .
Because of European colonization of North and South
America since 1500, Native Americans have been greatly reduced in numbers and
largely displaced. In Central and South America a large percentage of the
modern population is of mixed Indian and European ancestry, and in the
Caribbean and parts of South America a portion of the population is of mixed
American Indian and African descent.
Native Americans belong to the American Indian geographic
race. Characteristics include medium skin pigmentation, straight black hair,
sparse body hair, and a very low frequency of male pattern balding. In
addition to a marked absence of blood type B and the Rh-negative blood type
among Native Americans, several other characteristics of their blood types
set them apart from the Mongoloid peoples, with whom they were sometimes
classed in the past.
WHERE DID THE INDIANS COME FROM?
Like the white settlers, the first Indians were immigrants.
Anthropologists say they came from northeastern Asia . They resembled the
early Mongoloid people of that region. Nobody knows when or how they came.
They probably arrived when ice sheets covered much of northern North America
. This may have been 20,000 to 30,000 years ago.
They may have come because they were wandering hunters,
like most people of that era. They crossed the Bering Strait to Alaska ,
seeking new hunting grounds. Bridges of land existed then, making passage
easy. There seem to have been ice-free land and game in Alaska and open land
east of the Rocky Mountains , leading into the heart of North America .
Perhaps the Indians moved along this area as they needed new hunting grounds.
Gradually the ice melted, and the Indians spread to most parts of both
Americas . They did not fill this vast area. It has been estimated that only
about 1,025,000 were living north of Mexico when the first white men came to
America .
Differences in Ways of Living
The Indians lived in different ways in various parts of the country.
When a roaming band of Indians found a place with good hunting and plenty of
seeds and berries, they settled down. Gradually they learned to utilize the
area's trees and plants, its animals, fish, and birds, and its stones and
earth.
The vast American continents have many kinds of land and
climate. In each area nature provided special plants, animals, and raw
materials. Thus Indians of various areas had different food, clothing, and
shelter. They worked out different ways of life.
Since the Indians depended upon nature, they studied its
ways. They knew the habits of the animals. They found out which plants were
nourishing and which poisonous. They knew signs that foretold the turning of
the seasons and the changes in the weather.
They had no science to explain nature, and they believed
the sun, rain, and other forces were controlled by spirits. In religion they
worshiped animals, plants, the sun, rain, and wind. In ceremonies and prayers
they tried to gain the favor of these gods.
CULTURE AREAS IN NORTH AMERICA
Scholars give the name culture to the way of life of a people,
including its arts and crafts. In studying Indian cultures north of Mexico ,
they found seven great culture areas in the region. The Indians of each area
shared similar natural surroundings and had much the same kind of culture.
Peoples who lived along the border between two culture areas often reflected
the two ways of living.
The pictures throughout the article illustrate ways of
life in some of the areas. They show that in each area the Indians had
special ways of acquiring clothing, food, houses, and utensils.
One thing they had in common was the use of stone tools.
All made a variety of hammers, scrapers, knives, arrowheads, and spear points
from stone. They were handicapped by the lack of sharp metal
tools.
Indians of the Eastern Forests
The Indians who made their homes in the eastern part of North America
had a region with plentiful rainfall. Forests spread over mountains and
valleys. There were many lakes and streams. The Woodland tribes largely
depended upon the trees, the animals that lived in the woods, and the fish
and shellfish from the streams and the sea. They used tree bark and branches
to make their houses, many of their weapons and utensils, and the canoes in
which they skimmed over the waters. They made clothing from the skins of
game.
They did not have to wander seeking wild food. Since they
knew how to grow crops, they could live in villages. The women planted corn,
pumpkin, squash, beans, tobacco, and gourds. The plants flourished in the
warm, rainy summers.
Wanderers of the Plains
The Plains Indians lived on a vast rolling plain. There was enough
rain for a thick carpet of grass but not enough to grow many trees. Trees
grew only beside the rivers. Huge herds of grazing animals fed on the grass.
The most important of these was the buffalo, or bison. Indeed, the buffalo
has been called "the Plains Indians' galloping department store."
This animal gave the Indians almost everything they needed. The flesh
supplied food. From the skin they made tents, called tepees, boats, utensils,
baggage, and some of their clothing. These Indians moved about the plains
following the herds. They also hunted other plains animals, notably elk,
deer, and antelope.
After Spanish settlers in the southwest brought horses to
America , the Plains Indians became famous as expert hunters. With their
swift ponies they could overtake a herd of buffalo and kill all the animals
they needed. Hunting was usually a tribal activity, and it involved driving
large numbers of buffalo off a cliff or into some type of
encirclement.
Pueblo Indians of the Southwest
The Indians of the Southwest had land that was high, dry, and cut by
mountains and canyons. They had little rain, but it came mostly in summer
when it could help plants grow. Snow fell on the mountains in winter and
supplied water for streams, springs, and water holes. The Pueblo Indians
learned to irrigate their fields and to find moist spots for dry farming.
Good crops gave them a dependable food supply. They built large dwellings,
like apartment houses, from stone and adobe (sun-dried clay). A whole
village, or community, lived in one of these huge houses. When the Spanish
explorers saw them in the 16th century, they called the community houses
pueblos from the Spanish word for village.
Nomadic Raiders and Herders
The region also had nomadic Indians who did not build villages. The
Navajos were hunters and raiders of the settled villages until the Spaniards
brought sheep and goats. They gradually began tending flocks of these animals
for a livelihood.
They moved over the dry, rocky land seeking grass for
their flocks. They made homes, called hogans, of stone, logs, and
earth.
Seed Gatherers of the Desert
The Seed Gatherer Indians had an even drier homeland. They lived in
the arid parts of California and in the dry basins and plateaus between the
Rockies and the Sierra Nevada . Game animals were scarce, and the men could
not supply enough food by hunting. So the family roamed the desert, and the
women gathered berries, nuts, seeds, and roots. They ground the seeds into
flour for gruel.
Their shelters were mere windbreaks or flimsy huts
covered with rushes or bunches of grass. Their greatest skill was basketry. They
wove the baskets so closely that they would hold the finest seeds--even
water. The women cooked the gruel in them.
Fishermen of the Northwest
The Northwest Fishermen had a land of heavy rainfall along the
northern Pacific coast. The ocean and the rivers were rich with fish. Forests
grew tall and dense. The giant red cedar provided straight-grained wood which
even crude tools could split. So these skillful Indians built large houses by
tying big slabs of cedar to wooden frames. They made dugout canoes for river
travel, as well as seagoing whaleboats.
Hunters added game to the fish supply. The women gathered
bulbs, berries, and seeds. They wore little clothing--fringe skirts and
raincoats made from the inner bark of the cedar. The men were skillful
wood-carvers. Examples of their craftsmanship have survived, from small dolls
to large, painted totem poles.
Northern Hunters
North of these areas lived the Mackenzie-Yukon Valley Caribou Hunters
and the Inuit. The Caribou Hunters depended upon the caribou and other
northern game much as the Plains Indians depended upon the buffalo. They made
their tents and clothing of caribou or other deer hides. In winter they
tracked their game on snowshoes. As they roamed, their dogs carried the
baggage or pulled it on sledges.
The Inuit today still live along the chill northern
fringes of the continent. There are Inuit across the whole Arctic region,
ranging from Alaska to Labrador , as well as in Greenland and Siberia . Many
depend upon seal, whale, walrus, caribou, polar bear, Arctic birds, and other
Arctic animals. They make warm clothing of the animal skins--turning the fur
inside to hold the body's warmth.
GAMES, SPORTS, AND CEREMONIES
The Indians did not give all their time to the work needed to stay
alive. They had many games and sports. Tribal members came together for
festivals that lasted a week or more. The gatherings usually had religious
ceremonies as their main purpose, but there was time for games and visiting,
storytelling, and social singing and dancing.
Children played much as children play today. Girls played
with dolls dressed in the costumes of their tribes. Boys shot small arrows
from toy bows and crept through the woods pretending to be hunters or
warriors. There were whip tops to spin, stilts, slings, and other toys. They
had dogs and small wild things as pets. Around the fire in the evening, old
and young played guessing games such as hunt-the-button. They made cat's
cradles with fiber string.
Children learned skills from games then as they do now.
Archery, target practice, and footraces taught skills needed by the hunters.
Pueblo children learned about kachinas from their kachina dolls. The kachinas
were mythical ancestors of the Pueblo people. They were thought to live in a
lake beneath the earth. The tribes held kachina dances to celebrate visits
from the spirits. The dancers gave kachina dolls to children, to inspire them
to be like the kachina ancestors.
Intertribal Meets and Women's Games
Young people competed in athletic sports. The "ball play"
popular throughout the east has become the modern sport lacrosse. Athletes
were highly trained for intertribal contests in this game. The ceremonial
dancing and feasting before the games may be compared to modern football pep
rallies. Inter-village footraces were held by the Pueblos , and horse racing
was popular among the buffalo-hunting Plains tribes.
Ring-and-pole and hoop-and-pole games were popular in
many areas. The players shot poles or spears through stone rings or into a
netting on a rolling hoop. Snow snake was popular among northern tribes. The
players hurled a long stick, sometimes painted to resemble a snake, to see
who could send it farthest over the ice or frozen ground.
Shinny was a woman's game. Plains women used a small
buckskin-covered ball of buffalo hair. Women of the Southwest played a kind
of football. They kicked a small ball around a long course. In early times,
the game was thought to have magical powers, such as protecting the fields
against sandstorms.
Games of Chance
Indians of all tribes liked games of chance. The commonest was called
the hand game. A player held in his hands two bone or wooden cylinders, one
plain and the other marked. His opponents attempted to guess which hand held
the unmarked piece. One camp might compete against another. Backers lined up
beside the players, shouting and singing to distract them. A man might lose
his horses, buffalo robes, or everything he owned in the excitement.
Numerous games used markers resembling dice. Common among
northern tribes was the bowl game. Players tossed marked peach or plum seeds
in a bowl.
Dancing and Ceremonials
Most of the Indian dances and ceremonies were held for religious or
superstitious reasons. By honoring their spirits, or gods, the Indians hoped
to gain help and favor. Medicine men, or religious leaders, danced to seek
aid for the sick. Hunters danced the deer dance or the buffalo dance to
attract abundant game. Farming tribes staged ceremonials to bring rain or to
make the corn grow or ripen. Certain dances dramatized stories from the
history or mythology of the tribe. Other ceremonies were held when children
arrived at manhood or womanhood or to initiate them into the religious secret
societies of the tribe.
Although the purpose of a dance was serious, the Indians
usually made it the occasion for fun and sociability. In many tribes, there
were clowns or other fun makers among the musicians or dancers. In the
evening or at the end of a festival, social dances were sometimes held. The
squaw dance of the Navajos was a social dance in which both men and women
took part. Originally it came at the end of elaborate ceremonials to welcome
the braves at the end of a war.
Songs and Musical Instruments
Singing accompanied every public ceremony as well as the important
events in an individual's life. Both the tune and the rhythm seem strange to
the white man's ears. Religious songs passed down from generation to
generation, as they were an important part of the ceremonies. Women sang
songs not only to ease the burden of their own activities, such as spinning
and grinding, but also to encourage the warrior as he went forth. Every
mother, of course, sang lullabies. Birds or animals, in folk stories, were
supposed to sing their own quaint songs, which were imitated by the
storyteller. On the northwest coast there were spirited song contests between
tribes. Certain songs were the exclusive property of clans and societies.
Individuals in the clan, however, could sell their songs or even give them
away.
A variety of instruments accompanied dance and song.
These included drums, rattles, whistles, flutes, bull-roarers, and notched
sticks rasped on bones. The Indians made them of materials at hand. Plains
drums had painted horsehide heads. Northwestern tribes used wooden boxes, and
their rattles were made like masks from wood or native copper. The Pueblos
and other farming tribes made gourd rattles. The Iroquois used a turtle shell
and a pot or water drum.
Tales of the Old People
Every tribe had its legends--some more fanciful than true--of the
history of the tribe. When the day's work was done, the old people would tell
these tales. There were also many stories of animals and mythical beings
which could assume human form and yet retain some of their own particular
traits. Children were thrilled by these stories. The Indian stories and myths
were passed by word of mouth from one generation to another. This is known as
the oral tradition.
Woodland Indians of the Eastern Wilderness
The Indians of the eastern forests were the first ones the American
colonists met. In the beginning, the settlers from Europe looked upon the
Indians as ignorant savages. Then they found that there was much the Indians
could teach them. They learned to grow corn and to bury a fish in each hill
for fertilizer. They adopted the Indian's swift, graceful bark canoe for
water travel. They found out how to hunt and make war--Indian
style.
