Class notes Feb 5 2014

NATIVE PEOPLES OF THE NORTHWEST

Early trade relations•Without First Nations trading partners, there would not have been a successful fur trade

•Native people had established trading networks before the arrival of Europeans, which they then used for gathering furs to trade.

• Their traditional trading patterns were repeated with the Europeans – ceremonies were established and respected

• First Nations benefited from the new goods brought from Europe, and Europeans learned how to survive in the tough environment of the North West

Misconceptions

•Natives were not ‘paid’ for their furs… it was a fur TRADE. Natives traded their furs for what they could obtain from the HBC TRADING post. There was no currency (cash, coins, cheques)

•Natives had always worked to sustain themselves and their families. Their culture was not one of ‘getting ahead’ or trying to become more prosperous by working harder/longer, unlike the Europeans, many of whom had come from ‘nothing’.

The Métis• As European fur traders pushed further inland, many men began spending the winters (hivernants) in their trading areas, rather than returning to Montreal (NWC)

• They stayed with local Native families, and often married a daughter from the family.

• This union of European men and Native women was encouraged, as the NWC thought it would encourage trading loyalty between the tribe and NWC. Native women who married fur traders often had an improved standard of living, with access to more European goods.

Custom of the Country• Many French traders took First Nations women as wives in a formal process known as the “custom of the country”.

• The French hoped the union with the Natives would result in their wives and children adopting French religion, language and culture, but instead many French traders adopted several Native traditions and ways of life.

• In time, a new culture and people arose from these unions: the Métis

HBC forbids marriage with Natives•While the NWC encouraged inter cultural marriages, the HBC forbade them. The HBC did not want to be responsible for having to support the families of their employees

• Despite their policy of celibacy, there were several unions between Baymen (HBC employees living in Hudson Bay) and Native women. Their children were know as ‘country-born’.

• Eventually the HBC had to acknowledge their policy was unsustainable as there were many ‘country-born’ families that settled around the HBC forts.

• Even the Governor of the HBC, George Simpson, had a native wife.

Métis Culture• By 1810, many Metis had settled near the junction of the Red and Assiniboin rivers in the Red River Valley

• The spoke a mixture of French and Algonkian, today known as ‘michif’

• Mainly Roman Catholic

• Became an agricultural community, with farms reaching the river banks based on seigneural pattern of farming in New France

• Developed the seasonal tradition of the bison hunt