Introduction
The initial contact of Europeans with North America can to a large extent be credited to the 15th century explorer, Christopher Columbus. He discovered the North American continent and reported his findings to the king and Queen of Spain. His depiction of the land as possessing many riches and habouring a timid people no doubt contributed to the enthusiasm with which future voyages to these lands were made.
Over the course of the next four centuries beginning from the 15th century, many European nations were involved in widespread exploration of The North American continent. These expeditions resulted in significant changes in the local traditions as the new arrivals settled and traded with the natives.
This new relationship between the North American natives and the Europeans led to an offsetting of the balance that had once existed among the people with far reaching consequences over the years. Brown and Sides note that this contact which began amicably as a trade relationship ended up with the destruction of the once powerful tribes of the Pequot, Narragansett, Mohicans and many other Native Northern American Tribes (1).
Monumental changes occurred to the lives of the First nations of Canada as a result of their contact with Europeans. This paper shall set out to give a detailed description of the significant changes that arose as a result of this contact. This paper shall also investigate the means by which the traditions and cultures of the First Nations managed to survive despite the assault on them by the Europeans.
The significance of a lack of writing traditions by the First Nations to the preservation of their history shall also be explored. It is hoped that this discussions shall lead to a greater understanding of the First Nations people and especially the significance of their encounter with the Europeans.
First Nations Encounter with Europeans
The Ojibway Historic Organization notes that the Ojibway and Lakota people are a part of a large linguistically related group of Native Americans and First Nation people who are collectively referred to as the “Algonquin” which loosely translates to “Family” (Ojibway Organization).
These natives occupied the parts of Canada extending from Saskatchewan to Southern Ontario. The land was viewed by the First Nations as a gift form the Great Spirit and as such, the land belonged to every member of the tribe. The native inhabitants of the Northern American land came to be called “Indians” mostly as a result of the misclassification by the Spanish explorer, Christopher Columbus on his discovery of the New World.
The first Europeans to venture into the land of the Ojibway were the French explorers and missionaries. Schell documents that the French explorers and missionaries were the only Europeans acquainted with the wild regions of North America as many considered the land too wild and dreary at all seasons to be made a permanent home by the civilized men (162).
This explorers and missionaries sent home reports of the huge great lone land that they had encountered. Due emphasis was placed on the abundance of a great variety of fur-bearing animals such as the bear, wolf and lynx. The great rivers and lakes which formed a natural highway into the more remote parts of the continent also made it easy for the early explorers, missionaries and traders alike to venture deeper into the American Indians native land (Schell 163).
Result of First Nations Contact with Europeans
Increased trade was one of the major outcomes of the interaction between the First Nation and the Europeans. The native tribes of the far north were a peaceful people and they were friendly towards the white traders with home they cane into contact with. The commercial relationship that was proposed was accepted wholeheartedly since it was perceived to be advantageous to the First Nation.
The primary good that was desired by the Europeans was fur and to this end, fur companies were established by the Europeans which operated throughout the vast territory of North America. Schell records that the Hudson’s Bay Company based in London and the North West Fur Company of Montreal were the first European agencies established to exploit the trading opportunities afforded by the American continent.
The new trade relationship between the Europeans and the First Nation people led to a reliance on foreign commodities by the Natives. More time was therefore dedicated to the securing of fur and its subsequent preparation for the new trade. This led to an erosion of other activities such as pottery making, basket weaving and embroidery practices which had been an inherent part of life of the Ojibway and Lakota people (Ojebwe Organization)
Inevitably, as the trade advanced, there arose a greater demand for the fur products by the Native tribes. On the other hand, the European traders who were made up of mostly French, Dutch and British nationals wished to have a greater share of the products from the Natives.
The Europeans formed great companies to further their trade interests and ventured deeper into the Ojibway and Lakota people’s land as their sought trade commodities. The developing trade rivalries among the Europeans led to European groups allying themselves with different Indian groups so as to safeguard their business interests.