Indian ways were valued because they were suited to the
wilderness of forests, rivers, and lakes. The Indians had to convert the
things around them into food, clothing, shelter, weapons, tools, and
utensils. There were no stores in the wilderness to sell a family what it
could not get or make for itself.
From the beginning, the American people have used Indian
methods and equipment when living in the forests of the east. The fur traders
patterned their lives on the Indian way of life. They traveled in canoes and
on snowshoes, wore moccasins and other clothing of deerskin, and ate Indian
foods. Later, the pioneer settlers often wore buckskin too, and housewives
followed many Indian recipes in their cookery.
Kinds of Houses in the East
All the Eastern Woodland Indians lived in much the same way. But from
place to place there were differences in climate and in available plants and
animals, and the tribes differed in housing and clothing styles, in food
habits, and in means of transportation.
Pictures in this section show houses from different parts
of the Eastern Woodland . Perhaps the most widely used was the bark-covered
wigwam. Sometimes it was shaped like a cone, and sometimes it was more of a
dome. The Indians made a frame for this hut of small, flexible trees, or saplings.
They stuck them firmly in the ground in a circle, then bent them overhead in
an arch and tied them together with tough bark fibers or with rawhide. Next,
other slender branches were wrapped in circles around the bent poles and tied
to them. Slabs of bark were tied to this frame to form the roof and walls.
Space was left vacant for a door and a smoke hole. Platforms inside served as
beds, chairs, and shelves.
The Iroquois and certain other New York tribes built the
larger longhouse. Its shape was similar to that of the arched metal Quonset
hut built during World War II. Five to a dozen families might live together
in the longhouse.
In the warm southeast, certain tribes raised bigger crops
and had a more involved culture than the northeast tribes. They had winter
houses of clay plastered on a framework of poles and woven twigs, with a
domed or cone-shaped roof. The Seminoles in Florida used palmetto-thatched
shelters without sidewalls. These people still live in this type of
house.
All the houses were crowded, by modern standards, but the
Indians did not mind. Every family spent most of its time outdoors. In good
weather the women cooked at an open fire and did much of their work sitting
outside.
Life in a Woodland Village
Eastern Indians lived in villages clustered beside a lake or stream.
They drove sharpened poles into the ground to make a high fence, or palisade,
around the village to protect it from attack. The women had garden patches
beyond the fence. When the ground lost its richness through years of
planting, the game in the neighborhood became scarce, or the firewood was
used up, the villagers left their old homes and moved to a new
location.
The village was a busy place. Men and women shared the
work, but the men's share was more fun than the women's. They hunted the
forest animals to get meat and hides for food and clothing materials; they
trapped or seined fish. But there was time between hunts to join war parties
and to take part in religious and medicine-society ceremonials and to sit in
the tribal councils.
The men helped with building wigwams and with clearing
the ground for gardens by burning off the trees and bushes. Trees were felled
by girdling. A fire set at a tree's base charred the wood so a man could chip
it with his stone ax until the tree fell. A ring of wet clay kept the flames
from spreading up the trunk. Skilled men of the tribe made the bows and
arrows, war clubs, and stone knives.
Babies Carried on Cradleboards
The women's many chores kept them busy all day. They wrapped the
babies in moss and furs and bound them to wooden cradleboards. They carried
the boards on their backs when they gathered food in the woods. In the
village they stood the boards by the house. In the garden they hung the baby's
cradle on a convenient branch.
Preparing Food and Making Clothing
The women planted corn, beans, pumpkin, squash, tobacco, and gourds in
the gardens. They harvested the crops and prepared the food. It was not
difficult to roast green corn in a pit with hot rocks or to broil meat or
fish on a grill of green twigs over a fire. But most jobs were harder. To
grind the dry corn into meal they pounded it in a mortar made of a hollowed
log, with a small log for a pestle. They made hominy by soaking the grains in
a solution of wood ashes that loosened the tough hull of the kernel. They
parched, or toasted, corn for warriors on the march. They dried corn, squash,
berries, meat, and fish for the cold months. They stewed corn and beans into
succotash and made soups of corn with meat or fish in pottery
jars.
Some areas offered special things to eat. In the forests
of the northeast, the Indians tapped the sugar maples and boiled the sap to
make sugar. The Ojibwa and other tribes of the northern Great Lakes area had
plenty of wild rice for their grain supply. They did not need to raise garden
crops. The seashore and many rivers offered shellfish. Heaps of discarded
shells mark the sites of many ancient camps.
Many days of work were required to make the buckskin
garments the Indians wore. Tanning deer hides called for many
processes--scraping off flesh and hair, washing the hide, drying and
stretching it, treating it with a deer-brain mixture, and sometimes smoking
it to waterproof it.
Tailoring the garments meant cutting the skins with shell
or flint knives and sewing them with animal sinews. Awls and needles were
made of bone and horn. Indian women added beautiful colored porcupine-quill
embroidery They created designs of the flowers, leaves, and vines they saw in
the woods. They decorated ceremonial costumes richly.
At work the women wore a wraparound skirt, the men a
breechcloth. The men usually shaved their heads, leaving only a scalp lock.
Their headdresses were of dyed deerhair or a few feathers. (The forest would
have been a poor place for the warbonnet of the Plains Indian. Tree branches
would have torn off its feathers.) Winter's fur robes left one shoulder
bare.
Baskets, Pottery, and Boats
Women of many eastern tribes knew how to weave mats, baskets, and
belts from shredded bark, wood splints, and other fibers. Most tribes of the
region made pottery jars for cooking and storing foods. Boxes and dishes were
fashioned from bark and wood.
The Eastern Woodland Indians traveled fastest by water.
The northern tribes made bark canoes in which they skimmed swiftly and
silently over the lakes and rivers. Southeastern tribes made dugout canoes.
They hollowed out a log by burning the inside and scraping away the charred
wood. The Indians used their canoes in hunting and fishing. From their canoes
they could readily shoot the fleet deer and moose when the animals were
wading or swimming.
On land the Indians traveled on foot and carried burdens
on their muscular backs. They had no draft animals to haul loads, and their
roads were only narrow paths. The dog was their only domestic animal. In
winter the northern hunters could move after their prey swiftly on
snowshoes.
Hunters of the Broad Plains
Today the word Indian is usually symbolized by the Plains Indian
brave--a majestic figure with strong, sharp features, a dignified manner, and
a colorful costume of beaded and fringed buckskin. He was a splendid
horseman, hunter, and mounted warrior who took pride in defending his hunting
grounds against the invasion of white settlers. In war, the eagle feathers of
his long-tailed warbonnet streamed in the breeze as he galloped over the
plains.
A Land of Abundant Game
Game was plentiful on the plains. Buffalo and antelope grazed over the
grassy land. In the hills and mountains nearby lived deer and elk, grizzly
bears, mountain sheep, and mountain goats. The buffalo were the most valuable
game animals. But the big herds moved about constantly seeking pasture, and the
Indians had a hard time catching them when they had to hunt on foot. After
horses were brought to North America from Europe , the Plains tribes became
successful mounted hunters and spent their lives following the herds. Spanish
settlers first brought horses to the Southwest. Between 1650 and 1750 they
spread to the plains.
Before the coming of the horse this splendid hunting
ground contained but few Indian tribes. Most people there lived in the river
valleys where they could raise corn. Their homes were villages of earth
huts.
At buffalo-hunting time, a tribe moved after the feeding
herds on foot. They had invented a dwelling they could carry--the tepee. They
made an A-shaped drag, called a travois, on which their dogs hauled the tepee
cover of buffalo hides and other gear. The tents were small because the dogs
could not pull heavy loads.
Buffalo Hunting Without Horses
Before they gained the benefit of horses, the hunters had, over the
centuries, worked out cunning methods by which they could kill enough buffalo
to supply the tribe with meat and hides. If the herd was scattered, a few
hunters might move softly among the animals and shoot several without scaring
the others. In snowy weather, Indians would encircle a herd and kill many of
the animals before they could flounder away in the drifts or get lost in a
blizzard.
Another effective method was to drive the herd over a
cliff. One man, draped in a buffalo robe, would move ahead of the herd toward
the cliff. Then other Indians would jump behind the animals, shouting and
waving robes. The buffalo would begin to trot, then gallop in terror, the
animals in the rear pushing those in front. The decoy leader would dodge to
safety at the last minute, and the crazed herd would pour over the precipice.
Many were killed in the fall. The injured were disposed of with spears or
clubs.
After the hunt, the work of the women began. They skinned
the carcasses and cut up the meat. The meat might be hung on green branches over
the fire to cook. Or it could be boiled by dropping hot rocks into the
cooking pot. The pot too came from the buffalo. A buffalo stomach or a piece
of hide was fitted into a hole in the ground and used for
cooking.
Most of the meat was cut into thin strips and jerked.
Jerking meant hanging the strips on a rack in the dry wind that swept the
plains. This dried meat would keep for a long while. Sometimes it was pounded
fine and mixed with melted fat and dried berries, then stored in containers
of skin or membrane. Called pemmican, this was an excellent concentrated food
for warriors or hunters.
Plains Indian Homes and a "Ferryboat"
After following a herd until they had a good supply of meat and hides,
the hunters would return to their permanent village. Among the early Plains
tribes that lived in earth lodges were the Mandan , Hidatsa, Pawnee, Arikara,
Omaha , and Osage. Other tribes on the eastern fringe of the plains blended
the plains and woodland ways of life. Among those who lived in bark-or mat-covered
wigwams were the Kansa, Missouri , Iowa , Quapaw, and some of the Osage.
Others, such as the Caddo, Wichita , and Waco , used grass houses. These
tribes grew corn and other crops and made pottery cooking
vessels.
Village tribes along the Missouri River used a
bowl-shaped bullboat. They made it by stretching a buffalo hide over a wooden
frame. It was too clumsy for water travel, but it could be used to ferry
people and gear across a river.
How Horse-Owning Tribes Moved
Many Plains tribes gave up permanent villages after they got horses.
Among the tribes which changed were the Sioux (or Dakota), the Blackfeet, the
Crow, the Cheyenne , the Arapaho, the Comanche, and the Kiowa. Each tribe
knew where the buffalo should be from month to month and moved as necessary
for convenience in hunting.
To get horses, the Indians were willing to trade their
most valuable goods. They also raided the camps of other tribes and white
traders and roped any wild ponies they found. On a big hunt, the many bands
in a tribe gathered in a huge camp. Their tepees were much larger after the
Indians had horses to haul the heavy covers on the travois.
Buffalo runs were wild, exciting affairs. First scouts
located a herd. Then the long line of mounted hunters rode forward. Sometimes
fantastically dressed medicine men trotted ahead, chanting and shaking
rattles. At a signal the hunters charged among the buffalo at a gallop.
Guiding his trained buffalo horse by knee pressure, the hunter pulled
alongside his quarry and drove an arrow into its body. He gripped a pair of
arrows in the left hand, which held the bow, and held another in his mouth. A
quiver with spare arrows hung from his shoulder. A brave, skillful, and lucky
hunter might kill four or five animals during a run. The number
increased after the Indians got guns from the settlers.
Celebrations and Honors for Bravery
Almost as exciting as the hunt itself was the feast that followed. It
was an event the whole tribe took part in. Happy and filled with good red
meat, the Indians would sing and dance and recite war chants. Boasting at
such times was not considered bad manners. When getting ready for a hunt or a
war party, or upon returning, a brave would get up and tell how strong and
courageous he was.
No Indians honored bravery, daring, endurance, and other
warlike qualities more than did the Plains hunters. They held huge religious
ceremonials to arouse enthusiasm and to win the help of the gods. Each tribe
had its secret societies in which young men passed from rank to rank to win
high honors. the men withdrew from the camp for fasting and for purification
to evoke a guardian spirit which would give them magic powers. They painted
their visions of the spirits on shields and tepees.
The tribe rewarded warriors for bravery. For a courageous
deed an Indian was given the right to wear one or more feathers in a
headdress. Most prized were the feathers of the eagle. It was in this way
that the famous warbonnet came into being.
Each brave kept track of his heroic deeds by counting
coup. (Coup is a French word meaning "stroke,"
"blow.") Among the deeds that counted as coups were killing or
scalping an enemy, touching a living enemy's body or an enemy tepee, and
stealing a horse from an enemy.
