Class 3
Newfoundland's first peoples
Readings
Moses Harvey
- A short history of Newfoundland: England's oldest colony (1890)
- The popular view of Newfoundland's first peoples
- Taught in schools
- Presents popular ideas about the Beothuks
- Critiqued in Pastore (1989), Anger (1988)
- Critical of his view of
- Main cause of disappearance of the Beothuks
- Beothuks' relationship with the Micmac.
Harvey a man of the 19th century
- Believed that 'race' was a meaningful explanatory principle
- Assumed races could be ranked hierarchically
- Today a racist, but in his time less extreme
- For Harvey:
- "Savage" ("savage life", p. 25): "hunters and gatherers"
- "Barbarous" (p. 22): pre-state agricultural groups
- But Harvey would have considered himself superior
- On the basis of race
- And 'civilization'
Harvey on the Micmac
- Does not treat as aboriginal inhabitants of Newfoundland
- Repeated by the Newfoundland government
- Argues for extensive hostility between the Micmac and Beothuks
- Generally ignores
Harvey's picture of the Beothuks
- Simple, tragic, and (conveniently) vanished
- Popular ideology in Newfoundland
- The 'people hunted to extinction for sport.'
- Still a popular view today
- But little known about Beothuks in Harvey's time
- Concept of 'race' was central
- Rather than 'culture'
- Pages 25-26, mixing physical and social characteristics
- Page 28, 'their intellectual faculties'
Harvey's picture of the Beothuks
- Does not repeat popular myths about the Beothuks
- Argued Beothuks related to other North American native groups
- However, much from general Western assumptions about 'savage' life
- E.g., his view on the status of women in Beothuk culture (p. 26)
19th century views of 'savages'
- 'Stuck' in the 'childhood of man'
- Arrival of 'civilization' (i.e., Europeans) starts 'history'
- The 'inevitable' downward course to extinction
- Assumption that nothing changed before Europeans
The 'childhood of man'
Ralph Pastore
- "The collapse of the Beothuk world"
- Arrival of Europeans not first crisis
- James Tuck and Pastore argue there were series of people who lived in Newfoundland
- Seem to have disappeared
- Maritime Archaic Indians 5,000 to 3,200 BP
- Paleo-Eskimos 2600 BP to 2100 BP
- Dorset Eskimos 1900 BP to 700 BP
Why did they disappear?
- Tuck & Pastore (1985) the nature of environment
- Hunters and gathers, esp. hunting and fishing
- Newfoundland environment rich but
- Fewer species than on the mainland
- Important species not always available
- Limited fall back species
- Lacked a 'diversified economy'
The Beothuks
- Best known for there being none of them left
- Famous as "the people who were murdered for fun" (Horwood)
- View still popular, but
- Anthropologists and historians have questioned it
- Question of how/why they disappeared remains
- Algonkian-speaking hunter-gatherers.
- Language was probably related to Innu language
- Population less than a thousand people c. 1500
- But based on very scanty evidence, speculation
The Beothuks
- Lived in all major bays of the island
- Hunted in winter time in inland areas
- 17th and 18th century records
- Beothuk sites are found
- Great Northern Peninsula & West coast
- South coast, Hermitage & Placentia bays, Bay d'Espoir
- North-east coast, Trinity, Bonavista, & Notre Dame Bay
- Avalon Peninsula
- Colony of Avalon at Ferryland.
- Presumably in Calvert
The Beothuks
- Organized in widely dispersed bands
- Harvested resources over large area
- Moved with the seasons
- Coast In spring and summer: salmon seal
- Inland to hunt and trap in fall: caribou
- Bands probably small, 30 to 60 people
- Dispersed over large area
- Do not seem to have made much use of cod
- Probably egalitarian
- Cooperation between bands for caribou drives
- But no record of to resist European intrusions
Why did Beothuks disappear?
- Europeans killing Beothuks ... the monocausal explanation?
- Pastore argues hostilities, population decline not unique
- Lack of contact, trade
- Led to Beothuks becoming cut off from the coast
- Similar to the earlier groups who
Why no trade?
