Indians in the French Period

When John Cabot sailed into the gulf waters of the St. Lawrence in 1497; he opened the period of contact with the Indians which has lasted to our own day, although it has been claimed, without complete authenticity, that the Basques, Bretons, and Normans preceded not only Cabot, but Columbus. The Norse voyages of the tenth century appear to have left no mark upon the cultures of the Indians in Canada. From 1504, the year of the first authentic French voyage, to 1534, when Cartier skirted the coasts of the gulf : of St. Lawrence, intermittent but not infrequent contacts were made by the fishermen with the eastern Indian bands. In 1535 Cartier encountered on the banks of the St. Lawrence a people of Iroquoian stock who have been variously supposed to lie Mohawks, Onondagas, Hurons, or a related people who were later destroyed by the Five Nations Iroquois. When Champlain arrived at the St. Lawrence in 1603, they had disappeared. Some writers, believe that they themselves were representatives of the Five Nations and that they were driven out of the St. Lawrence valley by hostile Algonkians. The removal of these Iroquoians from the St. Lawrence enabled the French to found colonies from which they could prosecute the fur-trade, an industry which assumed great importance at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Beaver, the fur which was most highly prized by the Europeans, rapidly became depleted in the areas inhabited by the Indians who were nearest the French, with the result that these Indians became intermediaries in the trade between the French and more remote peoples. The position of these intermediaries was made precarious by the Iroquois who hoped to secure the fur-trade to the Dutch, and later to the English, rather than to the hostile French. With this purpose in view, they .had all but destroyed the Algonkian and Huron allies of the French. by the middle of the seventeenth century. Other forces were at work which tended to deplete the ranks of the Indians, not only those who were allied to the French, but the Iroquois themselves. These were the disrupting influences of European civilization.

The native crafts in stone, wood, and other materials were disrupted by the introduction of European iron and copper ware, particularly by the axe and the kettle. As the household arts had occupied so much of their time, the Indians were now committed to a life of enforced idleness, and lingered about the trading-posts when they were not hunting for furs. Trade and war became the major occupations of the men. War waged with European weapons rendered the death rate high, and left many women without mates among their own kind. This in turn encouraged miscegenation with -the European traders, which facilitated the spread of such diseases as syphilis, smallpox, tuberculosis, and measles; diseases probably unknown among the Indians prior to the coming of the Europeans. Moreover, their constitutions were weakened by the excessive drinking of spirituous liquors, which was encouraged by the traders, and by the consumption of European foods, which were often in a corrupt condition when they reached the Indians. European clothing and dwellings were not generally conducive to health among the Indians. In the face of these adverse factors, the Indians became melancholy, and when to these factors were added those of a social nature, many suffered a loss of the will to live. Notable among the social factors was the attempt of the missionaries to suppress the sex life of the natives. Polygamy survived in the areas remote from settlement, and among the agricultural Indians the clan organization tended to break down. Some adapted themselves by sublimating the sexual into the religious emotions; others, failing this, had recourse to flagellation; still others reverted to their pristine way of life, or found their outlet through activities of a perverted nature. The despondency was increased by the disintegration of the group life resulting from the clash of political and judicial systems, which instilled in the Indians a lack of faith in their own systems and in themselves. Tribe after tribe, as it was reached by the tentacles of the ubiquitous fur-trade, succumbed to these influences. The most easterly Indians, who were first encountered by the Europeans, and whose territories fell within the areas of maximum settlement, sank rapidly to the status of “poor-white”, or had by the middle of the seventeenth century taken refuge in remote places. Few of the Indians during the French period fully relinquished their old beliefs in favour of Christianity, since the latter contained many conceptions, such as that of individual salvation, which were foreign to the notions of the Indians After the destruction of the Hurons by the Iroquois in 1649, the trade route between the French and the source of furs in the interior remained broken until contacts were made with the Ottawa and other central Algonkian peoples. Not only did the English and the Iroquois cut into the French fur trade on the Great lakes, but the English had by 1668 found a short sea-route to the fur-bearing interior by way of Hudson bay which seriously menaced French interests; and, although the French began in 1670 to send counter expeditions, they never entirely succeeded in winning the allegiance of the Cree, an Algonkian-speaking people, who inhabited the shores of Hudson bay. Thus the French were attacked on both flanks. Nevertheless, their trade expanded rapidly after 1663 and affected the Ottawa, dispersed Hurons, and Saulteaux, on the southern shore of lake Superior. Green Bay on lake. Michigan became a rallying point for many Algonkian and some Siouan peoples. All these peoples became in a greater or lesser degree subjected to the disintegrating forces of civilization outlined above, and in consequence depopulation was relatively great.

