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Encounters with tall sails and tall tales : Mi'kmaq society, 1500-1760

This thesis examines the history of the Mi'kmaq people inhabiting Kmitkinag (Nova Scotia) and Unimaki (Cape Breton Island) from before contact to 1760. While contact precipitated change in Mi'kmaq society, the process was gradual, the result of the particular historical circumstances in which interactions between the two societies evolved. In the late seventeenth century, the Mi'kmaq established an alliance with the French Crown, made possible by previous social and economic relationships between Mi'kmaq families and French traders, fishermen and settlers. As European settlement increased and imperial rivalry in North America intensified in the eighteenth century, tensions emerged in the alliance, revealing the cultural differences between the Mi'kmaq and France's subjects. The thesis demonstrates that economic and political factors were more important than national identity in influencing the texture of Mi'kmaq-European relations.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.28551
Date January 1994
CreatorsWicken, William C. (William Craig)
ContributorsDochene, Louise (advisor), Morantz, Toby (advisor)
PublisherMcGill University
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Formatapplication/pdf
CoverageDoctor of Philosophy (Department of History.)
RightsAll items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated.
Relationalephsysno: 001425672, proquestno: NN00145, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest.

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