Presupuesto para el departamento de Auditoría Interna

Before proceeding to the research, it is necessary to step back and introduce the Mi’kmaq people and some of their rich and complex history. I thought it would be most useful to introduce parts of Mi’kmaq history throughout the book, as it pertains to the story I am trying to tell, rather than to attempt a comprehensive historical account of the Mi’kmaq experience, a

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task which is better left to expert Mi’kmaq historians such as Daniel Paul (2007). This brief section provides an introduction to the Mi’kmaq people and their history that is not presented elsewhere in the dissertation. In part, the aim of this section is to show some of the ways in which historians, anthropologists and Mi’kmaq people have worked to constructed “the Mi’kmaq” as a unique cultural, social and political group. Although some aspects of the narratives told about Mi’kmaq people and their history are common across accounts, much of this identity work reflects the considerable diversity of the Mi’kmaq experience. In the context of the research presented in this dissertation, it is particularly important to note the varied ways that Mi’kmaq history and cultural experiences have been interpreted and lived by Mi’kmaq people, and to understand that this work of building and defining “Mi’kmaq culture” has been an ongoing historical project.

The Mi’kmaq Creation Story

The Mi’kmaq people are the people of the east, of the rising sun. In their language, they call themselves L’nu, which means “the people”. Their territory is called Mi’kma’ki, the Land of the Mi’kmaq, and it is divided into seven traditional districts which extend across the present- day Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, and into parts of Newfoundland, Quebec, and the U.S. state of Maine. It is a diverse landscape of rivers, forests, marshes and ocean coastline, populated by thousands of species of plants, fish, birds and fur-bearers. Mi’kmaq people’s relationships with the lands and resources on their territory are woven through their history.

The Mi’kmaq creation story begins with the Giver of Life, Gisoolg, who, together with Grandfather Sun (Niskam), Grandmother Earth (Ogijinew), Grandmother in the South (Nogami), his Nephew and his Mother in the North, created and taught the first human, Glooscap, about

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how to live properly on and in balance with the earth, the animals and his fellow humans (Augustine 2006.) On earth, Glooscap was joined by three family members. His Grandmother in the South taught him how to use animals, plants and fire to survive, respecting the sacrifices these other living things made so that humans could survive. The nephew came from the sea and brought fish to the people. He also taught Glooscap that young people are gifts of the ancestors and will guide their people into the future, so long as they have strong leadership. Glooscap’s Mother in the North came from a leaf on a tree and brought strength and

understanding, teaching him about the importance of sharing. Of this first family, Mi’kmaq Hereditary Chief and anthropologist Stephen Augustine writes:

“And so they all assembled, and shared. And Glooscap’s Grandmother, Nogami, was doing all the teaching that needed to be done; and the nephew was watching everything, and helping everyone. And Glooscap was there to show leadership,

respecting the teachings of the Elders, and respecting the young people for their vision and their strength, and the gifts they bring from the spirits of our ancestors, and respecting his mother’s teaching to love and care for others, and rely on one another. And so, in this way they lived a very good life” (Augustine 2006).

This creation story and tales about Glooscap’s travels across the territory are repeated often in Mi’kmaq communities, reminding people of their roots and working to reproduce social relationships within communities and between humans and the environment.

The Prehistoric Period

Archaeological evidence supports Mi’kmaq people’s assertions of their enduring history fishing, hunting and travelling extensively across the territory. Prehistoric fishing weirs (stone structures built in rivers to create pools where fish are trapped and easily taken by fishers) dating from the Archaic period (5,500-2,500 BP) placed strategically in rivers across what are today New England and the Canadian maritime provinces indicate that Mi’kmaq ancestors relied heavily on fish for their subsistence (Chute 1998). Based on artifact assemblages from different

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areas of the territory and representing different activities (e.g., coastal and inland fishing and inland hunting), archaeologists have concluded that Mi’kmaq ancestors relied on a seasonal economic round (Nash 1980; Nash and Miller 1987; Burley 1983). Navigable rivers throughout the territory served as “highways” that facilitated trade among early peoples in the wider region. Chute (1998) states that, for at least a 1,000 years, Mi’kmaq people and their ancestors have used trading posts along the rivers – namely at Red Bank, New Brunswick, and Melanson and Indian Gardens in Nova Scotia to trade with each other and their neighbors. Common pre- contact trade and barter goods included fish, copper, chert and shell beads (Chute 1998; Bourque and Whitehead 1985).

