It’s always impor­tant to remem­ber that when the French and the Eng­lish set­tled in Canada, they were not alone. The land was inhab­ited.

Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple in Canada are rec­og­nized in the Cana­dian Con­sti­tu­tion respec­tively as Indi­ans, Metis, and Inuit.

• The Indi­ans (or First Nations) live through­out most of Canada. There are 614 First Nations com­mu­ni­ties, most of them in British Colum­bia, Ontario, Man­i­toba and Saskatchewan.
• The Métis (1% of the Cana­dian pop­u­la­tion) are descen­dants of mar­riages of Cree, Ojib­way, Saul­teaux, and Menom­i­nee to French Cana­di­ans, Scots and Eng­lish (“métis” means “mixed” in French). They live in British Colum­bia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Man­i­toba, and Ontario, and in the the North­west Territories.
• The Inu­its (about 150 000 peo­ple) live through­out most of the Cana­dian Arc­tic and sub­arc­tic: in Nunavut (“our land”); in North­ern Que­bec, Nunavik (“place to live”); in Labrador in Nunatsi­avut (“Our Beau­ti­ful Land”); and in the North­west Ter­ri­to­ries (Arc­tic Ocean and Yukon).

The course of Abo­rig­i­nal his­tory has been deeply altered since the set­tlers came to Canada. Indeed, the laws (like the Indian Act) they imposed would affect the rela­tion­ship between the two parts.

When the Euro­peans arrived, they brought their own way of life and meth­ods to a land that Abo­rig­i­nals had owned for ever. How­ever, after an ini­tial period of wars and con­flicts, treaties were signed and the rela­tion­ship sta­bi­lized around the 18^th cen­tury. But between 1763 and 1791, two acts would call for land ces­sion nego­ti­a­tions. For the first time, the Abo­rig­i­nal were expected to give up their rights to the land in order for large-scale colo­nial set­tle­ment to take place. Even­tu­ally, the bal­ance of power began to shift as the British con­sol­i­dated their empire and that gave way to a pol­icy of assim­i­la­tion of Abo­rig­i­nals — as well as the atti­tude that they were not equal to British, but subjects.

Through­out the years, the fed­eral gov­ern­ment con­tin­ued to pur­sue a pol­icy of assim­i­la­tion of Abo­rig­i­nals. A dark page in Cana­dian his­tory was when the gov­ern­ment started plac­ing Abo­rig­i­nal chil­dren into West­ern Cana­dian res­i­den­tial schools dur­ing the late 1800s. Many Natives resisted with these moves to destroy their culture.

When Canada signed the Dec­la­ra­tion of Human Rights in 1948, it was forced to re-examine its treat­ment of Abo­rig­i­nals for the first time. Abo­rig­i­nal civil rights became an ongo­ing con­cern in the 1970s, and they would make sig­nif­i­cant gains dur­ing this period. For exam­ple, the ter­ri­tory of Nunavut was cre­ated in 1999 fol­low­ing land claim.

Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple still face a num­ber of issue in today’s Canada. A very high unem­ploy­ment rate, sub­stance abuse, crime, vio­lence are not to be under­es­ti­mated. Meanwhile,there are also claim to receive inad­e­quate fund­ing for edu­ca­tion, and allege their rights have been overlooked.

Canada has now adopted some of the Inuit cul­ture as a national iden­tity: sym­bols are used (such as the inuk­shuk for the 2010 Van­cou­ver Olympic Games), Inuit and First Nations’ art is dis­played in the best gal­leries through­out the coun­try and orga­ni­za­tions pro­mote and defend Abo­rig­i­nals’ rights. The cul­ture is still alive… and vibrant.

Related arti­cles:

1. National Abo­rig­i­nal Day
2. Arriv­ing In Canada With The Per­ma­nent Res­i­dence (7÷10)
3. A Cana­dian Mind­set (8÷10)
4. 10 Facts About Canadians
5. Use­ful Links For Immi­gra­tion (10÷10)