Contrasting Work of Men and Women
Each tribe had a division of labor. The exciting, glamorous life of
the men makes that of the women seem dull and hard. There was, however, a
good reason for making the women do the work of moving camp. The men had to
be armed and ready to fight at a moment's notice. Enemy raiders might appear
at any time, trying to capture the precious horses. Some of the tribesmen
guarded the camp. Others were scouts who rode ahead and signaled the
appearance of game or the enemy. Signals included riding in a certain
pattern, waving a buffalo robe, sending up puffs of smoke by day, and using
fire by night.
The women became so expert that they could set up the
tepees or take them down in a few minutes. They packed all equipment and lashed
it onto the travois. The mother usually rode a horse, with the baby on its
cradleboard hanging beside her.
In camp the women spent hour after hour scraping flesh
and hair from the buffalo hides and tanning them. From the hides they made
all sorts of things--robes, bedding, rawhide utensils, and carrying cases,
called parfleches. The horns were carved into spoons and ladles, the hooves
cooked to make glue.
When it was time to make a new tepee cover, a woman
invited friends to help her sew the big white hides together. They used
buffalo sinews for thread. Later the man painted designs on the
tent.
The chief skill of the men lay in making weapons. They
whittled bows from Osage orange or other tough wood and shaped them in a
double curve. They made arrows with a sharp stone head. They lashed feathers
to the arrow butt to make it fly straight. Each hunter had his design in the
feathers to show which animals he had killed in a big hunt.
Clothing and Crafts
The women used the softer, finer skins of deer and antelope for most
garments. They embroidered the ceremonial costumes with dyed porcupine quills
and painted the carrying cases and the tepee linings. In the designs, they
drew triangles, diamonds, and other geometrical figures. They beaded the
costumes after beads were brought in by traders.
Women's dresses and men's shirts were made of a pair of
skins fastened together at the top, except for a neck opening. Often the
women covered the yoke and belt of their ceremonial dresses with beads. The
men wore breechcloths and thigh-length leggings in addition to shirts when
they were dressed up. The legging seams ran down the sides. (The Woodland
leggings had a front seam.)
Men's Ornaments and War Paint
Plains warriors loved ornaments. They decked themselves with trophies
of war and the hunt. Locks of hair from the scalp of an enemy and soft white
ermine tails dangled from the seams of the ceremonial shirt. Grizzly-bear
claws and buffalo teeth were strung on otter skin for necklaces. Quivers,
tobacco pouches, and medicine bags were made from pelts of panthers, otter,
and beaver. Eagle quills were used in their headdresses and decorated their
shields, dance bustles, ceremonial pipes, and lances. On his robes of young
buffalo skin, the warrior often painted sketches showing the battles he had
fought during his life.
The braves painted their bodies for dances and for
battle. The designs might be special "medicine," or magic, to
protect their lives, or they might be drawn to make the men look more
ferocious. For paint the Indians used red and white clays, black charcoal,
and yellow pigment from bullberries or moss. They first smeared their bodies
with buffalo or deer fat, then rubbed on the color.
The practice of using animal grease or fish oil on the
skin to clean and soften it was common among Indians. The resulting odor was
frequently unpleasant to white people. An Indian method of bathing in use
throughout the country was the sweat bath. The Indians built an airtight hut
for this purpose. Hot stones were placed in the hut and sprinkled with water
to make them steam. The Indians stayed inside until they were perspiring
freely. Then they rushed out and plunged into a cold stream. This treatment
was used for purification before ceremonials and as a cure for
disease.
Love of ornament was a spur to trade among the Indians
and, later, between the Indian and the white man. Shells and coral from the
seacoasts, native copper from the Great Lakes region, turquoise from the
Southwest, pipestone from Minnesota , and bear claws from the Rocky Mountains
were passed from tribe to tribe, long before Columbus discovered America .
The Plains tribes had buffalo hides and fur pelts to trade. Their region was
the scene of bitter rivalry among French, English, and American traders. The
Indians there used glass beads, needles, steel knives, copper kettles, and
other manufactured wares long before white settlement.
Farmers and Herders of the Southwest
Modern New Mexico and Arizona offer visitors an opportunity to see and
study Indians following ancient customs, activities, and ceremonials and
engaging in traditional handicrafts. Although the Southwest Indians have
adopted many of the white man's ways and his manufactured goods, they retain
more than a few of their old ways which are well-suited to this dry, rugged,
highland region.
Farming with Irrigation Before Columbus
Southwest Indians worked out two means of winning a livelihood in this
region--farming and herding. Farming is much the older occupation. Perhaps
four thousand years ago the forefathers of the Pueblo Indians began planting
corn. Centuries before Spanish explorers found them in 1539, the Indians had
become settled villagers and, in spite of scanty rainfall, could grow crops
by using irrigation. They built many-storied houses from stone and adobe
clay, and they were skilled at basketry, pottery making, and
weaving.
Other Southwest farmers were the Pima and Papago tribes
of southern Arizona . Archaeologists say their ancestors (called the Hohokam)
built the finest irrigation systems in prehistoric North America . The
forefathers of the Pimas and Papagos lived in simple huts with a framework of
logs and poles covered with arrowwood or grass and plastered with clay. They
made fine baskets.
The herding way of life did not develop until after the
Spaniards introduced sheep and goats. Before this the Navajo and Apache
peoples, who came from the north, had lived by hunting. When game was scarce,
they raided the farming settlements for food.
The Navajos gradually adopted herding. They ceased
fighting and turned entirely to herding after 1867, as a result of defeat by
United States troops. The Apaches were even slower to give up hunting and
raiding. Today they farm and raise livestock.
Life and Skills of the Navajo Herders
The Navajos have been called nomads because they followed their herds
from place to place seeking pasture. This does not mean that they were
aimless wanderers. They followed the same route year after year because they
knew where to find the best grass at each season. Each family had winter and
summer homes, called hogans, along the route. The hogans were made of logs,
earth, and rocks. At one home, the Navajo family often had a garden and a
fruit orchard.
The Navajos were clever at learning the skills of their
neighbors and adding improvements and individual touches. They learned
weaving from the Pueblo Indians, and today the Navajo blankets and rugs are
better known than the Pueblo products. The women do all the work
involved--from shearing the sheep to the final weaving.
Spanish Designs in Silver and Clothing
Navajo men learned silverwork from the Mexicans. They adapted designs
from many sources, especially the patterns stamped on Spanish bridles and
saddles. The "squash blossom" necklace was taken from the
pomegranate pattern of Mexico . They set their jewelry with native turquoise
stones.
In their hunting days, the Navajos had worn clothing made
of animal skins and plant fibers. After the white people came, the Indians
copied their clothes in cloth bought from traders. Both men and women wear a
velveteen blouse held in at the waist with a belt of silver disks, called
conchas. The women's skirts are long and full. Both men and women twist their
long black locks into a knot at the back, called a chonga. Men tie a kerchief
about their heads. For warmth they wrap a striped blanket around their
shoulders.
Villages and Houses of the Pueblo Indians
The Pueblo Indians are often thought of as one people, mostly because
of the similar kinds of dwellings and communities they lived in. Actually
there were many tribes among them. They spoke a variety of languages, belonging
to four distinct language families. Customs also differed somewhat from place
to place. Farthest west were the Hopi villages on high, flat-topped, rocky
plateaus (called mesas) in northern Arizona . Next came those of the Zunis,
across the border in New Mexico . These two village groups are called the
desert pueblos. The river pueblos are those strung along the Rio Grande and
its tributaries in eastern New Mexico . Between lie several other pueblos,
including those in Acoma and Laguna.
Pueblo homes had several stories and many rooms, like a
city apartment house. Each family had only one room. Early ancestors of the
Pueblo tribes set their buildings in caves high in canyon walls or on the
ledges of cliffs and so they have been called Cliff Dwellers. Later the
Pueblos built these houses in the valleys and on the mesas.
Building Methods and Materials
To keep out enemies, they made the ground story without doors or
windows. The next story was set back the width of a room, and the roof of the
lower story provided a "front yard" for the people of the second
story. Higher stories were set back the same way, giving a terraced effect.
The residents used ladders to reach their apartments.
Desert peoples found sandstone they could split easily.
They used slabs of it to build thick walls. River valley people made walls of
earthen material, stiffened with stones and saplings. The earth contained a
mixture of clay and sand that did not crack easily when dry. The Spaniards
called it adobe, a kind of building clay. They taught the Indians to make
bricks by shaping adobe in wooden molds and drying it in the sun. Many modern
pueblos are built of such bricks.
Roofs were harder to make. The builder went into the
mountains for log rafters. He laid them, ends jutting, across the walls. Next
came crisscross layers of willow branches, sticks, grass, and brush. A heavy
coating of adobe was plastered on top.
Each pueblo had dark interior rooms for storing corn,
pottery, clay, wood, and sacred objects of the families and clans. Special
rooms (kivas) were set aside for religious purposes. Here the men taught the
boys religious legends and dances and initiated them into secret societies.
Here too they purified themselves and prepared for dances and religious ceremonies.
These were held in a plaza outside the pueblo. To watch the dances, people
gathered on the roof "front yards." In some pueblos, a guard kept
watch from the highest roof. The town crier also stood there to make
announcements. On ordinary days the "front yards" were used by
women making pottery and baskets and preparing food.
Since the people relied upon crops, especially corn, for
their food, they located each village where it could get a supply of water
for the fields. The Hopi had springs at the foot of their mesas. The Rio
Grande pueblos utilized that river and smaller streams. Pueblo farmers knew
how to locate underground moisture by watching the growth of wild plants.
They placed their fields where moist spots occurred and where streams overflowed
after storms. This meant that a man might have to travel 10 miles across the
desert from home to field.
The man was the farmer among the Pueblo tribes. He had
planted corn, beans, squash, cotton, and sunflowers before the white men
came. The Spaniards brought him wheat, chili peppers from Mexico , onions,
watermelons, peaches, and apricots.
Pueblo Farming Customs
At planting time relatives and neighbors came to watch and help each
planter. They set up prayer sticks decorated with turkey or eagle feathers to
bring rain. The planter used a tough, sharp digging stick, hardened by fire.
It sometimes had a branch on one side to serve as a footrest. He drove the
stick 18 or 20 inches into the ground. Then he dropped in 20 kernels of corn
to be sure a few sprouted. The seeds sent their roots deep to seek out the
moisture. The stalks grew in a bunch that would resist the hot desert winds.
The farmer scraped off the tops of the weeds with a sword-shaped wooden
hoe.
Summer rain was needed for growth of the corn. Many of
the religious ceremonials, therefore, were prayers to the gods for rain.
After a storm the water gushed down dry stream beds, tearing away the soil.
The farmers made dams of brush to check and spread the water over the land. In
some places they made ditches from stream to field.
At harvest everyone had a gay time at the husking
parties. Then the corn was laid to dry on the flat roof. The women cut strips
of squash and hung them to dry. They pounded the dry beans with sticks to
open the pods. Then they shook them in a flat basket and let the wind carry
away the pods. In the same way they winnowed the wheat chaff after the grain
was threshed by driving horses over it. They kept a two- or three-year supply
of food stored so they would not go hungry if a drought came.
Pueblo corn was grown in many kinds and colors--yellow,
red, blue, white, purplish, and mixed. The girls and women spent three or
four hours a day grinding it on the stone metates. To make the thin wafer
bread, called piki, they spread a thin batter on an oiled stone set on stone
props. A fire under the stone cooked the thin sheets quickly. Pueblo cooks
also made dumplings, stews, and hominy dishes. A gruel of toasted meal,
called pinole, was the chief beverage.
The men often held village hunts. If they were lucky,
they brought in deer, antelope, or rabbit for stew.
Pueblo Pottery, Basketry, and Weaving
During their centuries of living together in villages the Pueblo
Indians improved their skills. One of the main advantages of living in a
settled agricultural society is being able to develop skills that would be
difficult to perfect in a nomadic existence. Also, settled community life
usually creates the need for a greater variety of goods. Nomads prefer to
travel light, but this is not a consideration when a tribe is fixed in one
location.
Among the Pueblo tribes there was, as in all Indian life,
a division of labor. The goods the Indians made included items for the
household, clothing, and decorative objects. They also had to make the tools
with which to create other objects. Modern Pueblo Indians have continued to
be active with their arts and crafts, though they now have the advantage of
better tools.
The women made beautiful, strong pottery--some of it
handsomer than they make and sell today. Each village, and sometimes each
family, had its own styles, colors, and designs. The women had been skilled
at basketry since early times. They wove twigs, grass, and fibers from yucca
and other tough desert plants into baskets, trays, mats, cradleboards, and
sandals.
They learned how to build looms and weave cloth. The men
were the weavers. They first made blankets by twining strips of rabbitskin or
turkey feathers together with strings of yucca. They began raising cotton and
making cloth by the 8th century AD. They used small looms to make belts and
other narrow pieces and a blanket loom for wide strips.
