Author: Madi

The Beothuk Extinction

The third reading consisted of “The Beothuk on the Eve of their Extinction” and “The Collapse of the Beothuk World.” I found both articles very interesting. Both were about how the Europeans basically took over the Beothuk First Nations peoples of Newfoundland. These were great articles describing the events that took place when the Europeans arrived and expected the indigenous people to change their life to be like them. This began a violent fight for the land. Eventually the Beothuks became outnumbered and over time became extinct.

You can read more about the extinction of the Beothuk peoples in my Reading Log #3.

The Transatlantic Age

The Vikings, who were explorers from Scandinavia, made the first documented European visit to North America around 1000CE. Leif Eriksson and his crew wintered at L’Anse aux Meadows, located at the northern tip of Newfoundland. There is evidence of the crew’s early expeditions due to Viking stories called, Norse sagas. After the Vikings, the next European to make it to Canada was John Cabot in 1497. Europeans such as Chabot were motivated to explore new lands such as Canada because of demographic, political, technological, economic and religious reasons. There was a ton of room for new, exciting things to take place in this new land.

Many more travellers started to come to what would one day become Canada. Jacques Cartier made his first voyage in 1534. He placed a cross at the entrance of Gaspe Harbor to claim the land as his. As one could expect, the indigenous people of the area weren’t impressed with this gesture.

The London and Bristol Company established Cuper’s Cove Colony in 1610. They received a Royal Charter to help secure and make save the trade of fishing. John Guy was named the leader of Cuper’s Cove and was expected to lead the 39 new colonists into this new life over seas. This colony ran into many difficulties while trying to get settled. The Beothuk people did not like the new comers, making trading and the spreading of knowledge impossible.

As shown in this era, there were many different nations coming together. As historians, it is important to include as many stories and ideas as possible to get an even amount of information that isn’t bias.

 

Canada’s First Peoples

Prior to the 1500’s, Canada consisted of Aboriginal groups of people consisting of 20-30 each. There were five groups; the Arctic Thule, the Northeastern Woodlands, the Great Plains, the Northwest Coast, and the Plateau peoples. Each of these groups having different cultures and living techniques, which were shared through creation stories. Canada was split into 5-7 cultural areas. The different Aboriginal groups share some cultural similarities and features such as religion, knowledge of the natural environment, established networks of trade, warfare and perspectives on gender & sexuality. When the Europeans first came to Canada, they looked for help from all the indigenous peoples as they had a very vast amount of knowledge on the land of Canada. The invasion of the Europeans came with great surprise to the aboriginals of Canada. There was no warning signs of them coming over seas to invade the land.

When learning about the first peoples of Canada, it is important to use a ethno-historical methodology. Since the indigenous peoples were the only people that experienced Canada before Europeans came, it is important to consider the their stories and information when making assumptions about this time. Culture was very important to the Aboriginal peoples, and they worked very hard to maintain it, even when the Europeans came and tried to change their way of life.

End Results

By the end of the semester I know that in order to do history, one must have an ethno-historical methodology in order to determine history from all aspects. This way of thinking balances two different approaches, using written records, primary sources and oral accounts of history. Being able to put yourself into the lives of the ones in the time period is an important aspect of finding the secrets of history. Once one has completed the research and taken many different sources into account, the next step is to develop an opinion of the findings of the research. When studying history, there are many different opinions and sides to every story. This semester has forced me to broaden my horizons when it comes to research and develop a strong and educated opinion.

Go Back to September

On the first day of class back in September, Tracy asked the class to write down what we thought it meant to do history. I didn’t really understand how I was supposed to answer that. But eventually I thought of something to say. I wrote down that history is the facts of the past, whether it is how society became how it is today or the evolution of humans. And believed that to do history meant a lot if research and work is needed to find all the historic facts. Throughout the semester, after many reading logs, a research project and lectures I have a better understanding on what it means to think historically.