Beyond Boundaries
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Titles | Beyond Boundaries: Aboriginal Peoples and the Prairie West, 1850 to 1885 |
Name | David Grant McCrady |
Type of Resource | text |
Genre | Thesis |
Abstract | -Short Version- This thesis attempts to correct European created boundaries and nationalities from Indigenous people. -- Description taken from "Beyond Boundaries" -- Historians in the field of Native-white relations often write of "Canadian” and "American" Indians on the assumption that European boundaries and European nationalities have been inherently meaningful to aboriginal peoples. Yet Native peoples often had significant ties with populations on the other side of the Canada-United States border. Peoples like the "Canadian" Blackfoot, for example, had more in common with "American" Blackfoot than with the culturally and geographically distant "Canadian" Cree. This fact calls into question the conceptualizations historians have made about aboriginal peoples. In this study, an attempt has been made to reposition the historical lens away from the modern nation state and towards aboriginal peoples. It examines the Cree, Ojibwa, Blackfoot and Dakota peoples of the Northern Great Plains and the impact that the boundary between Canada and the United States has had on their lives. The thesis begins by exploring plains peoples' concepts concerning territoriality and boundaries during the third quarter of the nineteenth century, a time when Europeans appeared with increasing frequency in this region. In contrast to what contemporary Europeans believed, Native peoples had a strong sense of territoriality, and crossing aboriginal boundaries was a delicate matter involving the establishment of kinship ties with other land-holding groups as a result. Native concepts concerning territoriality and boundaries set precedents for the way Native peoples approached the Europeans' boundary. When Dakota from the United States fled to Canada in the 1860s and 187 0s, they emphasized their historic ties to the British and attempted to construct alliances with aboriginal groups to aid them in their attempts to cross this barrier. The following chapters address how knowledge of events in the United States influenced Native-white relations in Canada. Treaties between the United States government and Native peoples were signed many years before similar treaty negotiations occurred in Canada. Knowledge acquired about these earlier negotiations played an important role in shaping the understanding Native peoples in Canada held about Canadian treaties of the 1870s. The impressions Native peoples in Canada formed about Americans also prompted them to pursue more peaceful relations with whites in Canada. Having viewed the arrival of Americans in the south, aboriginal peoples in the north hoped to stave off American Manifest Destiny by constructing alliances with Canadians. European settlers were in the process of creating two new societies, and aboriginal peoples watched them do so with great interest. Indians recognized differences between the newcomers and took the time to learn about both, but this process did not render aboriginal identities inoperative. Understanding that aboriginal Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. IV peoples viewed their worlds from a vantage point quite distinct from that of Europeans helps render analytic devices such as the "Canadian" and "American" Indian obsolete. |
URL | https://search.proquest.com/pqdtglobal/docview/303982919/11B62755FBB84981PQ/5?accountid=14739 |
Form | text |
Access Condition | Responsibility regarding questions of copyright that may arise in the use of any images is assumed by the researcher |
Subject Topic | di-- |
Subject Topic | Mistawasis-- |
Subject Topic | Saskatchewan-- |
Subject Topic | groups-- |
Subject Topic | Canada-- |
Subject Topic | America-- |
Subject Topic | -- |
Subject Topic | -- |
Subject Topic | -- |
Subject Topic | |
Subject Hierarchical Geographic | North America--Canada, America------ |
Subject Local Name | di--Mistawasis--Saskatchewan--groups--Canada--America------------ |
Access Condition | Responsibility regarding questions of copyright that may arise in the use of any images is assumed by the researcher |