The men also did the work of tanning and making moccasins
and other leather goods. They made the bows and arrows, stone knives, and
tools. They drilled and polished turquoise and other stones to make beads.
After the Mexicans taught them silverwork, they created silver jewelry set
with these stones.
Costumes for Pueblo ceremonials offer the best idea of
the clothing worn before the Spaniards came. The woman's dress was a long
strip of dark cloth, wrapped across the body from left to right and fastened
on the right shoulder. Her left shoulder and arm were bare. A colorful,
fringed belt held the garment at the waist. Her high boots were made from
soft, white buckskin. Her wedding robe, or shawl, of pure white cotton was
woven by the men of her husband's family as a gift.
The man wore a breechcloth of white cotton cloth and a
short woven kilt with a colorful border. In most pueblos, the high moccasins
reached halfway up the calf of the leg. They had a hard sole turned up over
the edge of the upper. The Pueblo Indians who lived near the plains wore
ankle-height moccasins like those of Plains hunters.
Seed Gatherers of California and the Great Basin
The Indians living in the dry portions of southern California and in
the Great Basin between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada belonged to
many tribes and spoke various languages. They shared the problem of finding
food in a land that would have baffled most white men in search of food.
Since seeds and roots were among their chief foods, they have been called
Seed Gatherers, and also Diggers.
The food hunt filled their days. Each group moved on foot
over its range of land--seeking spring greens, summer seeds, and autumn
acorns or pine nuts. In the winter they camped in a sheltered valley and
lived on dried foods. Throughout the year they added game whenever they could
get it.
Finding Food in the Desert
They did not have summer rain or a dependable water supply, so they
could not grow corn or other field crops. They had to keep moving about,
seeking food--thus they could not live in villages.
During their yearly march they found an amazing number of
things to eat. Tribes of southern California used 60 different plants.
Preparation of the food was hard work. Thus, they had to crack acorns, remove
the kernels and pound them into meal, then treat the meal with hot water to
remove the poisonous tannin. They beat the tiny seeds from flowering plants
and ground them into flour on a metate. The women made gruel from these meals
and flours. They cooked it by dropping hot rocks into a tightly woven basket
that held water and meal. The thick gruel could be eaten in the
hand.
They pried up bulbous roots of the camas lily and baked
them overnight on hot rocks covered with earth. Berries, seeds, and nuts were
dried for use the following winter.
The Seed Gatherers ate quite a few things which other
people would think unpleasant. These included crickets, grasshoppers, insect
larvae, ants ground into flour, and certain lizards and snakes. When bigger
game was scarce, hunters were glad to dig out a nest of pack rats or to trap
ground squirrels, rats, or mice.
The tribes in northern California and in the foot-hills
found deer, antelope, or elk. Elsewhere rabbits supplied most of the meat.
The men made fiber nets to trap them. They stretched a net across a feeding
patch and drove the rabbits into it. The animals became entangled in the net
and could be killed easily. A curved throwing stick was more effective than a
bow and arrow in hunting rabbits, quail, and ducks.
Tribes near the lakes, the salmon rivers, or the sea caught fish with
nets or used spears with stone points or bone barbs. Sometimes they threw a
poisonous plant into the water to stupefy the fish.
How the Bands Traveled and Camped
Bands of relatives traveled together. Each band had its own territory
and would fight to keep out intruders. In the autumn several bands might meet
in the pinon forest and camp together until they had picked and eaten the nut
supply. The whole tribe gathered for the fall hunt. The medicine man worked
his magic to make the antelope come. If the hunt was successful, there was
food for a celebration. The older men made speeches. In the evening came
ceremonials and dances and the songs telling tribal legends.
The weather was hot and dry most of the year, and there
was no need for substantial shelter. Sometimes campers in the Great Basin
would throw together a windbreak of sagebrush. At times a family would set up
a rough frame of boughs and cover it with twigs and brush. Scattered marshy
places in the basins and valleys grew cattails and bulrushes, called tule.
Mats, or fringes, made from their stems were used to cover some houses.
Bundles of long, coarse grass were used like shingles on others. Usually the
builders dug a pit about two feet deep under the house. This saved wall
building and kept drafts off the floor. Storage baskets woven of twigs were
set on platforms to keep animals out of the seeds.
For the winter camp, the Indians of southern California
heaped earth over the huts to make them warm. The tribes of northern
California could get redwood and split it with wedges of elk or deer antlers.
They tied these slabs to frames and built better houses than did tribes to
the east and south.
In the hot, dry climate there was little need for clothing.
Children wore none at all. Men usually went unclad, though they might wear
breechcloths if they had deerskin or rabbit fur to make them. The women made
fringed double aprons from the fibers of sagebrush bark, milkweed, or Indian
hemp.
Both men and women tattooed designs on their skin.
Stripes on the chin were fashionable among the women. These marks were
tattooed on a girl's chin as part of the ceremony celebrating coming of age.
Necklaces and earrings were made of bones, deer hooves, berries, and
seashells.
Thick sandals for travel were made of yucca fiber. People
who could get hides wore moccasins. Tribes that had buckskin learned to make
clothing similar to that of the Plains Indians. In winter a man was lucky if
he had a furry pelt to wrap around his shoulders or several skins tied
together with thongs. In some tribes, the old men found time to twine
blankets from strips of rabbitskin.
The Seed Gatherers found baskets ideal as containers
during their constant moving. They were light and not easily broken like
pottery. The Seed Gatherer women wove them so closely that they would hold
tiny seeds and even water. There was a basket for every use--from the big
gathering basket slung by a net over the forehead, to bottle-shaped water jars,
covered with pine pitch to keep them from leaking.
Cradleboards were made of wickerwork. In some tribes
women wore caps of basketry. The baskets were beautiful, with graceful shapes
and designs in color.
Fishermen of the Northwest
The towering forests of the rainswept north Pacific coast contrast
sharply with the dry, brown hills and rocky wastes of the Seed Gatherers'
region. The contrast in the Indian life of the two regions was just as
striking. the Seed Gatherers had to work hard every day to get enough to eat.
The Northwest Fishermen could get a wealth of food from the sea, the rivers,
and the forests. They had good materials for making houses, boats, and tools.
As they added possessions, they began to honor wealth and family prestige. Prominent
families erected totem-pole monuments to call attention to their
achievements. They kept war captives and other persons as slaves. The
greatest honor came when a man gave away wealth at a feast called a potlatch.
This was a festive ceremonial distribution of property that often lasted for
days.
Since wandering Seed Gatherers seldom met other people,
they had no definite political organization. Among the Northwest tribes,
powerful hereditary chiefs or headmen controlled and distributed hunting and
fishing rights. The Haida society had three grades--aristocrats, commoners,
and slaves.
The Sea's Gifts to the Northwest Tribes
The various tribes along the coast from northern California to
southern Alaska had no pressing food problems. They could get plenty of fish,
shellfish, and even whales, seals, and porpoises from the sea and streams.
They became expert fishermen. The men built weirs and traps to catch huge
hauls of salmon and candlefish as they swam upstream to spawn.
The women smoked a year's supply of salmon and pressed
the oil from the candlefish. The Indians used large amounts of this oil,
dipping dried foods into it at meals. They dug clams along the beach and
smoked them. The lovely shells of some varieties of shellfish made ornaments.
Strings of shells served as money in some tribes, just as wampum was used
among Eastern Woodland Indians.
Riches of Whaling
Whaling was difficult and dangerous. The leader of the hunt performed
elaborate ceremonials to get help from the spirits. Each man in the big
seagoing dugout canoe was trained for his special task. Success brought
wealth, honor, and feasting. The whale's flesh and skin were eaten. The
blubber made oil. The intestines were used as oil containers. The sinew
became strong rope.
The men journeyed to the mountains to hunt deer, elk,
mountain goat, and bear for hides and meat. The women collected and dried
berries and seaweed. They dug camas bulbs and roots to vary the fish diet. By
winter the people had an ample store of food. They could spend much of their
time at festivals, ceremonials, secret-society initiations, wood carving, and
other activities.
Gifts of the Great Forests
The Northwest tribes made greater use of their trees than did the
Eastern Woodland tribes. Their evergreen timber was easier to work than the
eastern hardwoods. They knew how to split slabs from the straight-grained red
cedar and how to use them to build houses. They girdled the trees with fire
and let them season a few years before felling.
The boatbuilders hollowed logs with fire to make the
canoes they paddled in the streams as well as the big seagoing whaling
canoes. Other woodworkers steamed and bent planks to make boxes, tying the
edges together with spruce roots. These boxes were built to hold the huge
winter stores of dried food and were even used for hot-rock
cooking.
Clothing from Cedar Bark
The inner bark of the cedar served as raw material for garments and
beautifully woven baskets. The women pounded the bark into shreds and made
fringed aprons and short capes for themselves and raincoats for the men. They
wove a cedar-fiber man's hat with a brim to shed the heavy rains.
Killer Whale Design
The children and men went without clothing in the summer. These
Indians got along without moccasins, perhaps because they did most of their
traveling by canoe. Winter garb included a robe of sea-otter skins or a
blanket. The women used cedar-bark fiber, mountain-goat wool, dogs' hair, and
feathers in the blankets. Their crude loom had only one crosspiece. The
weavers worked out intricate patterns in various colors entirely with their
fingers. The handsomest blankets were made by the Chilkat
Tlingits.
Like tribes of other regions, these Indians adopted
manufactured blankets after white traders reached their region. But the trade
blankets seemed dull so they trimmed them with rows of pearl
buttons.
Skulls Deformed to Look "Pretty"
The Northwest people tattooed their skins and deformed their heads to
look "pretty." The top of a baby's cradleboard was so attached that
it pressed a pad of cedar bark against the baby's forehead, causing the head
to rise in a peak. This deformed skull was the sign of a freeman. Slaves were
not permitted to flatten their children's heads.
Wood carving, often painted, was the outstanding art of
the Northwest. The artists carved grotesque faces of animals, birds, and
people on boxes, house fronts, house posts, boats, and grave posts. They made
wooden helmets and masks for the ceremonial dances and dramatic
performances.
Totem Poles of Alaska , British Columbia
Most spectacular of the artworks was the totem pole. These tall,
carved posts were erected by important men among certain tribes of British
Columbia and Alaska . The carved and painted faces on a pole represented the
owner's totem animals or birds. These animals were his mythical ancestors who
gave him power in war, hunting, or whaling. The designs were carved to
represent human and animal faces rather than to look exactly like them. So
each figure bore a symbol of some sort to identify it. Erect ears
distinguished an animal from a man. The killer whale had a protruding dorsal
fin, and the eagle, a curved beak.
Northwest craftsmen also had some native copper to work
with. They made some of their arrow points from it, as well as copper knives
for weapons in war. They engraved designs on a plaque, called a
"copper," that served in the place of a valuable bank note. One
famous copper was valued at 7,500 blankets.
Tribes and Languages Among the Indians
Early explorers and settlers tended to think of the Indians as a
single people, but the Indians themselves did not. An Indian considered
himself a Delaware , a Sioux, or a Navajo. The name of many tribes meant
"the people" in the tribe's language. Other tribes were considered
foreigners--even enemies.
Variations in Indian Languages
The separation into small groups was emphasized by differences in
language. The Indians of North America spoke approximately 600 dialects in
many different languages--several times as many as are spoken in Europe . The
differences were great enough to hamper understanding only a short distance
from home. These differences handicapped white explorers who were trying to
get information. When Lewis and Clark met the Flathead Indians in 1805, their
questions had to be interpreted through six languages before the Flatheads
understood them.
Both Indians and white traders tried to overcome
communication difficulties by creating trade jargons combining words from
Indian and European languages. Among them were the Chinook Jargon of the
northwest and the Mobilian of the southeast.
Indians of the Great Plains worked out a sign language
for communicating with each other. They could convey much information with
hand gestures. Some of the gestures were so graphic they could be understood
by persons who did not know the signs.
An Indian gave his loyalty first to his village or
hunting group. Such a group might have less than 50 adults. Neighboring
village groups might act together in war and exchange other help if they
spoke the same language and if their hunting ground provided enough for all.
This large group could be a tribe.
The map shows the larger and more important tribes in the
localities where English-speaking explorers and settlers first found them. A
multitude of smaller tribes with less than 2,000 people lived among the
larger. Only about 10 percent of all the tribes are named on the map, but
they included about two thirds of the Indian population.
