Canada's First Nations: A History of Founding Peoples from Earliest Times - Softcover

Dickason, Olive Patricia

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9780771028007: Canada's First Nations: A History of Founding Peoples from Earliest Times

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0771028008 ISBN 13: 9780771028007

Publisher: McClelland & Stewart Ltd, 1992

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wraps 590 pp inscribed by the author on the title page

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Synopsis:

From the point of view of Canada's native peoples, the country has 57 founding nations, not just two. "Canada's First Nation" is an exploration of the experience of these peoples from their first appearance among the giant mammals that once roamed the land to their confrontations with contemporary Canada. Aboriginal peoples have displayed both ingenuity and flexibility in their survival techniques. Their achievements in technology (for example, the toggling harpoon, the canoe), and in the plant sciences (the development of maize, their herbal lore), have come to benefit the world. Their cooperation and assistance was essential for the European exploration and settlement of what is now Canada; the value of this aid in economic terms alone has never been assessed, while Amerindian cultural traditions and values have been influential in developing the country's national and international personality. The book, necessarily relying heavily on the archeological and linguistic record, speculates that the rapid spread of Aboriginal settlement throughout North and South America and the richness of culture must have been the result of culture must have been the result of complex trading patterns which included the capability to cross oceans. In the historic period, it is evident that far from being simply overwhelmed, Amerindians often adapted to colonial pressures in their own ways, sometimes mustering for wars in which their guerrilla-like tactics were both original and often ferociously effective, but more often diplomatically playing off opposing French, English, or American forces. But this is not a history of impersonal forces. It is the record of such people as Pontiac, Joseph Brant, Tecumseh, and Big Bear. While the history of Canada's native peoples is also the history of exploitation of the North American continent, it also reveals the recreation of the native community in the fight for land claims, self-government, and recognition of aboriginal rights.

About the Author:

Olive Patricia Dickason is Professor Emeritus, University of Alberta. She is the author of several books, including The Myth of the Savage (1984, 1997) and, with L.C. Green, The Laws of Nations and the New World (1989). Dr Dickason was named a Member of the Order of Canada in 1996 and received the Aboriginal Life Achievement Award, Canadian Native Arts Foundation, in 1997. Throughout her distinguished career she has remained proud of her M�tis heritage. David T. McNab is an Associate Professor of Native Studies at York University. He has written widely on the topics of Aboriginal history and literature, Aboriginal land and treaty rights, British imperial history, Canadian history, and Ontario history. Professor McNab also serves as an advisor on land and treaty rights and governance issues for a number of First Nations and other Aboriginal organizations in Ontario and Newfoundland.

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