- Other North American native groups did
- For metal tools, guns, weapons, &c.
- Beothuks did not need to exchange furs
- No need to change
Fish versus fur trades
- Mainland fur traders first contacts
- Established by fur trade firms, e.g., the Hudson Bay Company
- Newfoundland: fur trade a sideline to the fishery
- Hudson Bay had monopoly
- Newfoundland fishery excluded monopoly
- Open to all
- Fur trade firms
- Long term interest in fur trade
- Year round operation
Beothuks & migratory fishery
- Coexisted with migratory fishery
- But year-round settlement 17th century
- Drastic changes
- Strategy of avoiding contact led to extinction
- But Beothuks not only native people to disappear
The Micmac
- Dorothy Anger: Nogwa'mkisk (where the sand blows...)
- introduction
- Not a lot else done
- Unusual style
- Explanation
- Primary historical record
- One central concern, when Micmacs first in Newfoundland
When did Micmac come to Newfoundland?
- Central question for social scientists
- Anthropologists and historians have debated
- May be important political implications
- Important for political representatives of
- Other questions
Places in history of the Micmac
- Is where Micmac were in 1497, 1600, 1800 decisive?
- Many native people now where they were not in 1497
- Cree western Canada
- Plains' Indians
Micmac differences
- Beothuks withdrew from contact, trade
- Micmac actively involved
- Hunting for furs
- Trading fur with other native peoples
- In wars between Europeans
- World political and economic system
Domain
of Islands
- 16th & 17th centuries
- Micmac middlemen between French and other native groups
- Strait of Belle Isle
- Massachusetts
- Gulf of St. Lawrence
- Fur trade
- Existing trade and war
- Guns and metal tools
A world political system
- Micmac allied with French against British
- Part of larger European/global struggles
- French defeat, 1763
- Give up claim to Newfoundland
- Micmac not trusted by British
Micmac in Newfoundland
- Interior of Newfoundland unknown to Europeans
- 19th century
- Guides for
- Surveyors
- Hunting parties
- Delivered mail in winter
- Hunting/fishing
Develop and perish
- Attempts to diversify economy
- Opening up the interior of island
- Construction of a
trans-island railway, 1898
- Attempt to imitate pattern of development
- Many people believed
- Agriculture in interior
- Attract immigrants
- Fast trans-Atlantic route
- The great force for modernization
- But no breadbasket, fast route, immigrants
The effect of the railway
- Opened up interior caribou hunters
- Flood of
- Sportsmen tourists
- Commercial hunters
- Residents of coastal communities
- Caribou hunted almost to extinction, 1930s
Effect on Micmac
Pulped and papered
- Further attempts to diversify economy
- 1905 establishment of paper mill Grand Falls
- Clearing of country
- Increased hunting pressures
- Negative effects on Micmac way of life
- Compounded by depression in fur prices 1920-40
Cultural assimilation
- Micmac language and traditions threatened, 1900-50
- Church, government attempts to 'civilize' Micmac
- Eradication of "pagan" beliefs
- Banning Micmac language
- Success of:
- 1950s few still spoke Micmac
- "Children ... 'learned' their culture was 'inferior'
- Cultural assimilation other parts of North America
- Residential schools
- None in Newfoundland
Cultural revival
- 1960s and 1970s
- Continent wide movement of First Nations
- Micmac had similar experiences
- Conne River
Different fates
- Beothuks and Micmac
- Harold Innis
- The disappearance of the Beothicks [sic] is related to the fishing industry as closely as the survival of the North American Indian is related to the fur trade. (Harold Innis, 1954, The cod fisheries: The history of an international economy.)
- Overstatement, but
- Micmac in Newfoundland
- Beothuks not
General lessons?
- Newfoundland and world trade
- Rich but limited resources
- Environmental changes
- Human caused changes
- But highly speculative
- International trade partial solution?
- But also challenge
- Micmac and caribou, 19th century
- Cod moratorium late 20th