Rich Vocabularies and Exact Meanings
North American Indian languages are rich in words and intricate in
structure. Their vocabularies differ with the need for words to convey
important distinctions in meaning. For instance, the Eskimos in the Arctic
have words to distinguish many kinds of snow. One means "snow on the
ground," another "falling snow," and so on. Similarly the
Plains horsemen used many words to describe horses.
Indians have been adept at coining names for articles
introduced by white traders. A translation of the Blackfoot name for pork is
"squealing meat," and the name for candy is "long white man
berries." The settlers, in turn, adopted many Indian words which have
remained in the English language.
Indian languages may employ sounds not in English while
lacking sounds common in that language. Many Indian tongues combine into one
word ideas needing a whole sentence in English. Indian grammatical structures
often differ from those of English.
Language Relationships and Families
Scholars have studied the Indian languages, seeking relationships
between them. In 1891 Maj. J.W. Powell of the Bureau of American Ethnology
classified the languages spoken by the tribes north of Mexico into some 56
distinct stocks, or language families. He grouped those tribes with markedly
similar vocabularies into language families. He made a map showing their
geographical location. In naming each language family he generally selected
the native name of a major group speaking that language and added to the name
the ending -an. Thus the Caddoan language is derived from the Caddo tribe,
the Iroquoian from the Iroquois.
The fact that two languages or dialects were placed in
the same language family did not mean that persons speaking one of these
dialects could understand the other dialect, any more than Germans and
Italians understand each other's language. For example, many tribes of the
Central Plains spoke dialects of the Siouan language, but members of one tribe
could seldom understand the speech of their neighbors.
Later studies have revealed far-reaching resemblances
among families which Major Powell considered distinct. Some linguists have
suggested the reduction of North American Indian languages to six primary
stocks. These are:
1. Eskimo and Aleut, of the Far North.
2. Algonquian and related languages, spoken by many
tribes of the Eastern Woodlands, the Blackfeet and Cheyenne of the Plains,
and the Salish and neighboring tribes of the Far West .
3. Athabascan and related languages, used by all the
tribes of the Mackenzie-Yukon Basin , by the Navajos, and by some west coast
peoples.
4. Uto-Aztecan and related languages, of the Shoshonean
tribes in the Great Basin and Rocky Mountains area, the Kiowas of the Plains,
the majority of the Pueblos, and the Aztecs of Mexico.
5. Chinookan and related languages, spoken by a number of
scattered Far Western tribes, especially in what is now Oregon and Washington
.
6. Siouan and related languages, including the tongues of
such widely separated peoples as the Iroquois of the northeast, the Creeks
and their neighbors in the southeast, the Sioux and Caddos of the Plains, the
Keresan Pueblos, and the Pomos of northern California.
Seeking Regions Where Languages Originated
The languages of the same primary stock are probably related
historically and they may even have descended from a common language. But
scholars have not yet been able to trace in detail the lines of descent or to
locate the region in which any ancestral language originated.
Indians north of the Rio Grande had no written language.
They managed, however, to keep alive traditions of important events and many
beautiful folktales by handing them down by word of mouth. Some of the tales
in this oral literature were passed from tribe to tribe, translated into many
tongues.
Picture writing helped aid memory and communicate ideas.
On the plains, a sort of calendar known as the winter count was kept in the
form of a series of pictures painted on buffalo hides.
Widely scattered over the continent are picture writings
painted or pecked on rock cliffs, on walls of caves, and on huge boulders.
These petroglyphs doubtless carried a message when they were
made.
Differences in Appearance Among Indians
Certain racial characteristics are shared by nearly all pureblood
Indians, since it is likely that all of the tribes developed from an original
ethnic stock in the Far East many centuries ago. They generally have
straight, black hair. Their skin color ranges from yellowish brown to reddish
brown. Their cheekbones are usually more prominent than those of white or
black people. These characteristics are more closely related to those of the
Mongoloids of Asia than to any other of the world's races.
In other features there is great variety among Indians.
There are great differences in shape of head (relative proportions of length,
width, and height), in prominence of jaw, in size and shape of nose, and in
total standing height.
The head of the Plains Indian resembles the Indian head
on the reverse side of the buffalo nickel. Their clear-cut features are
generally marked by a sloping forehead, bold nose, thin lips, and firm, heavy
jaw.
The Eskimo of the Arctic generally has a yellowish skin
tone and a flat, fleshy face, with a short, spreading nose. He is short and
sturdy. The Pueblo Indians are generally shorter than the Plains people and
possess more delicate features.
Anthropologists study these differences in efforts to
trace common ancestries. Since combinations of head shape, stature, and
features tend to occur in certain regions, it may be that America was
populated by a series of peoples who differed in appearance and came in
widely spaced migrations. It is known that the Eskimos were relatively late
arrivals. Some scholars say that environmental influences, as in diet and
climate, may lie at the root of regional differences.
Indian Religion, Government, and Social Practices
Like other people who live close to nature, the Indians were concerned
largely with day-to-day problems on which their survival as a people
depended. They were interested mostly in whether there would be enough food,
whether the tribe would avoid illness, and whether they would win in war.
They gave little thought to notions of reward or punishment after death that
are common in other religions.
Indians believed in a supernatural force which pervaded
all nature. To the Algonquin, this force was manitou. The Iroquois called it
orenda, and the Dakota, wakanda. Indians also thought that animals, plants,
rocks, the sun, the winds, and other natural objects had spirits (or souls)
just like men. The Indians thought these spirits helped those they liked and
injured those who offended them.
When an Indian faced a critical problem or decision, he
sought help from the spirit forces. To make himself worthy, he cleansed
himself, fasted, prayed, and sometimes underwent severe tortures. He sought a
vision, hoping a friendly spirit would appear and promise him aid. In many
tribes, this guardian spirit became the Indian's sacred totem animal. A
Plains Indian might paint its picture on his tepee. The Northwest
wood-carvers put the sacred animals on totem poles.
Ceremonials to Bring Spirit Help
Villages and tribes used dances and other ceremonials to seek spirit
help. In general, the men conducted these activities. Usually they had a
house where secret societies met, sacred objects were kept, and ceremonials
were taught to the young.
Important ceremonials lasted for many days and were
preceded by periods of fasting and prayer. As a rule, the aid sought was rain
for the crops, game for the hunters, or success in war. The most spectacular
Plains ceremonial was the Sun Dance. This included self-inflicted tortures by
some of the warriors.
Corn dances were held by all farming tribes and are still
a feature of Pueblo Indian life. One of the most elaborate corn festivals was
the “busk” held by the Creeks. After feasting on the new corn, dancing,
drinking the "black drink," and carrying on ceremonies for several
days, the tribe began a new year by destroying old equipment and getting new.
They extinguished fires and lit new ones from a ceremonial flame. Old
enmities were forgotten and evildoers forgiven.
Healing and Medicine Men
Believing that diseases were caused by evil spirits, the Indians used
charms and magic to remove the evil influence. The magical procedures were
usually performed by those supposed to have the power to control spirit
forces. Indians might call them such names as "mystery man,"
"singer," or "the wonderful." White people called them
medicine men. The magicworkers also served somewhat as priests in leading
ceremonials and in preserving sacred objects.
Charms and ceremonies varied from tribe to tribe. The
Navajos made sand paintings. Iroquois False Face Society members wore masks
carved from a living tree. In spring and fall they went from house to house
shaking turtle-shell rattles and chanting to drive away the demons of
disease.
Some treatments included the use of herbs and roots as
medicines. Men and women other than magicworkers could prepare medicines and
nurse the sick.
Tribal Organization and Women's Role
Since most Indians lived in small communities, they based their
government and social organization upon loyalty to the family and to the
tribe. In most tribes families were linked in a third group, called a clan or
a gens. In a clan, inheritance and relationship traced through the female
line; in a gens, through the male line. Families in a clan frequently lived
together in community houses. Here children looked upon their cousins as
brothers and sisters and regarded their aunts and uncles as parents. Men and
women were required to marry outside their own clan.
Women's influence was greatest in such tribes as the
Iroquois, whose descent was through the mother. Marriage customs differed
from tribe to tribe. As a rule they were the result of mutual agreement by
the husband- and wife-to-be. Often the bridegroom gave some sort of present
to the bride's family to compensate for the loss of her help.
Divorce was usually easy if a couple could not agree, but
the children did not suffer from the breakup of the home. They continued to
live in the clan group and could look to uncles and aunts for
attention.
Indians were universally kind to children. Discipline was
strict, yet never enforced by whipping or any other physical punishment.
Children were expected to help with the family duties. The first time a boy
brought home an animal shot with his own bow, his proud father might
celebrate with a feast. Ceremonials marked the date when youngsters reached
13 or 14 years of age and were considered men and women.
How Indians Buried the Dead
Methods of disposing of the dead varied among the tribes. Burial in
the ground was most commonly practiced. Mounds were constructed for burial
among certain prehistoric Indian peoples. In the southwest, bodies were
sometimes placed in caves where they dried, or mummified, in the dry air. On
the northern plains a common practice was to place the dead in trees or on
scaffolds. On the northwest coast they might be laid in canoes set high on
posts.
Cremation was practiced by various tribes from the
Pacific coast to Florida . Usually the ashes were buried in pottery vessels.
Almost invariably, domestic utensils, food, and the ornaments, implements,
and other personal belongings of the departed were placed with the
remains.
Leadership and Government
Government was generally extremely simple and democratic among the
Indian tribes. The chief was not an autocratic ruler. He was usually chosen
because of his ability and wisdom, though in a few tribes the office was
hereditary. He advised the people and attempted to settle their disputes. A
war chief was selected to lead a raid or campaign.
Tribal and village councils discussed and acted upon
important matters. A council might consist simply of the adult men of a
village or of chiefs of clans. Among the Iroquois, matrons took part in grand
councils.
The Iroquois Confederacy
The Iroquois Confederacy was the highest form of political
organization among the North American Indians. About 1570, the Mohawk,
Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida , and Cayuga tribes (all the Iroquoian language
family) created this confederacy to promote peace among themselves. White
people called this league the Five Nations, and later the Six Nations, after
the Tuscaroras were admitted in 1722. The Iroquois called it the Brethren of
the Long House. This constitution was put into writing in about
1850.
The founders set up the framework of a code of laws
which, though unwritten, had the force of a formal constitution. The Great
Council Fire of the league, held at Onondaga, was its governing body.
Representatives of the tribes met annually to formulate policies and to take
action. Claims have been made in the late 20th century that the Iroquois
constitution influenced the Constitution of the United States . The
suggestion is highly unlikely, given the strong European influences on the
Founding Fathers.
Indians of Other Times and Places
The Indians of the five leading culture groups are of chief interest
to the people of the United States and Canada . They helped make the history
of the two nations. They are part of American literature and folklore. Their
achievements in making clothing, shelter, tools, utensils, and weapons seem
more meaningful because they used materials from familiar stones, trees, and
animals.
The Indians north of the Rio Grande probably made up less
than one tenth of the Indian population of the Americas when the continents
were discovered. Middle America ( Mexico and Central America ) had at least
four times as many people as the northern part of the continent. South
America 's Indian population was greater than that of both Middle and North
America .
Indians of Middle and South America had advanced further
in many ways than those of the north. Plant growers of these regions had
domesticated most of the plants the Americas have given the world. After
obtaining a dependable food supply from agriculture, peoples along the
highland belt from Mexico to Chile took great steps toward civilization. The
leaders were the Incas and other Andean peoples of Peru , the Mayas of
Guatemala and the Yucatan Peninsula , and the Toltecs, Aztecs, Zapotecs, and
Mixtecs of Mexico.
The Indian population has remained large in Latin America
. In the early 1980s an estimated 45 million Indians and some three times as
many mestizos lived there. Compare this huge number with the estimated
1,700,000 Indians and Eskimos who were reported to be living in the United
States and Canada at that time.
Peopling the Americas
Tribes of hunters are believed to have migrated from Asia and
eventually peopled the entire hemisphere. No single person made any large
part of the long journey from Alaska down the continents. One group after
another continued the march over many centuries, traveling in small
bands.
Archaeologists have dug into their camping places. They
have found the ashes of their fires, bones and shellfish shells, and
primitive tools and weapons. The findings indicate that the first American
Indians lived by hunting, with some fishing and gathering of seeds and other
wild foods. They had lances or spears tipped with stone points. Perhaps they
hurled them with a throwing stick, called an atlatl. The bow and arrow were
probably invented or brought to America later. These early Indians knew how
to make rough stone tools. They had fire-lighting methods and may have had
one domestic animal, the dog. They had no knowledge of farming, pottery, or
metals.
