History is a dark and dirty place filled with horrors we can only dream of, but there is also great tales of heroism and valor of men and women so great, that they are the benchmark for all great acts to follow. We may want to forget all of the bad things to happened to the human race in it’s history, things like The Holocaust, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or 9/11 but we can’t, we cant forget everything because that would invite arrogance and ignorance into our lives. We need to remember the people that were tragically taken from us so that it may never happen again.
Category: Reflections On the Past
Reading log #3
Sean Walker
September 27th, 2016
Dr. Tracy Pennylight
HIST 1120
Reading Log #3
“The Beothuk on the Eve of their Extinction” and “The Collapse of the Beothuk World”
A lot of previous and in fact most writings about the Beothuk people of Newfoundland have stated that they had no agency in the fall of their people, that it the fault of the Europeans that encroached on their land, took their game and fisheries. While that is not true, it does hold some truth to it. The Europeans did take their land, game, and fisheries but the Beothuk also had a sizeable roll in their extinction.
Holly has stated that the main reason that the Beothuk and European colonists found it impossible to co-exist is that their economic goals were impossibly incompatible. The Beothuk wanted to continue living like they always had, mainly exploiting the local marine hunting grounds, and fisheries along with minor hunting of caribou. On the other side of the coin are the Europeans who wanted to exploit the fisheries for monetary gain back in their home countries, and also for personal sustenance as well. There is a myriad of other things that Holly points out both sides do, the least of which is the Beothuk killing several fisherman and destroying fisheries and the Europeans forcing the Beothuk to move into the island’s sparse interior.
Pastore has stated in his writings that there is a few main reason that the Beothuk and European settlers had all of the problems that they did have. One of the largest problems that he pointed out is the absence of a mission, whether it would have been a Jesuit mission or otherwise doesn’t matter. The presence of Jesuit Missionaries has played a large role in the development of Native and European relations. whether that Influence would of manifested in the form of charity, medical aid, schooling for Native children, or just trying to convert a couple of natives to Christianity doesn’t matter, what matters is that it didn’t happen. Another factor that Pastore contributes to the cause of bad relations between the Beothuk people and the settlers is that there were no governors or other types of government officials appointed by the parent government. What this means is that there was no one appointed to the position that usually handles the buying of the Native lands.
What this all means is that there are just that much more for the future generations of Archeology and historians to discover about the as of yet, quite little known Aboriginal nation of the Beothuk.[i]
[i] Bibliography
Holly, Donald H. “The Beothuk on the Eve of Their Extinction.” Arctic Anthropology, 2000., 79, JSTOR Journals, EBSCOhost (accessed September 27, 2016).
Pastore, R. (1989). Collapse of the Beothuk World. Acadiensis, 52-71.
Document Analysis
Sean Walker
October 17th, 2016
Dr. Tracey Penny Light
HIST 1120
A Look at a Journal of the Expedition up the River St. Lawrence
Written by the Sargent-Major of Gen. Hopfon’s Grenadiers
By: Sean Walker
As you can probably guess the soldiers that were alive during the time of the good Sargent-Major[1] had quite a lot to worry about, things ranging from starvation to being scalped by an Indian warrior[2]. So it is understandable that the soldiers of the time, Especially the ones who had men under his command, to sound callous the thoughts of his fallen comrades and have a rather blasé approach to the casualty statistics that would be brought to him. This callousness can be seen rather clearly in the parts of his journal where he recites the list of losses from when a group of Louisburg Grenadiers went foraging and he reports that “we had two kill d and scalp d, belonging to the 22d Regiment”[3]. Although The Sargent-Major may seem heartless to many, he does have compassion for his men as shown in the account he gave of when the French sent 5 fire ships down to attack the fleet “thank God, they did no Damage.”[4] in the beginning of the book.
One of the main reasons that they have different attitudes towards things like death is it was simply a different time, with different priorities. For example, the priorities of a Upper-lower class mother or Lower-middle class mother of the present day might be for her kids to do good in school, maybe get them into a College or University, and generally hope that they hopefully make something of themselves one day. While a mother of the same class bracket in the time of the conquest would probably hope for her son to follow in his father’s footsteps, get married, have kids, inherit the family business or start in a trade of some kind, hope that he doesn’t get sent off to war. For the daughter it was a bit different but generally follows the same path, get married, have kids, live a good life. The differences in priorities for soldiers are about as noticeably different as the ones for the aforementioned mothers. We must also remember that the author, who as previously stated was a Sargent-Major in service to his royal majesty King George II. So much like anyone in a position of power, especially a member of the military, would have to do today, he may he may have had to make some tough calls that would have put his men at risk, he would also have to view the battlefield with an objective mind, being careful to not make any decision that might keep one of his friends alive but kill 50 others.
While we may never know exactly why the Sargent-Major decided to write this journal, there are a couple of reasons that we can think of and guess why he did decide to write this journal. The one theory that jumps to the front of my mind when thinking about this is that he wished to have something that would tell of his adventures, another theory that comes to mind Is that he may have written it so that there would be something to give to his family that would tell of his exploits and maybe his death if he should perish in the coming battles. There are many things that this journal reveals about the time that it was written in. For example, it showed what a common foot soldier had to look forwards to when he went to battle if he ever got caught, was ever killed or injured, it shows us a unique perspective that is not tainted with some of the exaggeration you might find in the writings of a lieutenant or some other commissioned officer, in the writings of the Sargent-Major we find a” plain, straightforward story of Wolfe s
famous expedition”[5].
