B. Map - Native-European Encounters Preserved in Native Oral Tradition and
European Written Narrative

Atlantic Gulf and St. Lawrence: Mi'kmaq, Huron, and Iroquois

Encounters between Mi'kmaq, Huron, Iroquois and Europeans in the Atlantic Gulf and St. Lawrence region are distinguished by extensive historical documentation. European explorers, traders, and missionaries infiltrated this region and left behind journals and economic records, which provide a great deal of information about the lifeways of First Nations peoples prior to European influence.

Mi'kmaq Encounter with Europeans

Legends of the Micmacs by Silas Rand, is a collection of legends that was published in 1894. The following narrative involves a prophecy, a common element throughout Mi'kmaq stories. This legend involves a dream that predicts that fair-skinned foreigners will come to Mi'kmaq territories and influence the people. These prophecies, such as in the story below, often contain a paradox of good fortune and bad luck, and the inevitability of loss.

A young woman consulted an elder regarding a strange dream. She said she saw a small white island moving through the great waters. On this floating island were trees and living beings. One man stood apart from the others and he was dressed in rabbit skins and he had hair on his face. The elder had never heard of such as dream as this and offered the girl no explanation. All became clear the next morning when the young girl awoke with what appeared to be a small island moving toward her village. The Mi'kmaq men took up their weapons to kill what they thought to be hairy-faced bears on the moving island. But they stopped in surprise to discover the bears were actually men with white skin. The island was actually a large boat. White men jumped from the ship into smaller boats and came towards shore. A man stood apart from the others because he was dressed in white. The boats landed and the strange men attempted to speak to the Mi'kmaq. The man dressed in white made signs of friendship and spoke in earnest but his language was unknown. The young woman was brought forward by the elder and asked if this was the man of her dream. "Yes" she replied. Magicians and prophets of the tribes were angered because the dream of prophecy came to a young girl and not them. They believed they would have readied themselves against this man in white who was a priest and teacher of white men.

European Encounter with Mi'kmaq

Trans-Atlantic voyages from Europe and explorations of the eastern coast of Canada were well documented in ship journals and explorers' diaries. These journals and diaries provide the European impression of a land and a people that were previously unknown in Europe. On June 24, 1497, the Italian John Cabot landed on the Atlantic coast, possibly near the Strait of Belle Isle. Sponsored by the English King Henry VIII, Cabot was in search of a quick and easy route to the riches of the Orient, which was the legacy of Marco Polo's accounts of the Great Khan. Although Cabot soon realised that he had landed not in India but rather in Newfoundland, he still returned to Europe with tales of riches based on cod-filled waters and an abundance of furs.

Seventeenth-century portrayal of fish-filled Northern Seas

Jacques Cartier in 1534 explored the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the following year moved westward into the St. Lawrence River system. Here he encountered Algonquian groups such as the Mi'kmaq, Naskapi, and Montagnais. He recorded his initial contacts with the Mi'kmaq. On June 1534, Cartier was sailing close to the Prince Edward Island shoreline. He and his men noticed boatloads of people crossing a river but were unable to make contact because of the wind and sea conditions. The following day, a man signalled from the shoreline and Cartier landed his boat. Cartier lay down a knife and a woollen belt on a stick as a sign of his good intentions then returned to his ship. On July 6 the Mi'kmaq boarded forty to fifty canoes and met with Cartier as he was exploring the shoreline in a small boat. The Mi'kmaq attempted to have Cartier come ashore, but feeling outnumbered and threatened, Cartier fired two shots in the air and returned to his ship. The Mi'kmaq persisted and the next day they approached Cartier's ship signalling their willingness to barter and trade for knives and iron in exchange for furs. Mi'kmaq participation in the exchange had ceremonial overtones and they spoke a few words that might have been derived from Portuguese or Basque trade jargon, which strongly indicates that the Mi'kmaq had a tradition of trade with Europeans prior to French contact.

Huron type Mittens
Made in 1840 and collected in 1841-1842

Courtesy of the Canadian Museum of Civilization
CMC Catalogue Number: III-H-408 a,b

Jacques Cartier kidnapped the two sons of Chief Donnacona of the Stadacona, a band of Iroquois. This action and the erection of a Christian cross on Stadacona territory are indicative of Cartier's disrespectful attitude towards First Nations peoples. This trend was common amongst explorers to take First Nations people back to Europe to prove they actually arrived in the New World and also to help navigate on return voyages. Cartier's voyages did not yield valuable metals or a route to the Orient, and therefore little incentive existed to explore Canada from the 1540s to the early seventeenth century. Contact, however, did continue during this period and occurred primarily through the fur trade. The impact from this sporadic trade was evident in several different ways. By the beginning of the seventeenth century all the groups that Cartier had encountered some seventy years earlier had disappeared either due to disease or warfare among First Nations. Also, trade increased and prompted large-scale population movements. In the early seventeenth century, the exploration of Canada by Europeans was resumed, motivated not only by commercial gain but also by evangelical fervour; Cartier had noted in his journals that the Natives would be easy to convert to Christianity.

Maliseet Cradle.
Courtesy of the Canadian Museum of Civilization
CMC Catalogue Number: III-E-286

Cartier was the first European to refer to First Nations peoples as "savages". The French word he used was sauvage, which does not translate as brutal, backward, and primitive, but rather as one who lives with nature. For instance, a French peasant farmer could be labelled as sauvage. However, the word sauvage was subsequently distorted to refer to Natives as barbarous and primitive by French standards. This is an example of how language could set the tone of future explorations and influence how later generations of explorers viewed aboriginal peoples.