Work of the Archaeologists
Information about early people is compiled by archaeologists, who use
scientific methods to determine the dates of their finds. From geology they
learn when the soil layer was laid down. They compare the annual growth rings
in timber with a "tree-ring calendar" and test the amount of carbon-14
remaining in wood, charred bones, and other organic materials
The radiocarbon dating method was used on charcoal from
an ancient campsite at Tule Springs , Nev. With it were bones of extinct
animals and man-made tools. The test showed the charcoal to be more than
23,800 years old.
A find indicating human presence even earlier was made
near Puebla , Mexico , in 1959. It was a piece of mammoth bone carved with
pictures of such prehistoric animals as the giant bison, the tapir, and the
mastodon. Geologic studies and other tests show the hunter-artist may have
lived about 30,000 years ago during an interglacial period.
The first proof that humans were in America in the
Pleistocene epoch, when Ice Age glaciers were melting, was found near Folsom,
N.M., in 1926. Fluted projectile points were discovered with the bones of an
extinct bison. Carbon-14 tests and geologic studies indicate that Folsom
points were made some 9,000 to 10,000 years ago.
A widespread search for added evidence of humans in Pleistocene
times followed the Folsom discovery. Points and other man-made objects were
found in sites across the continent.
Human Skeletons from Pleistocene Strata
Skeletons and lesser pieces of human bone were also found in ancient
earth layers. Dating of skeletons by geologic means is difficult since people
may be buried in strata laid down eons before their birth.
A skeleton found near Pelican Rapids, Minn. , in 1931, in
deposits attributed to Pleistocene times, has been called Minnesota man. The
bones are those of a 15-year-old girl, who is believed to have drowned in a
glacial lake sometime between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago. The skull is
relatively long and narrow and shows Mongoloid characteristics. The
protruding jaws contained large primitive teeth. Midland woman was uncovered
in an oil well blowout near Midland , Tex. She too lived approximately 11,000
years ago.
Another significant find was made near the village of Tepexpan
, in the Valley of Mexico , in 1947. In ancient lake flats that contained
fossil elephant remains the skeleton of a man was located. A date of 11,000
to 12,000 years ago has been ascribed to it. The skull is moderately round
headed.
In South America fossilized skulls were found in strata
with bones of Pleistocene animals in Ecuador and in the highlands of Brazil .
They are long-headed. Other characteristics of these Lagoa Santatype skulls
include a slightly projecting face, a low forehead, and prominent
cheekbones.
Ways of Life in East and West
Scientific studies of the artifacts found have led archaeologists to
believe that the ancient folk (called Paleo-Indians) east of the Rocky
Mountains had a different way of life from the people of the west. Those of
the east depended chiefly upon hunting and apparently made few attempts at a
sustained agriculture. Spear points, therefore, were the most abundant
implement at their sites, though scraping and cutting tools also were found.
West of the Rockies the Paleo-Indians were chiefly collectors of seeds, wild
grains, and nuts, roots, and other plant materials. Many grinding stones were
discovered at their camping places, though points, choppers, and scrapers
were also uncovered. The indicated differences in human behavior, based upon
the types of artifacts discovered, have guided archaeologists in formulating
cultures in each area.
The people of the Elephant Hunter, or Llano, culture
roamed the plains, hunting the mammoth--an extinct elephantlike animal
adapted to the grasslands. With its bones have been found a fluted point
larger than the Folsom point. It is called the Clovis fluted point after the
site near Clovis , N.M. , where it was first found. Farther east similar
points were used to hunt the mastodon, a type of elephant adapted to forested
regions. The period of this culture is from 9,000 to 12,000 years
ago.
The Sandia culture takes its name from a crude point with
a single notch, or shoulder, first found in the Sandia Mountains of New
Mexico . These points were discovered in an earth layer beneath, and sealed
off from, a layer containing Folsom remains. They were in association with
bones of extinct animals. The Sandia culture is older than the Folsom and
Llano and may go back 20,000 years.
On the Great Plains the people of the Bison Hunter
culture used Folsom points and various types of leaf-shaped points in
pursuing big bison of a now extinct species. The period of the culture
extends from about 6,500 to 10,500 years ago.
Desert Cultures of Paleo-Western Tradition
The Danger Cave culture is based on remains found in a large cavern
near Wendover , Utah . In various strata lay some 2,500 chipped stone
objects, 1,600 grinding stones, and examples of netting and basketry. The
Indians lived by food collecting and hunting on a large lake long extinct.
Although animal remains are of existing species, radiocarbon tests indicate
that the culture goes back 11,000 years.
The Gypsum Cave culture is based on finds at a site near Las
Vegas , Nev. Points and other manmade objects were discovered in strata with
remains of extinct ground sloths, camels, and horses. Carbon-14 measurements
of sloth dung date the culture from about 8,600 to 10,500 years
ago.
This cave and other explored caverns contained at upper
layers the remains of late peoples--including Indians of historic times.
Archaeologists have made progress in tracing connections between these
Paleo-Indian cultures and those of more recent times.
From Cochise to Historic Cultures
The Cochise culture of Arizona and New Mexico has been explored and
studied through several stages of development ranging from about 6000 to 2000
BC. The people depended chiefly upon food gathering. Over the centuries they
improved their grinding stones and made mortars and pestles.
At the later sites hard-beaten earthen floors and storage
pits indicated that some sort of house had been developed. Pottery was found.
Archaeologists believed that the Cochise people were the predecessors of the
Indians who later developed the advanced Hohokam and Mogollan
cultures.
The Archaic culture of eastern North America dates from
3,000 to 7,000 years ago. These people were hunters and food collectors. They
had some copper tools made by cold-hammering pure copper obtained from the
Upper Great Lakes region. They used axes, gouges, and adzes of ground and
polished stone. During the Early Woodland culture period that followed,
burial mounds and pottery appeared as well as some agriculture. The Middle Woodland
cultures, which include the Hopewell culture, extended from about 400 BC to
AD 700 or 800.
The Wanderers Settle in Villages
The Paleo-Indians were able to give up their roaming existence and
advance to a settled way of life only after they learned to get food by
planting and harvesting corn, beans, and squash. They may have received corn
from farming Indians of Middle America as early as 2000 BC.
The most abundant evidence of the changing way of life is
found in the dry Southwest. Digging into ancient village sites there,
archaeologists have traced the people's slow progress as they learned to
raise crops, to weave baskets and cloth, to make pottery, and to build
houses.
The scientists followed the Anasazi culture from the
Basket Maker settlements of AD 100, through Great Pueblo times when the huge
cliff dwellings were built, to the pueblos of today. The section on Southwest
farmers in this article describes their way of life. These Indians lived on
the plateau where Colorado , New Mexico , Arizona , and Utah
meet.
The desert people of the Hohokam culture lived in the
drainage basin of the Salt and Gila rivers of southern Arizona . Their
culture has been traced from 300 BC to historic times. They were descended
from the Cochise people, and the Pimas and Papagos are their modern
descendants. They lived in pit houses, made buff pottery decorated in red
designs, and wore woven sandals and, later, cloth garments. They played a
ball game on huge courts like those of the Mayas and were famous for their
irrigation canal systems.
The Mogollan-Mimbres culture dates from 100 BC. These
people were an eastern branch of the Cochise. Their villages were in
mountainous country of southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico .
They lived in pit houses and buried their dead under the floors of the rooms,
with grave offerings. They smoked pipes of stone or pottery and used stone
tools and weapons.
Early Eastern Indians
The roving hunters east of the Mississippi began settling in villages
and raising corn, beans, and squash from 1000 to 400 BC. In their new
sedentary life many tribes made pottery and buried their dead in mounds.
Other mounds were used as temple platforms. Some great earthworks took the
form of animals and birds.
The Hopewell culture of southern Ohio was among the most
advanced. Its expert artists and craftsmen made carved stone pipes, a variety
of pottery, flint and obsidian spear points, and sharp knives, axes, adzes,
and other tools of obsidian and native copper. The women wove cloth skirts
for themselves and breechcloths for the men.
Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley reached their
highest achievement after AD 700. White settlers arriving about 1700 found
their huge flat-topped pyramid mounds supporting temples where elaborate
religious rituals were performed. The Indians had a government or social
organization that could enlist the toil of many workers, for the mounds were
built by heaping up basketful after basketful of earth. Some of these large
mounds still exist.
Cultures of South America
The picture map of Indian cultures reveals that in South America , as
in North America , the Indians worked out three general ways of life. One
depended principally upon hunting; one upon farming, hunting, and fishing
combined; and another upon intensive farming.
The hunters of the southern plains used bolas, clubs, and
bows and arrows in pursuing the guanaco and ostrich, while the women gathered
starchy roots and grass seeds. They depended upon the guanaco as the Plains
Indians depended upon the buffalo, using its skin to cover their huts and to
make containers and capes, moccasins, and other clothing. Their hunting
improved after the Spanish brought in horses.
Indians of the southwest coast have been called Canoe
Indians. Their big seagoing canoes were made of beech bark. They fished and
hunted seals and sea otters and gathered shellfish and wild
plants.
In the forested, northern tropical lowlands the men
hunted, fished, and made war, while the women tended fields cleared by
slashing and burning the thick growth. Bread from the cassava (manioc) they
raised was the principal food, though the work of squeezing poison from the
root and making flour was tedious. Blowguns with poisoned darts, longbows
and arrows, and clubs were the chief weapons used in killing the deer,
tapirs, peccaries, monkeys, birds, and rodents of the area. Houses were made
of log frames covered with thatch, and boats were built for river travel.
Indians of this region learned to weave and to make useful and ceremonial
pottery.
The Inca Civilization
The advanced civilizations developed where intensive agriculture
provided an ample food supply. The fertile soils of the central Andes proved
hospitable to man's newly domesticated plants and to his progress toward
civilization.
Villages grew in coastal valleys where water was
available for irrigation. Population centers spread to the high Andean plain.
The farmers raised corn, beans, squash, potatoes, quinoa, sweet potatoes,
cassava, peanuts, cotton, peppers, tobacco, coca, and other plants. They
domesticated llamas and alpacas to carry loads and to supply wool. The Andean
people made amazing progress in weaving, pottery making, metalworking, and
stone construction.
The strongest group--the Incas of the highlands--ruled
the vast area from northern Ecuador to Chile before they were conquered by
the Spanish. They organized an empire government which
was so closely knit that the life of even the smallest farmer was regulated
Mayan and Aztec Achievements
The Mayas of Middle America created two great centers. In their first
cities in Guatemala and Honduras stood stone temples and huge monuments, or
steles, carved with images of gods and sacred animals and bearing the date in
their numbering system. The astronomer-priests devised a calendar and wrote
religious and scientific books in hieroglyphic writing. This era, called by
archaeologists the Classic period, lasted from about AD 320 to
900.
The great cities of the Postclassic period (about 975 to
the Spanish conquest) were built on the Yucatan Peninsula . Their handsome
architecture shows the influence of the Toltecs from Mexico who overran and
ruled them. Weakened by civil war, the Mayas were conquered by the Spanish in
the years 1527-46.
Prehistoric Mexico saw several Indian nations rise to
eminence. Among them were the Toltecs, Zapotecs, and finally the ruthless
Aztecs. The article Aztecs tells of their conquests, their arts and
crafts, their fabulous city, Tenochtitlan , and their cruel religion, with
its human sacrifice.
Scholars marvel at the achievements of the Indian
civilizations. They wonder that they could build their mammoth structures
without strong draft animals or sharp metal tools. The Indians had no wheel
to help them in carrying, lifting, or making pottery. Only the Mayas had
writing to pass on their knowledge.
Centuries of Struggle Between Indians and Whites
None of the Indian cultures in the Americas developed a system of
private landownership. Unlike the European settlers, who came from countries
where land was individually owned, the Indians practiced communal
landownership. Within the boundaries of each tribe's territory, the land was
used by all members of the tribe. No individual owned any of the land, and no
one person, not even the tribal leader, could dispose of it. When European
settlers obtained permanent title to Indian lands by purchase, they bought
something which by Indian custom could not be sold from leaders who had no
right to sell it. It was this difference of attitudes over ownership of land
that was a major cause of conflict between the Indians and the Europeans.
Differences in race, language, religion, and life-style only sharpened and
sometimes obscured this basic conflict.
Another source of conflict was that the Europeans did not
consider themselves to be under the sovereignty of the Indian tribes on whose
land they had settled. Instead, they claimed the land in the names of their
mother countries. The European settlers began to mark off boundaries and to
assert their land claims by the force of superior weapons and, eventually, of
far greater numbers.