Early European Contact and the Fur Trade

The Mi’kmaq were one of the first aboriginal groups in North America encountered by European fishermen and explorers in the early 16th century when they established trading posts in Mi’kmaq territory (Prins 1996). At this time, Mi’kmaq people lived in fluid kin groups of 30- 300 people12 along the coasts and rivers and in the forests of their territory (Wallis and Wallis 1955; Prins 1996). They had extensive trade networks with other Mi’kmaq kin groups, as well as with neighboring aboriginal peoples13, and moved seasonally between coastal fishing grounds in the spring and summer and inland hunting territories in the fall and winter (Prins 1996). Proper relations between people, animals and the natural world was ordered by a belief that all living things possessed and were united by mntu, or the “spark of life”, which emerged anew with each next generation (RCAP 2001).14

These early trading relationships set the stage for the influx of colonial settlers and spurred the transatlantic fur trade (late 1500s—early 1700s), which significantly reordered Mi’kmaq social, economic and cultural life. This new economy led to different settlement

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patterns as Mi’kmaq kin groups moved closer to French-built fur trading settlements and focused their labor on hunting and trapping (Prins 1996; Wallis and Wallis 1955; Miller 2004). This period also represented a major shift in Mi’kmaq cultural and ecological relationships with animals. Whereas before contact, animals had been viewed as relatives to the Mi’kmaq, imbued with mntu which bonded humans to animals in a sacred relationship, during the fur trade, animals’ most important quality was their market value and they were hunted indiscriminately.15

The waning of the fur trade coincided with the final victory of Britain over France in 1759 for control of northeastern North America. By this point, the Mi’kmaq people had been decimated by disease and dispossessed of their fishing and hunting territories by colonial powers (Prins 1996). Though the Mi’kmaq fought fiercely to maintain control over their hunting and fishing territories, with their diminished numbers, they were no match for the British. The result of these British-Mi’kmaq wars was a series of treaties, described in Chapter 1, which guaranteed Mi’kmaq “the free liberty & privilege of hunting, fishing, and fowling” on their territories (Prins 1996).16 These treaties, made nearly 300 years ago have had tremendous effects on the lives of Mi’kmaq peoples in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Dispossession

Though treaties signed between Mi’kmaq leaders and the British Crown guaranteed Mi’kmaq people’s rights to continue to pursue their traditional activities, throughout the 19th and most of the 20th centuries, the British colonial government systematically worked to dismantle Mi’kmaq governance and cultural life by dispossessing them of the resources – namely their fishing and hunting grounds – that they used to construct the meanings and relationships upon which social, economic and political organization within the nation was

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based. New settlers from Europe and Loyalists fleeing New England after the American

Revolution were encouraged by the British colonial government to settle in the region, and were granted land rights to a large portion of the territory, effectively cutting off access to Mi’kmaq fishing and hunting grounds.

By the early 19th century, a dozen Indian reserves had been designated in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and Mi’kmaq people were advised that, in order to qualify for federal aid (which they required after being dispossessed of their lands and livelihoods), they must live on these reserves. Barsh (2002:27) writes that “the Mi’kmaq land base (in the form of ‘Indian reserves’) had shrunk to less than one percent of the original territorial area of Mi’kmakís17 as a result of trespass by settlers, government neglect and score of fraudulent or questionable surrenders that remain at issue between Mi’kmaq and the federal Crown as ‘specific claims’.” Also at this time, hundreds of Mi’kmaq children were rounded up forcibly by colonial agents and sent to the Indian residential school at Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia.

Mi’kmaq Communities Today

Life over the past century has not been easy for the Mi’kmaq people. The consequences of the colonial period on Mi’kmaq governance, family life, economy, health and culture continue to linger. However, the second half of the twentieth century was also a time of rejuvenation for the nation. Conscious efforts were made – helped in large part by the American Indian

Movement – to reintroduce cultural teachings and ceremonies. Aboriginal people in Canada also won a number of significant legal victories that validated their rights to access natural resources. Throughout the dissertation, I will examine more of the experiences of Mi’kmaq people over the last hundred years – particularly as they relate to work and natural resource use. In the first decade of the 21st century, there were over 29,000 Mi’kmaq people registered

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as members of 25 bands in five Canadian provinces (Atlantic Policy Congress 2007; Mi’kmaq Council in Quebec 2009).