Mi'kmaq

The Mi'kmaq participated in a seasonal hunting and gathering lifeway. Their first contacts with Europeans were with the Portuguese, who explored the Atlantic coasts between 1500 and 1528. Fish was an important element of the European diet and was, therefore, the first resource Europeans harvested from Canadian territory. The Portuguese came also for whales, whose meat, blubber, and oil were highly valued. Basques hunted whale and walrus in the Grand Banks, and the French and English harvested cod. The fish was not processed on board ship because Europeans had limited access to cheap sources of salt. Instead, fish drying huts were established along the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador. The dry fishery required a stay of two or three months, and relations were formed with the Mi'kmaq who were employed at these dry fishing huts in exchange for European goods. When fur traders moved into Mi'kmaq territories, the Mi'kmaq included the fur trade in seasonal food gathering activities. The Mi'kmaq had relied primarily on sea mammals for their food but this changed with their involvement in the fur trade. The Mi'kmaq moved inland to trap furs, and land mammals eventually became the primary food source. As was often the theme of initial European contact, the Mi'kmaq adapted to the presence of Europeans with the understanding that the Mi'kmaq were sharing their territory with the newcomers.

Huron

The Huron were a semi-sedentary agricultural-based culture that occupied the Georgian Bay area of Lake Huron. Along with other Algonquian groups, they controlled access to regions north of the lakes, primarily on the Canadian Shield. French estimates of the four core nations of the Huron Confederacy in 1615 varied from sixteen to twenty-five villages comprised of 20,000 to 30,000 people. Trade routes between the various First Nations groups in the Great Lakes region were already centuries old by the time the French arrived. These trade networks facilitated the movement of utilitarian goods, and the introduction of new or exotic items into Native society. The trade alliances extended far beyond the neighbouring Algonquin groups, reaching as far south as the Mississippian cultures and as far north as the parkland hunter-gatherers of the Sub-Arctic.

Early depictions of the Huron people

The French recognised the Huron's political and economic power in the region and formed an alliance with them. The Huron thus became the first large-scale contributors to the fur trade. The Huron, like other First Nations traders, had established rituals that they performed before trade negotiations. These involved speechmaking and gift-giving. The French learned to participate in these rituals and, initially, the First Nations traders controlled trading ventures and market conditions. For example, if the French wished to trade they had to learn the Huron language, as the Huron would not demean themselves by learning French. Moreover, the Algonquin of Allumette Island exacted tolls from traders who passed through their territories. The Huron welcomed the foreign goods and exchanged large amounts of European wares as gifts at festivals. Cloth and glass beads were luxurious and highly valued because they were uncommon items, having to be transported over hundreds of kilometres from the French trading posts. Prestige and status were gained from the amount of European goods a man could give away. This is another example of Natives adapting European goods into existing social and political processes.

The fur trade, reinforced later by Jesuit missions, matured into a political and cultural alliance that endured beyond the defeat and dispersal of the Huron by the Iroquois. By 1649 the Huron had scattered among neighbouring nations, and a small group sought refuge near Quebec where their descendants still live today. Others remained in the Great Lakes area and became known to the English as the Wyandot. Allied with the Ottawa, they became the "eldest children" of Onontio (French Governor of Canada) and the cornerstone of the French alliance with the Great Lakes Algonquians. Others were adopted by the Iroquois.

Iroquois

The Six Nations societies, or People of the Longhouse, were agriculturists and participated in trade networks similar to those of the Huron. They formed a political, economic, and social confederacy that initially included the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and the Senecas. In 1722, the Tuscaroras joined the alliance. Deganawidah is the cultural hero who represents the founding of the Six Nations Confederacy. He was a Huron by birth but was adopted by the Mohawk. A visionary and a statesman, Deganawidah was a symbol of the peaceful, co-operative philosophy of the Six Nation league. Hiawatha, an Onondaga, was also adopted by the Mohawk and acted as Deganawidah's disciple and spokesman. The oral legacy of Deganawidah and Hiawatha is the foundation of the moral teachings in the Six Nations league. Deganawidah preached a gospel of peace to the Iroquois during a time of great inter-tribal violence and war. The people should stop killing each other, he asserted, accept the rule of law, and come together in new rituals of unity. Legend tells how Deganawidah recruited and converted three key persons, who were caught up in the old way of violence, and invested them with positions of authority in the new, peaceful order. The new chiefs' council tackled the issue of disarmament, and at Deganawidah's suggestion, uprooted a great pine tree and put their weapons into the hole. They then replanted the tree. Through this action, the arms of war would be forever hidden from the sight of future generations. The pine tree was a symbol of unity and the Deganawidah legend represented a respect for peaceful co-operation amongst Nations instead of a doctrine of warfare.

The Five (later Six) Nations Confederacy was already formed by the time of French contact in the seventeenth century. There is a record of Samuel de Champlain firing upon the Iroquois at Ticonderoga in 1609. This action made enemies of the Iroquois and solidified Iroquois alliances with the Dutch, who were willing to trade firearms for furs. By 1640, however, the beaver in the Iroquois territories was depleted, and attacks increased against Huron, Petun, and Neutral bands in an attempt to control their more productive fur trade areas. In a series of raids, the Iroquois pushed the Huron off their territories. Disease and warfare eventually dispersed the Huron bands completely. The Iroquois were a dominating power in these territories until the American War of Independence. Massive losses through epidemics reduced their numbers and political significance during the eighteenth century.