The Indians met the first Europeans with curiosity and
friendship. But friendship was rarely returned. During their explorations of
South America , Central America , and Mexico in search of gold, silver, and
precious stones, early Spanish conquistadores plundered the Indian villages
and enslaved and murdered the inhabitants. Spanish colonists later forced Indians
to labor in mines and on large estates to produce commodities for export to
Spain . Early French colonists mainly traded for furs with the Indians in the
St. Lawrence Valley and around the Great Lakes . Rivalry for a monopoly of
the fur trade led to warfare among the tribes. Intermarriage between the
Indians and the French was frequent.
The Indians along the Eastern seaboard of North America
helped the early English colonists establish settlements, raise crops, and
adjust to living in a wilderness. Powhatan (Wahunsonacock), leader of an
Algonquian-speaking confederacy in Virginia, and Massasoit (Wasamegin),
leader of the Wampanoag Indians in New England , established generally peaceful
trade relations with the English.
Indians generally had bitter experiences with the
Europeans. Traders often made them drunk to take advantage of them, and
European diseases like smallpox and tuberculosis wiped out whole tribes. Many
Indian skills and much of Indian tribal identity was lost through the gradual
adoption of European ways and increasing dependence on European
goods.
Indian Wars in the English Colonies
One of the earliest violent clashes between Indians and whites took
place in 1636 in Connecticut when colonists attacked the principal village of
the Pequots. About 600 Indians were killed, and the Pequot tribe was
virtually destroyed. In 1675 various Indian tribes in New England formed an
alliance to resist white settlement. It was led by Massasoit's son Metacomet,
who was called King Philip by the colonists. But in about a year Metacomet's
forces were defeated .
By the end of the 1600s, the Indians' struggles for their
land became caught up in a series of wars between England and France for
dominance in North America . Some Indians aided the English, while others
helped the French. In 1763, the final year of the French and Indian War,
Pontiac, an Ottawa chief and ally of the French, led attacks on British
outposts in the Great Lakes area. When the French made peace with the English
in that year, Pontiac concluded a peace treaty with them also.
During the American Revolution many Indian tribes, under
such leaders as the Mohawk known as Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea), fought for
the British, who posed as defenders of Indian land against the colonists.
Although Indian aid was of questionable value to the British, it did provoke
retaliatory campaigns by the Continental Army like that of Gen. John Sullivan
on the Iroquois of New York.
Indian Wars of the United States : The East
After the American Revolution the new United States government hoped
to maintain peace with the Indians on the frontier. But as settlers continued
to migrate westward they made settlements on Indian lands and demanded and
received protection by the Army. Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief, organized several
tribes to oppose further ceding of Indian lands. But they were defeated in
1811 by Gen. William Henry Harrison at the battle of Tippecanoe .
During the War of 1812 many of the Indians again sided
with the British. Afterward, with the victorious United States secure in its
borders, federal policy turned to one of removal of the Indians west of the
Mississippi River --to the so-called Great American Desert , where,
supposedly, no white man would ever want to live. To implement this policy,
the Indian Removal Act was signed into law on May 28, 1830 . It gave
President Andrew Jackson, a dedicated foe of the Indians, the power to
exchange land west of the Mississippi for the southeastern territory of the
Five Civilized Tribes--the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and
Seminoles.
The removal policy led to a clash between Jackson and the
United States Supreme Court, which had ruled in favor of the right of the
Cherokees to retain their lands in Georgia . Jackson refused to enforce the
Court's decision, and in 1838 and 1839 the Cherokees, like the other tribes
before them, were forced westward to Indian Territory (later Oklahoma ).
Their bitter trek during the dead of winter has become known as the Trail of
Tears.
In 1832, Sauk and Fox Indians under Black Hawk in
Wisconsin had been defeated after refusing to abandon their lands east of the
Mississippi . In the 1830s and 1840s, Seminoles under Osceola unsuccessfully
resisted removal from their homes in Florida . By the end of the 1840s,
except for small segments of tribes who had fled to the wilderness, the
"Indian problem" had ended in the East.
Indian Wars of the United States : The West
Along with the Eastern tribes, the tribes of the North and the
Southwest were pushed from their homelands to the land between the
Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains . By the 1840s the United States
Army and the various Indian tribes in that region were in a continual state
of war. As white settlers encroached on Indian land, war would break out.
Either the Indians would be defeated and transported elsewhere, or a treaty
would be made in which the Indians lost part of their lands in exchange for
peace. Sometimes the United States government would promise food, financial
aid, and schools to the Indians, but these promises were often
unfulfilled.
Thousands of white settlers poured into the Oregon
Territory after it was acquired from Great Britain in 1846. Numerous clashes
erupted with tribes in the Northwest. In the 1850s, wars broke out around
Puget Sound after several small tribes were deceived into signing treaties in
which they gave up most of their land. But they were quickly defeated and
confined to reservations.
In other areas of the Northwest, war continued into the
late 1870s. In 1877, the Nez Perce Indians, led by Chief Joseph
(Hinmaton-yalatkit), were defeated after refusing to agree to treaties ceding
nearly all their land in the Pacific Northwest to the United States .
Privations from loss of land, lack of food, and disease led to an
unsuccessful uprising of the Bannock Indians of Idaho in 1878.
The Southwest came under United States control as a
result of the Mexican War. In 1847, Pueblo Indians rose up against settlers
at Taos (later in New Mexico ) and were defeated. But relations between
settlers and the Pueblos , Pimas, and Papagos were usually peaceful. The
Navajos and Apaches retaliated when settlers seized their lands and destroyed
their animals and gardens. The Navajos were overpowered in the 1860s and
forced onto a reservation. But the Apaches fought on. Even after they too
were restricted to reservations, small bands continued to mount raids. When
the Apache leader Geronimo (Goyathlay) finally surrendered in 1886, Indian
resistance in the Southwest ended.
Around 1850 the tribes of the Great Plains had begun
attacking wagon trains carrying settlers westward. They were angered by
ill-treatment from the settlers and by the driving away of buffalo herds on
which they were dependent for food, clothing, and shelter. Efforts by the
Army and the government to preserve peace led to the Fort Laramie Treaty of
1851. The Plains tribes promised to confine themselves to designated hunting
grounds, and the government agreed to keep settlers out. But when the
government violated the treaty in 1865 by starting to construct forts and a
wagon road to mining camps in Montana Territory , the Oglala Sioux under Red
Cloud (Mahpiua Luta) attacked and destroyed several forts. By the terms of a
new peace treaty in 1868, the government stopped the road construction,
dismantled the forts, and again guaranteed the Indian reserve.
In 1871 Congress decided that Indian tribes were no
longer to be recognized as sovereign powers with whom treaties must be made.
Although existing treaties were still to be considered valid, violations
continued to occur. The treaty of 1868 had made the Black Hills of the Dakota
Territory part of a large Sioux reservation. The discovery of gold there in
1874 started a stampede of gold seekers. In 1875 the Sioux refused to sell
the land to the government, which then ordered them out of the area and onto
reservations. When the Sioux refused, the Army, including troops under Lieut.
Col. George A. Custer, was sent to enforce the order. The main body of
Indians, under the Sioux leaders Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotake) and Crazy
Horse (Tashunke Witko), wiped out Custer's men on June 25, 1876 .
But this was the last major military victory by the
Indians. Gradually they were rounded up and confined to reservations. In a
final, futile rebellion, Sitting Bull and other Sioux joined a new
supernatural cult that predicted the white man would be wiped out and the
Indian way of life preserved if enough Indians would perform the ceremonies
known as the Ghost Dance. But the Ghost Dance movement was crushed in 1890
with the arrest and murder of Sitting Bull and the massacre by the Army of
several hundred Indians at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota . This event
ended the conquest of the American Indian.
Historic Relations with Government
The first federal agency to oversee governmental promises under Indian
treaties was placed under the secretary of war by Congress in 1789. A Bureau
of Indian Affairs (BIA) was created within the War Department in 1824 and was
transferred to the new Department of the Interior in 1849.
The BIA enforced the restrictions on Indian lands and
prevented their illegal loss. The BIA helped the Indian sell or lease his
land when it was legal to do so. It kept track of land inheritance when the
owner died. Money deposited in the United States Treasury to the credit of
Indian tribes in payment for land was administered on behalf of the Indians
by the BIA.
Forcibly restricted to reservations, and finding it
difficult to make them productive, the Indians came to depend on the
government for the necessities of life. Many whites, regarding ownership of
land as the basis of success, hoped that by owning their own farms the
Indians would become independent farmers. Other whites, hungry for land,
thought that too much land had already been reserved to the
Indians.
Both groups of whites urged the passage of the Indian
General Allotment Act of 1887. This act provided for dividing reservations,
which had been held in common by the tribes, into parcels to be allotted to
individual Indians. The "surplus" land, in at least one case a
larger area than that divided among the Indians, was eventually sold to white
homesteaders. Provisions of the act also granted citizenship to the Indians
receiving parcels of land and to any other Indians who agreed to give up
tribal life for "civilized" ways.
The Indian General Allotment Act resulted in the loss of
tens of millions of acres of Indian land. Many Indians were unused to the
idea of individual ownership of land and had little understanding of money
values. They sold their allotments at absurdly low prices, spent the money, and
became destitute. Where land was retained, the amount possessed by each
Indian became smaller as the land was divided through inheritance. Although
the solidarity of the Indian tribes was thereby endangered, the traditional
tribal values and customs persisted.
Eventually it became apparent to government officials
that the programs forcing Indians to adopt an alien way of life had been
largely unsuccessful. In 1934 Congress enacted the Indian Reorganization
(Wheeler-Howard) Act, which ended the allotment policy. The new law's most
important provisions reestablished tribes as political entities and partially
restored their internal sovereignty. A revival of Indian culture and religion
was promoted.
Under the new law many of the tribes set up governments
patterned after that of the United States . The tribes wrote constitutions
and bylaws, set up executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and
proceeded to elect tribal officials by secret ballot. The new law
appropriated money for buying back some of the "surplus" land that
had passed out of Indian ownership. Money was also provided for better
educational and medical facilities and for general economic
development.
The tribes used the powers granted in 1934 to remove
white men from their land and to assert their legal rights to its natural
resources. But growing attacks on the Indian Reorganization Act finally bore
fruit when in 1953 Congress declared that all federal relations with Indian
tribes should be terminated as soon as possible. Congress also permitted the
state governments to assume civil and criminal jurisdiction over Indian
reservations without the consent of the tribes occupying them. The tribes
fought strenuously against termination laws in court actions and in appeals
to the public. By the 1960s, termination as a national Indian policy was
dying. But in the meantime, federal responsibility for a number of tribes,
such as the Klamath of Oregon and the Menominee of Wisconsin, had been
terminated. Many tribes also fought to regain jurisdiction over their
reservations from the state governments. Some tribes pressed claims to land
taken in the 19th century and earlier.
The Indian Reorganization Act had not given the tribes
control of the federal funds that were spent on reservations. But the Indians
took advantage of government programs for the poor created by the Economic
Opportunity Act of 1964. The success of the Indian programs developed under
this act spurred other agencies aiding the Indians, including the BIA, to let
the tribes assume greater control over the funds given them. Indians also
took advantage of the civil rights movement to press their cause.
Indian Life in Modern America
The American Indian population in the United States was about
1,400,000 in 1980. It had increased sharply from 343,000 in 1950, 524,000 in
1960, and 800,000 in 1970. California , Oklahoma , and Arizona --each with
Indian populations of more than 150,000 in 1980--led the states. Other states
with large numbers of Indians were New Mexico , North Carolina , Alaska ,
Washington , and South Dakota .
Government Control of Indian Affairs
The United States Congress has complete authority over Indian affairs.
It can disband the Indian tribes as it did under the Indian General Allotment
Act of 1887 and the termination legislation of the 1950s, or it can permit
them to organize as it did under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.
Congress can overrule court decisions dealing with Indian tribes.
Congress exercises its authority over Indian affairs
through the Indian Affairs subcommittees of the Interior and Insular Affairs
committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Congress also
controls Indian affairs through appropriations. Money to support the tribal
organizations, to pay for social services and education, and to provide
development capital is appropriated through the House and Senate
Appropriations subcommittees on Interior and Related Agencies.
In 1924 all the Indians in the United States were made
citizens. They now possess the same citizenship rights in the states where
they reside as do other citizens of those states. However, those Indians who
are members of federally recognized tribes or who live on individually owned
restricted or trust land enjoy a special status. Their tribes are political
entities which generally are outside the jurisdiction of the individual
states in which they are located, and their treaty rights are still
valid.
