History of Canada

History of Canada

How does an appreciation of Native cultures and interests change our understanding of early contacts with French traders and missionaries?

The appreciation and understanding of native culture can be very helpful in changing our understanding of early contacts with French traders and missionaries. It can be helpful in such a way that the first contacts between Europeans and natives of Canada took place in the tenth century in the Arctic, Greenland and Labrador, where the Vikings landed on Baffin Island and along the Atlantic coast. The foundation of trading posts and missions changed the relationship between Native Americans and Europeans (mostly French), particularly in east Africa, the region will be called the "upper country" or Great Lakes region. The result was a rapid increase of trade and expansion of a Mestizo population. Knowing both local languages and French, Métis became agents sought between Europeans and indigenous. The arrival of missionaries constituted an opportunity for cultural and linguistic interference. These men wanted to transform the indigenous culture into another, resembling the model of Christian Europe, but did not attempt to remove the language (Brown, 2000). On the contrary, the French traders and missionaries learned the native languages. The fact remains that the French traders and missionary presence marked the beginning of a systematic attack against religion, beliefs and traditional customs of the indigenous communities, not to mention the spread of disease. Moreover, these attacks will continue and will intensify as the colonial governments, both French and British, to occupy themselves "Indian Affairs". Samuel de Champlain spent the years 1615-1616 in the "upper country" (Great Lakes) to promote the fur trade and to promote the establishment of missions among the Indians. First it was the Recollects (1615), and the Jesuits (1626) and the Sulpicians (1669). Although the missionaries learned the native languages, they tried them French while converting them to Christianity, but mostly they were also transmitting European diseases against which indigenous unfortunate were hardly immune (Quinn, 1979). The Hurons, for example, were slow to understand that, contrary to the warnings of the missionaries, the wrath of God does not beat down on them as punishment for their impiety, but because the black robes "were themselves the main because of the curse hanging over their country. During the 1630s, smallpox and measles decimated the Huron population: thousands of natives died. In the 1640s, the population had decreased by half. Despite the efforts of missionaries decided to treat them, many of the allied tribes shared the same fate. By understanding the native culture, we can have changed perceptions about the French traders and missionaries. The native culture gives a brief overview about the history of French traders and through this the perception about French traders and missionaries change. French missionaries tried to franchise indigenous converting them to Christianity while imparting disease (Pierre, 1996). Most trappers learned one or more Indian languages, but they also instilled the basics of French with a native to the point where the common language between ...