The Indian Image In Canadian History Essay

CHAPTER ONE

The Indian Image in Canadian History

Since the 19 60S Canadians have been challenged to come to terms with a new and rapidly changing social reality. For almost three centuries White North Americans had assumed that native peoples were doomed to be culturally assimilated or to perish as a superior Europ'ean civilization spread inexorably across the continent. In accordance with such expectations, historians asserted that native people had always been few in number and had had so little impact on their environment that N orth America remained a 'irgin land at th e time of European occupation. The evolutionary gulf that separated natives and new comers w as also thought to make it difficult, if n ot impossible, fo r the former to adopt a civilized style of life . Hence native people were treated as part of a vanishing past. They w ere seen as more akin to the forests in which they lived and th e animals th ey hunted than as competitors for control of North America. This view also seemed to justify ignoring the political and economic developments that explain why, for over ISO years, native peoples have suffered from impoverishment, social di scrim­ ination, and a White tutelage that was often Simultaneously ne­ glectful and oppressive. Yet today's realities reveal the error of such view s. Throughout Canada native people are increasing rapidly in numbers, renewing pri de in their ancestral heritage, an d playing an ever more visible role in the nation's political, economic, and cultural life. In oppo­ sition to the dominant Wh ite society, they have affirmed their lasting and important role as part of Canada's cultural mosaic; a developm en t clearly noted by Pope John Paul II during his visit to this country in 1984. Such changes in t he status of native people challenge traditional interpretations of the past and require a more

4 Natives and Newcomers

The Indian Image in Canadian History

objective understanding of the role played by...