Contact

• “I mean, what did they ever do for Canada? Did they discover gas? Did they discover Oil? They didn’t even invent the wheel.”

- Honorable James Richardson, minister of defense in 1975.

• When your people came we helped you because you were men, like us, and there was so much you didn’t know. We taught your people how to hunt, how to eat, how to travel. But your people learned only how to survive, you would not learn how to live. Many of us died of your weapons and diseases. Many of us have died inside because you have taken away the surroundings on which our our inner lives were built. This land is our soul. And it is upon the souls the souls of thousands of people that this country has been formed. – Chief George Manuel, leader of the National Indian Brotherhood.

Eve of Contact

• Aboriginals were flourishing in many physical regions across Canada.

• They depended on Nature for their survival and maintained a deep spiritual relationship with their environment.

• Over thousands of years they called Canada home.

• They acquired knowledge and invented technologies to create complex and diverse societies.

• There were 6 major cultural regions in Canada.

• Woodlands – hunted and gathered, invented the birch bark canoe to navigate rivers.

• Lowlands – Aboriginals cultivated crops, lived in long houses

• Interior plains – Nomadic lifestyle, invented light weight teepee.

• Northern Sub artic – nomadic lifestyle, hunter gatherers, Wigwams

• Pacific coast – Permanent settlements, dams for fishing.

• Artic – hunted land and sea animals. Built igloos.

Common World View

• Aboriginal peoples for a large part held a common world view rooted in their close relationship with the land.

• They believed they were part of the environment rather than being in control of it.

• The natural world was not separate from the spiritual.

Contact

• The arrival of the Europeans in about 1500 CE disrupted the delicate balance of the Aboriginal peoples’ way of life.

• In the beginning both sides benefited from an equal relationship.

Contact

• Europeans relied on the knowledge, technologies and skills of aboriginals peoples to help them survive in the unfamiliar wilderness.

• Aboriginals benefited from the technologies of the Europeans which made their daily lives easier.

European Societies

• Europe was going through a modern age.

• It was a time of great competition for resources in Europe.

• The spices and gems of Asia were in high demand throughout Europe and the Kingdom that controlled this wealth, controlled the world.

European Societies

• With the expansion of the Islamic states came the threat of no access to these valuable markets.

• With the advent of naval technologies, kingdoms had the ability to search for a water route to Asia.

• Whoever found this route would rule the world and be favoured by God.

Church and State

• The Church was the most powerful institution at this time.

• As power, greed, and poverty rose, the church began to question itself.

• A reformation occurred and a protestant denomination was formed out of the Catholic church.

Church and State

• The threatened catholic church launched its own reformation.

• They believed they needed to convert as many peoples as possible to the Catholic faith.

• Missionary movement was formed.

Colonialism and Expansionism

• In the 15th, 16th, 17th centuries, European nations practiced colonialism as they sought to claim land and rule over people.

• During expansionism they claimed land to exploit the natural resources for the benefit of the citizens at home.

Portuguese Expansionism

• By 1450 CE, Portugal expanded its trade routes down the Atlantic coast of Africa.

• Bartholomew Diaz sailed further around the southern tip of Africa to the rich land of India to secure supplies of spices, silks, and gems.

• This began the slave trade as Portuguese traders used enslaved Africans to work in their plantations.

Spain

• Spain was the main competitor of Portugal.

• In a race to gain supremacy of the trade route to India, Chris Columbus embarked on a journey to cross the Atlantic in search of a passage to Asia.

• He actually arrived in Present day Island of Hispanola….Haiti and Dominican Republic.

• Spain conquered Latin America.

• Led by Hernan Cortez the Spanish army decimated the native population of Aztecs.

• The Aztecs once numbered 27 million, however after the many battles, they were left with 1 million.

• News that Columbus that he reached what he believed was India inspired the Italian navigator, John Cabot, to plan his own expedition across the Atlantic.

• When Spain refused to finance the trip, Wealthy English merchants funded him.

• In 1497, He arrived in what he thought was China.

• In fact it was Newfoundland.

• Cabot claimed What came to be called “New Found Land” for England.

• He would also make a discovery that would change the future of the continent.

An Abundance of Fish

• He discovered a rich and seemingly unlimited supply of Cod Fish on the Grand Banks.

• Fish was very important to the societies in England.

• Meat was not to be eaten on Friday, however fish was. This accounted for

• This new discovery sent hundreds of fishing fleets across the Atlantic.

• By the early 1500’s, Newfoundland Cod was a regular commodity on English tables.

• The arrival of fishing fleets marked the beginnings of trade between Europeans and aboriginal peoples.

• The fishers exchanged their metal pots, knives, and beads for furs and robes worn by Aboriginals.