The Europeans pressured their business “allies” to venture into new hunting territories so as to provide a steady supply of fur. This led to war among tribes as they competed for the dwindling fur-bearing animals. The European allies not only encouraged these wars but they also equipped their native friends with weapons to given them an advantage in the confrontations.
As has been stated in this paper, among the early European visitors were missionaries. As was the norm, the primary objective of the missionaries was to spread the white man’s religion, Christianity, to the heathen natives. In the pre-contact years, the Indians did not practice any one major religion as a people.
However, this did not mean that the people were godless as they believed in a creator and had their creation stories. Owing to the perception of the Native Indians as heathens, the Europeans set out to convert them into their Christian faith. This was to be followed by an initiation into the ways of the Europeans which was considered to be civilized as opposed to the barbaric ways of the Natives.
Missionaries engaged in the preaching of the gospel which resulted in the conversion of a significant number of the Native Americans (Schell 118). While conversion into Christianity did give the Natives some measure of dignity in the face of the Europeans, it did not lead to their being treated as equals as they were still exploited and their land taken over.
From the very onset of the contact with the Europeans, the Natives of America were abducted and taken off to the lands of the Europeans as “specimen”. Columbus in his famous expeditions is said to have “kidnapped ten of his friendly Taino hosts and carried them off to Spain” (Brown and Sides 1). Here, it was hoped that the natives would be taught of the white man’s ways and especially his religion since they were observed to be a heathen tribe.
While the initial contact with Europeans was a peaceful process, it gradually degenerated to untold violence as the Europeans demanded more from the First Nations. Of all the European nations that made contact with the First Nation, the Spaniards left an especially murderous legacy. The Spanish in their quest for gold and gems undertook indiscriminate raiding and plundering of the native’s villages. This led to the natives putting up fights for survival against the White man.
Most of this fights turned out fatal for the First Nation as their weaponry was outmatched by the European guns. Brown and Sides suggest that the slow speed of communication between the Native tribes in North America was partly responsible for the ill effects of the encounter with Europeans since news of the barbarities of the Europeans did not reach other tribes from their neighbors’ in time (2).
As a result of this lack of communication, thousands of villages were destroyed and villagers exterminated. Their sites of worship were plundered and burnt and the people enslaved. To give a feeling of the effect that the confrontation in battle between the Europeans and the Native Americans, Brown and Sides cite Tecumseh who laments:
Where today are the Pequot? Where are the Narragansett, the Mohican, the Pokanoket, and many other once powerful tribes of our people? They have vanished before the avarice and the oppression of the White Man, as snow before a summer sun. (1)
Slavery was one of the darkest realities of the European contact. While slavery was operational among the Native Indians in the pre-contact years, it became rampant after the arrival of Europeans. In the pre-contact era, Slaves were mostly made up of captives taken in attacks upon enemies whereby the captives were brought to the home villages and used as laborers.
The Indian slave trade increased enormously with the European presence as Europeans undertook slave hunting expeditions or encouraged the Indians to raid their enemy tribes for captives. These captives would then be exchanged for goods such as whiskey, guns and clothes (Rodriguez 37).
An increase in slavery had the effect of not only lowering the population of the Natives but also bringing about mistrust and fighting amongst natives, most of whom had coexisted peacefully before the contact with Europeans. This is because most tribes set out to arm themselves and later on conduct raids on their neighbors so as to sell them off to the Europeans.
Despite the contact with Europeans leading to the raising of the standards of living for the North American natives in the initial years, this contact also led to large number of deaths due to diseases.
These diseases were brought by the Europeans who surprisingly enough did not seem to succumb to the diseases as easily as the Natives did. As such, European infectious diseases such as measles, mumps and smallpox continued to take their toll on the Native Americans leading to large number of deaths (Francis 218). Thornton notes that:
In any event, Native Americans lacked prior exposure to disease from Europe and Africa such as smallpox and measles which typically confer lifelong immunity on anyone who recovers from them. (21)
It is theorized that these diseases were some of the factors that led to the relatively easy invasion of the First Nations by the Europeans since the disease led to a significant reduction of the Native population as well as the weakening of the spirit of the Natives leading to a resignation to their fate in the hands of the Europeans.
