Birth of a Canadien Identity

In many respects the influence was reciprocal, and this clearly made a specific contribution to a real Canadien identity that was distinct from that of the French from France. The ability to adapt to winter, familiarity with geography, flora and fauna, and the mastery of guerrilla warfare long ensured the superiority of the Canadiens over the British despite their numerical disadvantage (Delâge 1991). It is amazing to realize that the “Canadien” could have had so much “Amerindian” in him.

Contributions and Little-Known Facts

In 1985, an Innu from the Schefferville region was honoured for his participation in the discovery of large iron-ore deposits on the Labrador plateau. Mathieu André, a trapper and hunter, gathered samples of high-grade ore during his hunting expeditions. In 1937, he reported the discovery of these samples to the geologist J. A. Retty. Intense prospecting followed, encouraged by the industrial thrust of the Second World War, and in 1947 another Innu named Pierre McKenzie contributed to the discovery of the deposit of Schefferville located on his family’s hunting grounds. In 1950, the Iron Ore Company undertook the construction of the mining town of Schefferville. In the same year, the company began building a 600-km railway to transport the ore between Schefferville and the port of Sept-Îles. Once again, a number of members of First Nations contributed [TRANSLATION] “to the initial surveying and clearing work in this region, which they knew to perfection.” (Radio-Québec 1984, 39–40).

During the 1950s, these discoveries and the mining of major iron deposits on the North Shore and in Labrador would even justify the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Thus, Québec, along with several Great Lakes industrial cities, was to experience enviable prosperity.

Mathieu André, nicknamed Mestenapeu (“The Big Man”), was honoured in 1985 for his role in the discovery of the iron-ore deposits on the North Shore and in Labrador.

Exploration and the discovery of land and its resources could not have been achieved without the contribution of the Aboriginal peoples – and not only at the very beginnings of the colony. Less than 50 years ago, an Innu from the Schefferville region made an important contribution to the discovery of iron deposits in Labrador and along the North Shore. The industrial prosperity that resulted from this discovery can certainly be attributed at least in part to that Innu. The Innu Nation, however, derived very little from this contribution, particularly in terms of employment and economic development.

We may owe much more to the First Nations than we realize. New foods, from maple syrup to squash, beans, corn and even tomatoes, and medicinal plants are underestimated contributions. It is almost impossible to believe that the very idea of the equality that lies at the heart of our charters of rights and freedoms could have been influenced by Indigenous peoples. They have contributed to our sporting traditions as well. Authors have pointed out that colonists followed the example of the Aboriginal peoples [TRANSLATION] “and hence learned to develop a team spirit that was not valued in European games” (Côté, Tardivel and Vaugeois 1992, 130).

As for diplomatic protocol, we would be wrong to think that the French and the English were able to impose their own procedures on the First Peoples. History has shown us that, contrary to what we have been taught, the diplomatic protocol that long governed relations between Europeans and First Peoples remained essentially Aboriginal in nature, even if it was amended a few times. This was particularly evident at the time of the signing of the Great Peace of Montréal, an auspicious moment in Franco-Aboriginal relations. When this treaty was signed, in 1701, 40 First Nations and 1,000 ambassadors of these nations assembled in Montréal at a time when the city had only 3,500 inhabitants. The French authorities agreed to respect every aspect of the numerous subtleties of Aboriginal diplomacy (Havard 2001).

Medicinal Plants: Labrador Tea Under the Research Microscope

In an interview with Chantale Potvin, a journalist for the Innuvelle newspaper, Pierre Haddad, a professor in the Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, at the Université de Montréal, said that “to combat the deleterious effects of diabetes, the most effective plants for regulating glucose transport into the intestinal wall are the Labrador tea plant and black spruce cones.”

Lisia Nistor Baldea, a master’s student in the same department, was interested in how the James Bay Crees used traditional medicine to treat symptoms typical of diabetes. The study identified 17 plants that were then tested in vitro for their ability to lower blood sugar levels. Mr. Haddad said that, to the surprise of many, [TRANSLATION] “seven of the plants yielded results that were comparable, if not slightly better, than conventional synthetic drugs… In subsequent animal studies, Labrador tea leaves came out clearly ahead of black spruce cones… They reduced glucose absorption by around 50%, roughly the same rate as phlorizin, a drug used for the treatment of diabetes and hyperglycemia.” That is excellent news! (Potvin 2011, 12)

Marie-Louise Fontaine (left) and Kathleen André (right) are traditional healers from the Innu communities of Uashat and Mani-utenam on the North Shore. In 2011, Dr. Stanley Vollant, Aboriginal program director in the Faculty of Medicine at the Université de Montréal, invited them to share their knowledge with students in a traditional medicine course. To Dr. Vollant’s knowledge, it was the first time that Aboriginal people had shared their science with medical students: [TRANSLATION] “When the class was over, the students came up and smelled the herbs and tasted the herbal teas, even the teas made with beaver kidneys and testicles. I was surprised and it made me laugh. There was a lot of interest.”