The Fur Trade Begins

• Contact between Aboriginal people and Europeans expanded in 1534 when the French explorer Jacques Cartier made the first of three voyages to North America in search of gold.

• He was exploring on behalf of the French King.

Cartier

• Along the coast he made contact with the Mi’kmaq people..

• They were very willing to trade furs for European Iron goods.

• After sailing further inland he made contact with the Iroquois whom were also eager to trade.

• Believing he had found a treasure house of natural resources, he claimed the land for France.

The Fur Trade Continued• By the 1600 the fur trade was being fuelled

by the demand for beaver felt hats in Europe.

• All of the beavers were wiped out in Europe, and this led to an increase of trade in the Americas.

• The French traders depended on the Aboriginals for providing the furs as they did not know the land well enough.

Arrival of Champlain

• In 1608, Samuel de Champlain sailed even further inland and set up a trading post at present day Quebec city.

• Champlain knew that the success of the fur trade depended on maintaining the goodwill of his Aboriginal partners.

Champlain• They were out numbered by the First Nations and

they were dependent on their knowledge and skills in order to survive.

• To help in relationships he sent young representatives to live with the Aboriginal people permanently in order to learn their languages, values, and customs.

• He also allied with the Wendat and Algonquin in war against their enemy, the Haudenosaunee. This would soon have negative effects for the French.

• At the same time, the Dutch had established a trading post on the Hudson river in New York.

• The Dutch and English, became allies of the Haudenosaunee and supplied them with guns in exchange for furs.

• The French only supplied guns to the converts to Catholicism. This placed the French at a disadvantage.

England Joins the Fur Trade

• For the first half of the 17th century, France was largely unrivaled in the fur trade.

• That ended when the British expedition sailed around the Northern tip of Quebec into Hudson bay and established a makeshift trading post at the bottom of James Bay.

The Hudson’s Bay Company

• In 1670, in London, England, a royal charter was issued that granted trading rights over the lands that drain into Hudson’s Bay to the newly formed Hudson’s Bay company.

• These lands included 40% of Canada’s territory today.

• This accounted for nearly a twelfth of the Earths surface.

• The arrival of the Hudson’s Bay Company marked the beginning of an intense rivalry between England and France for control of the fur trade.

• This competition for furs lasted 150 years.• The French were at a severe disadvantage

since they were limited to the lands of Quebec.

• The French began to push inland to expand trading territory.

• This expansion sparked a series of raids and counter raids between the English and Haudensaunee on one side and the French and the Wendat and Algonquin on the other.

• This trading conflict lasted until 1701.• In 1760 fall of New France left the English

Hudson bay Company with a monopoly over the industry.

Impact of colonization

• In the first 100 years of the fur trade, Aboriginal technologies such as Canoes, food preservation, and Aboriginal cultural knowledge, greatly influence their trading relationship with the white many.

• In turn, European inventions such as guns, kettles, knives changed the way Aboriginal people performed tasks.

Impact of Contact

• The trade became less interdependent over time as Aboriginals became more dependant on manufactured goods.

• This caused a great economic disruption for Aboriginals as the balance of power shifted to the Europeans.

Impact of Contact

• It also caused a greater amount of fighting between tribes as they competed for the best hunting locations and monopolize trade with the Europeans.

• As fur supplies became exhausted in one region, Aboriginal groups would move to others.

• The lack of animals began to disrupt their natural economies.

Impacts of Contact continued

• The introduction of infectious diseases such as smallpox, measles, and influenza led to devastating consequences.

• Since Aboriginal people did not have past exposure they had no immunity to them.

• Some populations were entirely wiped out.• As Fur traders pushed further inland, there

diseases did as well.

Impact of Contact cont.

• The introduction of alcohol and the subsequent addiction it created also had negative effects.

• Over time contact led Aboriginal people from a lifestyle of independence to one of interdependence and finally dependence.

Impact on Europeans

• By the late 1600, new food that originated in the Americas were beginning to spread through Europe.

• The aboriginal people introduced corn, potatoes, tomatoes, squash, beans.

• The potato became a staple food in Europe.• Corn was used as feed for animals. Which made

them healthier and provide better milk and meat.

Impact on Europeans

• Other products from the Americas had a more negative impact.

• Many people took to smoking and the demand for tobacco and sugar began to rise.

• This fueled the plantation economies of the Caribbean which in turn fueled the slave trade.

Impact on the World• The world wide distribution of the resources

of the Americas fuelled a widespread economic revolution.

• In the 1500, Europe's gold and silver totaled $200 million. A century later, it catapulted to 2.56 Billion, an 8 fold increase.

• This was the beginning of a capitalistic society including a massive increase in military technology.

• This was the New World Order.