In review we see that soldiers had less compassion for their comrades than the soldiers of today have for theirs, but not without reason. It was a different time and they had different priorities, especially the commanding officers. We also saw what this document revealed about the time and allowed us to guess at why the good Sargent-Major has written this journal for the review and analysis of future generations of historians. For this I think that we can say we owe the Sargent-Major a great thanks, so thank you Sargent-Major, I hope you lived a long and good life after your service.
Bibliography
Grenadiers, S. O. (1759). A journal of the expedition up the river St. Lawrence containing a true and most particular account of the transactions of the fleet and army under the command of Admiral Saunders and General Wolfe, from the time of their embarkation at Louisbourg ’til after the surrender of Quebeck. Boston: Printed and sold by Fowle and Draper, at their printing-office in Marlborough-Street.
[1] As there was no name given for the author, I will refer to him as simply The Sargent-Major
[2] I will be using the term Indian to refer to the Indigenous population of Canada to go along with the document in question, nothing untoward is meant through the use of the word.
[3] Grenadiers, S. O. (1759). A journal of the expedition up the river St. Lawrence containing a true and most particular account of the transactions of the fleet and army under the command of Admiral Saunders and General Wolfe, from the time of their embarkation at Louisbourg ’til after the surrender of Quebeck. Boston: Printed and sold by Fowle and Draper, at their printing-office in Marlborough-Street. From page. 492, lines 4-5
[4] From page. 491, line 21
[5] From page. 489, lines 7-8
Reading Log #2
Reading Log
We Are as Well as We Are, Week 3
The point that Mr. Ronda is trying to make in WAAWAWA (We Are as Well as We Are) is that sometimes you have to challenge the status quo. Like some historians did in the 60’s and 70’s, before that it was hard to get a view on history that wasn’t from the perspective of “the great white man”. It was during this time that historians started to look at history from the perspective of the women, the children, the natives, and the immigrants. Up until recently most people you asked would say that the Jesuit Missionaries living and working in early Canada were there for the benefit of the natives, to help them acclimatize to the ways of the civilized world. But if you look at it from the perspective of a Huron Shaman or an Iroquois Chief you may see a whole new side to the argument that you have never even thought about before.
One of the examples of differing perspectives that Mr. Ronda shows is the discussions on the concepts of Heaven, Hell, and sin. In the Letters sent by the Jesuit Missionaries to their superiors back in France. They might have contained frustration of the continued resistance of Christian ideals by the native population or derision at their continued use of traditional healing ceremonies. On the other side of the coin are the native perspectives. The natives thought that the ideas of heaven or hell were strange and useless and the same went for sin. The Huron didn’t care for hell because they knew hell awaited them if they were caught by their Iroquois enemy and the same went for the Iroquois. While the Huron did have their own version of the afterlife, it was to different from the Christian counterpart (Huron afterlife is much like normal life, while Christian afterlife has no tobacco, wheat fields, or marriage), and when asked why they would rather go to their own after life they said that they wished to be with their forefathers. They held the same amount of derision for the idea of sin because they had no concept of sin, they didn’t even know how to sin.
In summary you must always to remember to look at history and arguments from both sides because while one side may have one tale to tell, the other may have an entirely different one.
TRU | tru.ca By: Ronda, James P.. In: The William and Mary Quarterly, 1/1/1977, Vol. 34, Issue 1, p. 66-82; The Institute of Early American History Language: English, Database: JSTOR Journals
Reading Log #1
Reading log
Ch. 1, Week 2
I’m not sure if you want me to do a full reading log for chapter 1 because I don’t think that there is really a thesis to analyze, or if there were any arguments to talk about because it was really just an introductory chapter meant to tell us what to expect from the text, but I’ll give it a try anyway.
I think that the title of the first chapter, “When was Canada?” is an interesting question to ask because the answer will change depending on who you ask, some people might say “1867 the year of confederation”, or some might say “the mid 1700’s when the British took over”, some might say “the 1600’s when the French first really set up New France” and some might even say “much farther back than even the 1600’s because the Aboriginal population was still very much living and thriving all across Canada even before the first Vikings tried to settle newfoundland.” The point I’m trying to make is that I don’t think that we can really put a date on when Canada happened, all we can do is try and identify the different time periods and various peoples who ruled over Canada during those time periods.
Bibliography
Belshaw, John Douglas. Canadian history. [electronic resource] : pre-confederation. n.p.: [S.l. : s.n., 2015?], 2015. Thompson Rivers University Catalog, EBSCOhost (accessed September 13, 2016).
What is History
The technical definition of history is “the study of past events, particularly in human affairs.”, but that is a rather uneventful and boring way of putting, while technically true it does not have the same sort of passion that a dedicated historian will have if you ask them the same question. If you ask any dedicated historian, you would get many different answers. if you ask me, I would say that history is not just a study of the past but also lessons for the future. for if we do not learn from our past mistakes, then we are doomed to repeat it.