Before the Europeans arrived, Aboriginal societies were organized societies that had political systems and complex commercial trade systems. The Aboriginal societies were – and still are –neither inferior nor superior to other societies. They have their own intrinsic character. Our failure to understand these societies has long prevented us from assessing their grandeur and complexity, which extend to their systems of land ownership, their intimate relationship with the land, knowledge of fauna and flora, and much more.

What We Owe the First Nations

Democracy and Equality

The anthropologist Jack Weatherford wrote that the modern notion of democracy, based on principles of equality in an egalitarian state with separation of powers, is a product of the blend of political ideas and the European and Aboriginal institutions that prevailed on the Atlantic coast from 1607 to 1776. He went on to say that “[m]odern democracy, as we know it today, is as much the legacy of the American Indians, particularly the Iroquois and the Algonquians, as it is of the British settlers, of French political theory, or of all the failed efforts of the Greeks and Romans.”

Weatherford 1993, 146

Sports

Among the Amerindians, the sports tradition goes back a long way, and athletic prowess has always been a source of pride. When the Europeans arrived on the continent, the Aboriginal peoples played hundreds of outdoor games, including some that could have up to 200 participants.

Moreover, Warren Lowes maintains that the Europeans developed their love of sport and healthy competition when they came into contact with the Aboriginal peoples. Without pushing this too far, it should be noted that prior to the voyages of Columbus, Europeans played sports that were very different from the sports they play today. Before the discovery of the Americas, Europeans were primarily familiar with three types of games: intellectual games – chess, cards, charades, and checkers – which were mentally stimulating; games requiring physical dexterity – fencing, archery and javelin – which were closely related to the art of war; and games involving man’s domination over animals – such as hunting with hounds, dogfights, cockfights – and fights between other animals.

Given this, the first European observers were very surprised at how the Amerindians spent their leisure time. The number and especially the ardour of the participants, as well as the atmosphere of collective excitement and joy surrounding each sporting event, never failed to impress them. Settlers followed their example and learned to develop a team spirit that was not valued in European games.

It can truly be said that North Americans owe part of their love of the outdoors and competitive sports to their Amerindian companions.

Côté, Tardivel and Vaugeois 1992, 129-130

An engraving showing a lacrosse match in 1872 between Mohawks of Akwesasne and the Montreal Shamrocks.

Thirty-three Mohawk Workers Perish in the Collapse of the Québec Bridge

On August 29, 1907, the Québec Bridge, which was still under construction, collapsed. Seventy-six workers lost their lives in the catastrophe: 33 Mohawks from Caughnawaga (now Kahnawake), 26 Canadians and 17 Americans (L’Hébreux 1986, 61-63).

Renowned for high-steel construction, Mohawks have participated in most of the major projects in North America, including the Victoria Bridge in Montréal, the Québec Bridge, the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center in New York and many more – a contribution that deserves to be better known.

In 2007, the community of Kahnawake erected an important memorial in memory of all those men who had died a hundred years earlier when the Québec Bridge collapsed. Four brothers of the d’ Aillaboust family (Diabo) lost their lives in the disaster, including Veronica Stacey’s maternal grandfather (see photo), Angus d’Aillaboust and his brothers Joseph, James and Louis.

In a book devoted to the history of the Québec Bridge, an early worker attested to the good reputation of the Mohawk workers and their families:

I knew several Indians who worked on the bridge. About fifteen families spent the summer with us in New Liverpool, and they were good people. The Indians enjoyed an excellent reputation and were good workers. Even though a lot of alcohol was sold at the time, the Indians demonstrated exemplary sobriety.

The Indians of today have reason to be proud of their ancestors.

Georges Charest, cité dans la préface de L’Hébreux, 1986 : 13

At the St-Romuald cemetery, on the south shore of Québec City, a piece of the Québec Bridge that collapsed in 1907, recalls that 76 workers, including 33 Mohawks, lost their lives in the event.

The collapse of the Québec Bridge in 1907.

Learning Contempt: The History Textbooks of Yesteryear

Up to the 1960s, the textbooks used in Québec schools conveyed a less-than-glowing picture of Aboriginal peoples. In particular, this is the case of the textbook written by Fathers Farley and Lamarche, which was highly successful in Québec. Their history of Canada was read for over 30 years by thousands of students (Smith 1979, 87).

Portrait of the Indian

The American Indian was generally strongly built, tall and muscular, and had very acute senses. Despite his hard features and bony face, he was often good-looking on the whole. He painted unusual designs on his body and face and often used very painful processes to make them adhere to his skin. These tattoos served as both decoration and protection against the cold.

Morally, the Indian had a certain superficiality, which nonetheless endeared him to the white man. He willingly endured deprivation, cold and hunger, and he often manifested admirable courage when confronted with death. He was very cordial in extending his hospitality. He was sensitive to the trials and sufferings of his neighbours, willingly offering them his own possessions to help them out.

But these qualities could not mask very serious defects. The Indian had boundless arrogance, believing himself to be much superior to the white man, and this disposition often prevented him from accepting civilization and the Gospel.