Most of these tribes were formed under the provisions of
the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. They have the power to tax their
membership and make certain laws, to issue charters, to regulate marriage and
divorce, and so forth. This authority is recognized by the federal government
and by the individual states. Those tribes that were not put under state
civil and criminal jurisdiction have full civil jurisdiction on their
reservations and jurisdiction over all but major crimes--such as murder,
arson, and larceny--which are under federal jurisdiction.
Title to tribal land and to restricted land belonging to
individual Indians is held in trust for the Indians by the United States
government. These trust lands and the proceeds therefrom are tax-exempt.
Indians residing on their tribal reservations or on restricted land are eligible
for services from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the Department of the
Interior and from the Indian Health Service of the Department of Health,
Education, and Welfare. The BIA also serves Indians living in the
cities.
Prior to the restoration of tribal governing bodies under
the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, the Department of the Interior, acting
through the BIA had complete control of the Indian reservations. The
Department of the Interior still legally controls many aspects of Indian
life, such as regulating tribal attorney contracts and authorizing the
leasing of Indian land. In addition, the approval of the secretary of the
interior must be obtained before any Indian land in trust status--either
tribal or individual--can be alienated from Indian ownership.
The Department of the Interior is also responsible for
the protection of Indian interests. Often, however, the department has been
indifferent to its responsibility, has substituted its judgment for that of
the Indians, or has worked actively against what the Indians wanted. Cases in
point were the Indian General Allotment Act of 1887 and the termination
legislation of the 1950s.
The Interior Department's difficulties in meeting its
responsibility also stem from internal conflicts of interest. The BIA is
under the Interior Department's assistant secretary for public land
management. It is almost inevitable that situations will arise, for example,
in which Indian interests will conflict with those of the Bureau of Reclamation,
also in the Interior Department. In most cases the Indians do not have enough
political influence to force a resolution of such conflicts in their
favor.
Conflicts also arise with the Justice Department, on
which the Interior Department must rely to bring suit on behalf of the
Indians. Often the Justice Department will fail to bring suit, especially if
the suit is against the United States .
The Indian Claims Commission
Congress enacted the law establishing the Indian Claims Commission in
1946. Until then it had been necessary for the tribes to secure a
jurisdictional act from Congress before they could sue the United States for
land and money losses in the Court of Claims.
Under the Indian Claims Commission Act, the Indians were
given a statutory limit of five years in which to file their claims. By 1951,
about 600 claims had been filed. By 1970, half of the claims were still
pending and one fourth had been dismissed. Awards totaling about 330 million
dollars had been made on the other fourth
The awards were based on the value of land at the time it
was taken from the Indians. This meant mostly 19th-century land prices.
Indians were thus being paid, in some instances, at the rate of only 50 cents
an acre for land that was later worth up to 30 dollars an acre. After an
award has been made in such cases, any past federal expenditures, or offsets,
are deducted. Because funds from the awards are held in trust by the federal
government, they are tax-exempt. Money is usually paid out on a per capita
basis or is put into tribal development programs.
The Indian Claims Commission, like the Court of Claims
generally, is permitted to make only money judgments. Sometimes the Indians
do not want the money but rather want the return of the land. The Taos Pueblo
Indians of New Mexico, for example, refused a money judgment awarded by the
Indian Claims Commission. In 1970 the tribe secured Congressional passage of
a bill returning the Blue Lake area of New Mexico to them.
In 1971 Congress approved the largest single land
settlement--44,000,000 acres (17,800,000 hectares)--with an award of almost 1
billion dollars to the Indians, Aleuts, and Eskimos of Alaska to clear the
way for construction of the oil pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez . In the
1980s land settlements for land in excess of several hundred thousand acres
were being sought by various tribes throughout the United States . In many
cases, a critical issue in the court battles over land is the fact that much
of it was bought by individuals and corporations without knowledge of Indian
claims.
Other Government Involvement
Until the mid-1950s, when Indian health services were detached from
the BIA and placed under the United States Public Health Service in the
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the BIA had sole responsibility
for the provision of services to the federally recognized tribes. However,
the Indians did participate in some of the federal New Deal programs of the
1930s. They also receive such benefits as old-age assistance from programs
under the Social Security Administration. Besides the services connected with
the execution of its trust function, the BIA provides services in the areas
of education, welfare, and economic development.
Indians were equally eligible with non-Indians for an
array of federal programs created for the benefit of the poor during the
1960s. The Departments of State, Treasury, and Defense also developed major
programs to help the Indians. Among the independent agencies with programs
that benefited Indians were the Environmental Protection Agency, the
Commission on Civil Rights, and the Small Business Administration. In 1968
the National Council on Indian Opportunity was created to coordinate the
federal programs, but it was discontinued in 1974.
The Administration for Native Americans, a division of
the Department of Health and Human Services, is concerned with the social and
economic development of all Native Americans. This administration coordinates
legislative proposals, develops social and economic policy, and administers a
grant program on behalf of Native Americans. In November 1989 United States
President George Bush signed legislation to establish a new National Museum
of the American Indian in Washington , D.C. , as part of the Smithsonian
Institution. The legislation included a promise by the Smithsonian to return
thousands of Native American human remains from its collection to modern
tribal groups. Many of the new museum's artifacts will be contributed by the
Heye Foundation's Museum of the American Indian in New York City
.
The Modern Indian Reservation
An Indian reservation appears much like the surrounding countryside.
It resembles a small town, and sometimes a town has grown up around it.
Unless a motorist were to leave the main highway and drive by a small Indian
community or catch sight of a pueblo or a hogan, only a sign giving the name
of the reservation would reveal that the vehicle was in Indian country. The
Indian agency, or local headquarters of the various federal offices on the
reservation, may be on farming, grazing, or forest land. Here also are the
tribal office, schools, stores, and churches.
Until the 1960s most tribes subsisted on the natural
resources of their reservations. Farming, ranching, logging, and fishing were
the usual kinds of occupations. Other Indians received small royalties from
mineral rights; eked out a living as seasonal workers in orchards and as
part-time workers on railroads, roads, or farms; or worked for local federal
agencies or merchants. In some areas Indians made a living by making and
selling their own handmade products.
Specialized Indian Education
Many of the treaties provided for the establishment of schools.
Congress also provided schools for Indian children where other educational
facilities were not available. In 1979 the BIA operated more than 200 schools
for Indian children and 15 dormitories for children attending public schools.
In 1979 there were about 44,000 Indian students enrolled in boarding, day,
and dormitory schools that were operated by the BIA. There were about 6,400
Indian students enrolled in private, mission, and tribal-operated schools.
Increasingly, as fewer Indian families live on reservations, more children
are attending the public schools in their local school districts.
Congressional education appropriations to the BIA are
limited to the education of children who are one-fourth or more Indian and of
native children in Alaska . An exception is the Cherokee agency, where
children who are less than one-fourth Indian may also attend federal schools.
Less than half of the BIA budget is used for education, and there are
supplemental funds from other agencies.
The Navajo Community College in Arizona , which was
established in 1969, is the oldest chartered tribal community college. There
are now more than a dozen tribal community colleges. There are also
vocational-technical schools above the high-school level.
Economic Development
Before the 1960s the only alternatives for those Indians unable to
find work on their reservations were accepting welfare assistance or
migrating to the cities. When the federal Indian policy changed from tribal
termination to tribal self-determination, large sums of government money
began to pour into the reservations. In 1967 the Economic Development
Administration began a program to assist Indians residing on trust lands. The
program's direction has been largely in the field of planning and technical
assistance, with funding for the construction of community and commercial
projects. The Office of Minority Business Enterprise also helps to promote
expansion of Indian businesses.
Some of the industries created were electronic parts assembly
plants on reservations in Nevada , North Dakota , and New Mexico ;
prefabricated home manufacturing plants on reservations in North Dakota and
Montana ; furniture plants on reservations in Utah and New Mexico ; and a
semiconductor plant on the Navajo reservation at Shiprock , N.M.
Tribes were also working to expand their tourist
industries. New Indian-owned campgrounds were set up in Arizona and South
Dakota . The Cheyenne River Sioux of South Dakota owned the telephone system
on their reservation. The Navajos operated the public utilities on their
reservation. One of the long-range benefits of these developments was that
such arrangements enabled the tribes to tax their membership and opened the
way to economic self-sufficiency for their tribal government
operations.
Indian Activism
One of the first modern Indian political organizations to be formed
was the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI). Established in 1944,
the NCAI sought to act as representative for the Indian tribes at the
national level. Its membership included delegates from each of its member
tribes as well as individual Indians. The NCAI was active in influencing
legislation.
Many tribes have also organized politically at the state
and local levels. The United Sioux of South Dakota was formed in an attempt
to prevent the state from assuming jurisdiction over the Indian reservations
in South Dakota . The Sioux were successful in securing enough signatures on
a petition to have the assumption-of-jurisdiction law submitted to the
voters, but the measure was defeated.
In the 1960s Indians in the state of Washington began
agitating to maintain their traditional right to fish in the streams in
Washington free from state regulation. By the provisions of century-old
treaties, the Indians had given up most of their land along the rivers but
had inserted articles in the treaties specifying that their people could
continue to fish in their "usual and accustomed places" along the rivers.
In 1964 the newly organized Survival of American Indians Association began to
dramatize the issue of Indian fishing rights by staging demonstrations, or
fish-ins. Shots were exchanged when a group of armed Indians staged a fish-in
on the Puyallup River in 1970; 54 Indians were arrested for violating state
fishing regulations. The Indians also carried their fight into the courts,
but the various decisions that were rendered were vague and
contradictory.
In 1966 a more militant organization, the American Indian
Movement (AIM), was founded to force reorganization of the BIA in order to
make it more responsive to the needs of native Americans. It also supported
tribal demands for the return of Indian lands. In 1973 about 200 armed AIM
supporters, led by Russell Means and Dennis Banks, occupied a South Dakota
reservation in a 71-day siege that became known as the second battle of
Wounded Knee . They declared it the Independent Oglala Sioux Nation. The area
was the site of a bloody massacre of Indians by the United States Army in
1890. During the takeover, hostages were seized and government blockades cut
off supplies.
Urban Indians
During World War II many Indians left the reservations to seek work in
the war industries of the big cities. This start of Indian urban migration
coincided with the government's efforts to get the Indians off the
reservations and curtail its responsibilities.
In the early 1950s the BIA launched a relocation program
to speed the migration. The Indians, who could find little work on the
economically depressed reservations, were eager to take advantage of the
program. But as the decade progressed, participants in the relocation program
came to include many who were poorly educated and thus ill-equipped to
succeed in an urban environment. But the newcomers were refused social
services in the city because they were "BIA Indians." At the same
time the BIA refused them services on the grounds that they were no longer
living on or near a reservation. The BIA relocation program failed because
the Indians either returned to the reservations or remained in the cities and
made unsuccessful adjustments to urban life.
In 1969 the Office of Indian Affairs in the Department of
Health, Education, and Welfare sponsored an all-Indian study group called the
Task Force on Racially Isolated Urban Indians. It was to investigate the
urban Indian problem and develop a program leading to its solution. The study
group found that the needs common to urban Indians were: (1) more effective
systems of social-service delivery; (2) expanded programs for Indian youth;
(3) better physical facilities to house Indian centers; (4) additional staff
to work in those centers; (5) training for staff and board members of the
centers; and (6) improved techniques for informing urban Indians of programs
and resources available to them. The task force recommended the creation of a
model Indian center demonstration project. Some centers were funded in 1971.
Enactment of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act in 1973 was
another attempt to help urban Indians by providing grants for manpower
programs, including vocational training, to the unemployed, underemployed,
and disadvantaged.
Native Alaskans
There are more than 85,000 Inuit (Eskimo), Indians, and Aleuts in Alaska
. Most live in towns and villages. The Inuit live on the western and northern
coasts along the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean . The Indians live in
southeastern, interior, and south-central Alaska . The Aleuts live in the
southwest, along the Alaska Peninsula and on the Aleutian Islands
.
Prior to 1924 the Native Alaskans were almost all under
the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior's Trust Territories
Division. When they became citizens under the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924,
jurisdiction was transferred to the BIA, which is responsible for providing
the same kinds of services in Alaska as it does in the other
states.
When the United States acquired Alaska in 1867, the
settlement of native land titles was left to Congress. But Congress
persistently put off action, and the matter was still unresolved when Alaska
became a state in 1959. The Native Alaskans, frustrated by this long
delay--especially after a method was found to exploit the state's vast oil
reserves--organized the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) in 1966. The AFN
contended that in the settlement of their land rights the natives should get
just compensation. In 1971 Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims
Settlement Act, which awarded Native Alaskans nearly a billion dollars and
40,000,000 acres (16,000,000 hectares) of land. Several regional corporations
were established to administer the settlement
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