Another feature that came about as a result of contact with the European is that the Aboriginal people of North America were deprived off their land. Oommen notes that the earliest settlers of the Northern America were gradually displaced from most of their ancestral territory and bundled off to reserves (95).
The First Nations resented this and put up spirited fights to try and defend their land. However, their efforts did not succeed since the Europeans were better armed. In the end, the Natives were striped off citizenry to their land and it was not until the early 20th century, approximately 500 years after contact, that the Aboriginals were granted citizenship in Canada and the USA.
Survival of the First Nations Traditions and Culture
In the pre-contact years, the First Nation people lived in relative isolation from one another over the great stretch of the land. Numerous bands undertook independent hunting expeditions and fishing trips since the land was peaceful. However, as a result of contact with the Europeans, large groups of Indian people grouped together and formed unions so as so strengthen their positions.
In 1579, the Ojibway and Dokata people made an alliance so as to strengthen their position against the other Eastern tribes which were becoming powerful as a result of the guns and knives obtained from their trade with the Europeans. This change in the communal structure aided the survival of the First Nation and therefore the survival of their traditions and cultures which they continued to practice through the years.
Another factor that has contributed to the preservation of the culture of the Ojibway and Lakota is the spirit of oneness that is engendered by the Aboriginal people. This view is best articulated by Thornton who suggests that “kinship might even be the essence of individual identity for Native Americans” (134).
This kinship which places great emphasis on family and community is the bound that has held the Native Americans together through the years of turmoil in the hands of the Europeans. The First Nation tribes were kin to preserve their traditional ways of life even as the Europeans sought to convert them into their alleged civilized ways of life.
The role that oral history and tradition has played in the preservation of the traditions and culture of the First Nations cannot be overstated. Since the First nation lacked the means to record their history, it is plausible that their culture and tradition would have been completely lost as they were uprooted from their Native homelands by the Europeans and forced to abandon their ways for the ways of the white man.
However, despite these occurrences, the Natives continued to pass on the stories of their traditions to their children through generations. Crowshoe and Eagle who are modern day Native Americans confirm the power of oral tradition in preserving their culture by stating that “as we listen to our stories, speak our language, sing our songs, and participate in our traditional societies, we gain insight and extract the understanding we need to live well and keep our ways alive”. (Four Directions Teachings)
Effects of Lack of Written Traditions by the First Nations
The First Nations who form the Aboriginal groups within North America did not have a symbolic system of writing up until recent centuries. This implies that they had no method of documenting and preserving their own cultural history. The history of the Ojibway and Lakota was contained in their oral and traditional history.
Oral history is made up of stories of significant events such as migration, wars and epidemics while oral tradition represents folklore that makes reference to legends, myths and stories held sacred by a people. Wilson notes that the Ojibway and Lakota history was contained both in the oral history and oral tradition (27). She further expounds that there was a clear understanding among the people of what passes for folklore and what was considered a historic truth.
As a result of the lack of symbolic writing system by the First Nations, most of what is learned today about this people has been written by anthropologists. The lack of a written history by the First Nations has affected the level of knowledge that exists today. This is because most of the accounts given about the First Nations were from outsiders who did not understand the culture of the people and normally took events out of context or viewed them with bias.
For example, there exist scattered references in historical records on the role of women in the Ojibway economy. Nichols notes that due to the frequency with which women engaged in hard and heavy work, some observes began to fashion an image of the Ojibway woman as a burden bearer and in essence a slave to men who were engaged in hunting, chiefhood and other flamboyant roles (30).
While the assertions about the economic role of the women of the First Nations was right, the historical recording greatly distorts the status of women in the traditional culture. This was because the writer’s ideal of women stemmed from the privileged classes of Europe who were frail dependent people in need of male protection.
Comparison between the content of this course and the Elder’s teachings
The Four Direction Teachings is a website that is dedicated to the celebration of “indigenous oral traditions by honoring the process of listening with intent as each elder shares a teaching from their perspective” (Four Directions Teachings). This website places great emphasis on the oral traditions of the Aboriginals and tries to emulate the manner in which information was passed by the First nation.