The Indian had a sensual nature. He easily slipped into immorality. His taste for alcoholic beverages was another one of the principal obstacles to the work of the missionaries. Finally, he had no moral strength and no character…

Farley and Lamarche 1945, 13-14

Looking at the textbook of Canadian history written by Fathers Farley and Lamarche, Marie-Louise André of Matimekush, Madeleine Dominique of Pessamit, and Ben McKenzie of Mani-utenam are astounded by the contemptuous image of Aboriginal peoples that it transmitted to several generations of Québec students.

First published in 1934, by 1944 this textbook had become virtually the only history of Canada used at the senior secondary levels.

Smith 1974

Up to the 1960s, L’Histoire du Canada by Fathers Farley and Lamarche was seen as “the history textbook par excellence.” The extract provided above says a great deal about the contempt that was transmitted about the First Peoples as well as the extent of the ignorance about them.

After the Conquest, the British authorities acknowledged the military and strategic importance of the Aboriginal peoples as well as the importance of maintaining good relations with them, as the French had done. That was the only way to maintain peace in the colonies. In the next chapter, “Discovering Ancestral Rights,” we will see how the country’s first constitution, the Royal Proclamation of 1763, confirmed that Aboriginal nations enjoyed special status and significant rights, things that are still important today.

Superiority Complex?
A Mi’gmaq Chief Teaches the French a Lesson

The Chief of the Gaspesians responded to Father Le Clerq, who spoke on behalf of some Frenchmen when he invited the Mi’gmaq to build houses and live in the French way, in the following terms:

“I am very surprised that the French have as little sense as they appear to have, based on what you have just told me about them and their desire to persuade us to transform our poles, our bark and our huts into stone and wood houses as high as trees, as they say. How utterly ridiculous! Is it necessary for men five or six feet tall to have houses that are sixty or eighty feet high? For you know very well, Patriarch, that our houses have all the conveniences and that they offer the same benefits as yours do, such as providing a place to sleep, drink, eat and even enjoy ourselves with our friends when we so wish.”

Then addressing one of the Frenchmen present:

“And that is not all. My brother, do you have as much skill and sense as the Indians, who carry their houses and huts with them so that they can settle anywhere they like, independently of any seigneur? You are not as brave or valiant as we are because when you travel you cannot carry your buildings on your shoulders; therefore, you must construct new dwellings whenever you move or else live in borrowed houses that you don’t own. We are protected from all this inconvenience, and we can always say more truthfully than you that we are always at home, because we can easily build huts wherever we go, without asking permission of anyone.

An 1878 engraving of a Mi’gmaq canoe on the Restigouche River.

You criticize us quite wrongly in saying that our country is a small hell compared to France, which you compare to paradise on earth, especially since it provides you, you say, with all sorts of provisions in abundance; you also tell us that we are the most miserable and unhappy of all men, living without religion, without civility, without honour, without society, and, in a word, without any rules, like the animals in our woods and forests, deprived of bread, wine and a thousand other delicacies you have in excess in Europe.

Well, my brother, if you do not yet know the real feelings that we Indians have about your country and your entire nation, it is simply because I am telling you about them for the first time today. I therefore urge you to believe that as miserable as we appear to be in your eyes, we nonetheless consider ourselves much happier than you, because we are very satisfied with the little we have; and once again I believe you are very wrong if you profess to persuade us that your country is better than ours. For if France, as you state, is a piece of heaven on earth, why do you leave it? And why do you abandon wives, children, relatives, and friends? Why do you risk your life and property every year and, regardless of the season, venture recklessly into the storms of the sea to come to a foreign, barbarian country that you consider to be the poorest and most miserable in the world?

Deux Sauvages (Two Savages), Gaspé, Qué.

Since we are fully convinced that the opposite is true, we would certainly not take any pains to go to France, because we rightly comprehend that we would find very little satisfaction there, seeing through experience that the French leave every year to seek wealth on our coasts. We also believe that you are incomparably poorer than we are and that you are simply companions, valets, servants, and slaves, as much as you appear to be masters and great captains, since you prize our old rags and our wretched, discarded beaver dress that you find here, and since you fish for cod in these parts, in order to relieve your misery and the poverty that overwhelms you. We find all our wealth and conveniences at home, without problem and without exposing our lives to the dangers you face every day in your long expeditions at sea; and we admire, offering you compassion as we rest comfortably, the concern you show and the care you take in loading your ships; we even see that all your people generally live only on cod: cod in the morning, cod at noon, cod in the evening, nothing but cod, even to the point that, if you want something good to eat, we must provide it, and you are obliged to beg the Indians you hold in such contempt to go hunting so that you can have a good meal.

Now, tell me, if you have any sense, which of the two is the wiser and the happier: he who works incessantly and only just manages after much effort to find something to eat or he who rests comfortably and finds what he needs in the pleasure of hunting and fishing? Then learn, my brother, once and for all, since I must open my heart to you, that there is no Indian who does not consider himself infinitely happier and more powerful than the French.”

(Le Clerq, undated, cited in Vachon 1968, 87-91)