After the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, the forts on Hudson bay which had been wrested from the English by the French were returned to their former owners, arid the French were again faced with keen competition in the fur-trade. In order to meet this competition, the French were forced to expand their organization into the prairie country, and to establish forts in the lake Winnipeg district to prevent the Indians from going to Hudson bay. This movement brought the western Cree and Assiniboin within the sphere of European influence, sharpening their wars with their Siouan competitors, spreading drunkenness and disease among them, and making them dependent for their survival upon articles and goods of European manufacture. At the same time the eastern Indians; such as, the Iroquois. and the Algonkian peoples, became involved in the struggle between England and France for the control of the continent. A division in the allegiance of the Five Nations Iroquois split the confederacy and resulted in the migration of large numbers to the vicinity of Montreal. The French were unable to prevent the encroachment of large numbers of English farmers into their fur-trading area on the Ohio, and the doom of the Indians of this area was sealed with the cession of Canada to the English in 1763.

Source : A. G. BAILEY, “Indians”, in W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada , Vol. III, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 396p., pp. 257-264.

See Also

Indians
Indians in the Canadian Period
Indians in the British Period

Further Reading

• D. Jenness, The Indians of Canada (Ottawa, 1932)
• The Jesuit Relations and allied documents, edited by R. G. Thwaites
• Sagard-Theodat, Grand voyage au pays des Hurons of
• Voyages of the Baron Lahontan, edited by R. G. Thwaites
• Rev. George BRYCE, “The Indians of Western Canada”, in Canada. An Encyclopaedia of the country, Vol. 1, Toronto, The Linscott Publishing Company, 1898, 540p., pp. 220-227.
• E, M. CHADWICK, “History of the Iroquois to 1898″, in J. Castell HOPKINS, Canada. An Encyclopaedia of the Country, Vol. 1, Toronto, The Linscott Publishing Company, 1898, 540p., pp. 217-219.
• Jean-Baptiste A. FERLAND, “Moeurs des Amérindiens – Première partie”, dans Cours d’histoire du Canada, Vol. 1, Québec, Augustin Côté, 1861, 522p., pp. 105-118.
• J. Castell HOPKINS , “The Indians of Canada “, in Canada. An Encyclopaedia of the Country, Vol. 1, Toronto, The Linscott Publishing Company, 1898, 540p., pp. 206-214.
• J. Castell HOPKINS , “Canadian Treaties with Indians”, in Canada. An Encyclopaedia of the Country, Vol. 1, Toronto, The Linscott Publishing Company, 1898, 540p., pp. 272-278.
• J. Castell HOPKINS, “The Iroquois and the Land Issue”, in Canada. An Encyclopaedia of the Country, Vol. 1, Toronto, The Linscott Publishing Company, 1898, 540p., pp. 240-241.
• J. Castell HOPKINS, “Indian Attitude to Europeans in their First Encounters”, in Canada. An Encyclopaedia of the Country, Vol. 1, Toronto, The Linscott Publishing Company, 1898, 540p., pp. 236-239.
• J. Castell HOPKINS, “Indian Cruelty?”, Canada. An Encyclopaedia of the Country, Vol. 1, Toronto, The Linscott Publishing Company, 1898, 540p., pp. 239-240.
• J. Castell HOPKINS, “Indians of the Yukon and British Columbia”, in Canada. An Encyclopaedia of the Country, Vol. 1, Toronto, The Linscott Publishing Company, 1898, 540p., pp. 245-249.
• E. Pauline JOHNSON, “The Organization of the Iroquois”, in Canada. An Encyclopaedia of the Country, Vol. 1, J. Castell HOPKINS, ed., Toronto, Linscott Publishing Company, 1898, 540p., pp. 215-217.
• Joseph SANSOM, The League of the Iroquois, Five-Nations, from Travels in Lower Canada, 1820.

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This entry was last updated: November 5, 2014