This course on Native-American Studies on the other hand places a greater emphasis on the work of anthropologists and historians who have documented the history of the Aboriginal people through the centuries. Owing to the differing bias between the teachings at the fourdirectionsteachings.com website and this course, there are similarities as well as differences from the content of the two.
The Four Directions Teachings demonstrated that the Ojibway and Lakota people had an instructional approach for teaching their children through storytelling which encompassed methods of observation and direct involvement (Wilson 27).
This is evident from the manner in which the narrator personalizes the story by using terms like “I’ve been told ever since I was a young girl by my parents…” (Four Directions Teachings).The stories would therefore be expected to have differing versions depending on the teller. This is in contrast to the contents of this course which have been written in an objective manner. There is no personalization of events as each is told in a clearly objective manner.
Another significant difference arises from the reasons that the teachings were given by the Aboriginal people. From the content of the stories, it is clear that a major role of the narratives was to enable people to attain and retain a good moral value that would then be passed on to subsequent generations.
This is contrary to the contents of this course which are not aimed at propagating any moral teachings. Contrary to this, the contents of this course are aimed at providing a historically accurate depiction of the First Nations and their way of life. As such, the content of this course are devoid of any moral overtones that are the major characteristic of the stories that are present in the teachings of the elder’s website.
For all their differences, there exist similarities between the elder’s teachings and this course’s contents. The fact that the Native Indians were a peaceful people who believed in the equality of all people and the spirit of brotherhood is a concept that is shared by both the content of this course and the Four Directions Teachings.
This is contrasted with the European’s philosophy which emphasized the dominion of the white man over the world. As such, both sources record how the Indians welcomed the Europeans with hospitality as they would their own brothers.
Conclusion
This paper set out to give a detailed account of what resulted from the First Nations of Canada’s contact with the European. The paper began by giving a brief overview of the First nation tribes so as to shed light to their ways of life in the pre-contact years. From the discussions presented herein, it is clear that the immediate result of contact between the Europeans and the First Nations was increased trade activities which resulted in abandoning of the First Nations previous ways of lives.
However, it has been demonstrated that the results of this contact were mostly negative to the First Nations who not only lost their land but were also sold into slavery and exposed to diseases which led to the rapid decrease in their population. As a result of lack of a writing tradition by the Natives, the paper has highlighted how the history of their traditions has at times been misrepresented as a result of ignorance by the European historians.
Despite the great atrocities that the Native Indians were subjected to, this paper has discussed the means by which the First Nations people were able to preserve their culture and tradition to the present times. Today, these traditions and cultural ways remain unknown to most of the descendants of the great Native tribes of North America.
However, their preservation has meant that the history of this people will never disappear as it would have if the Natives had failed to ensure its survival in the earlier years. While it cannot be disputed that most of the contact with the Europeans led to great wrongs against the First Nation, it was this interaction that led to the formation of the formation of the great North American nations of Canada and the USA.
Works Cited
Brown Dee and Sides Hampton. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: The Illustrated Edition: An Indian History of the American West. Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., 2009.
Four Directions Teachings. Aboriginal Online Teaching and Resource Center. 2006. Web. http://fourdirectionsteachings.com/transcripts.html
Francis, R. et al. Journeys: A History of Canada. Cengage Learning, 2009.
Nicholas, Rogers. The American Indian: past and present. VNR AG, 1986.
Ojebwe Organization. More Ojibwe History. 2010. Web. http://www.ojibwe.org/home/pdf/More_Ojibwe_History_Summary.pdf
Oommen, T. Citizenship, Nationality, and Ethnicity: Reconciling Competing Identities. Wiley-Blackwell, 1997.
Schell, J. In the Ojibway Country: A Story of Early Missions on the Minnesota Frontier. Read Books, 2008.
Thornton, Russell. Studying Native America: Problems and Prospects. Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1998.
Wilson, W. Remember This! Dakota Decolonization and the Eli Taylor Narratives. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2005.