[QatzelOk]

Many posters here have told me, in various threads, that the French were just like the other groups who ethnic-cleansed the Americas - the English, Spanish, and Portuguese. And many other posters have suggested that the early French settlers were just as racist and materialistic and ethnocentric as the other three European groups.

Let me take some quotes from the following Wiki page on the Great Peace of Montreal of 1701.

The Great Peace of Montreal (French: La Grande paix de Montréal) was a peace treaty between New France and 40 First Nations of North America. It was signed on August 4, 1701, by Louis-Hector de Callière, governor of New France, and 1300 representatives of 40 aboriginal nations

The Great Peace of Montreal is a unique diplomatic event in the history of the Americas. The treaty is still valid and recognized as such by the Native American tribes involved.

The French, in negotiating followed their traditional policy in the Americas, where the relationship with some of the natives was characterized by mutual respect and admiration and based on dialogue and negotiation.

"Spanish civilization crushed the Indian; English civilization scorned and neglected him; French civilization embraced and cherished him"
—Francis Parkman.

So you see, they weren't all the same. And yes, life for natives changed a lot after the English attacked and conquered Quebec and Montreal. Shortly afterwards, the Great Peace was put aside by the new British Colonial government, and all those natives who had signed the treaty with the French in good faith were... ethnic cleansed and forced to live on reservations and go to residential schools. By the British. And the Americans.

Whereas the early French in North America had embraced and cherished them.

Here is a quote regarding the English conquerors and their particular system:

“I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think as a matter of fact, that the country ought to continuously protect a class of people who are able to stand alone… Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department, that is the whole object of this Bill.” Dr. Duncan Campbell Scott - 1920

Scott made his mark in Canadian history as the head of the Department of Indian Affairs from 1913 to 1932, a department he had served since joining the federal civil service in 1879.

Even before Confederation, the Canadian government adopted a policy of assimilation (actually, it was the continuation of a policy that British colonial officials had pursued since 1713). The long term goal was to bring the Native peoples from their ‘savage and unproductive state’ and force (English style) civilization upon them, thus making Canada a homogeneous society in the Anglo-Saxon and Christian tradition.

In 1920, under Scott's direction, it became mandatory for all native children between the ages of seven and fifteen to attend one of Canada's Residential Schools.

[Decky]

A peace treaty suggests there was a war.

[QatzelOk]

A peace treaty suggests there was a war.

Not a war. Constant wars between native groups allied with the British, native groups not allied with the British (the vast majority), the British themselves (who hated various of their own sects), French, Dutch, and all the complex and total warring started from the time the British got settled in the colonies south of us.

By 1700, the natives and French wanted the warring to stop so social progress could continue where it had left off when the British arrived, but the British just wanted to keep killing until all the bad guys were gone.

Receiving 1300 guests from native cultures from every corner of North America was a major event for Montreal whose city population was only 1000 or so at that time. It was also the construction of an authentic and tolerant multiculturalism that was later destroyed by British commercial megalomania.

The British would eventually destroy this peace and break almost every treaty they signed afterwards. When they finally conquered Quebec in the French and Indian war, that was the end of human rights for native people. We like to forget that in English-Canada.

A real heritage moment.

[layman]

You need to get over https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of ... of_Abraham

You have spent your entire pofo career being bitter about it.

By 1700, the natives and French wanted the warring to stop so social progress could continue where it had left off when the British arrived, but the British just wanted to keep killing until all the bad guys were gone.

[Pants-of-dog]

The Quebecois are perhaps the worst of all the settler communities when it comes to modern oppression of indigenous people.

One of the reasons is because they refuse to acknowledge their own complicity in oppression. If the French respected the natives, why were there residential schools in Quebec? Why did the Quebec gov't get taken to court over the James Bay agreement? Why did the Oka crisis happen? The French (not the Quebecois) only respected the natives when the natives comprised the backbone of their colonial military forces. Once French soldiers were plentiful in Quebec, this respect evaporated.

The worst part, though, is what academics call 'the move to innocence".

What they mean is that Quebecois people pretend that they are native. First, they go and claim that they have indigenous ancestry, which may even be true. Then they claim that this makes them indigenous. This is decidedly not true. But since they are the majority in Quebec, they can ignore actual indigenous people and keep telling themselves that. This has several effects: one is that actual indigenous people get silenced and removed from the discussion, because the Quebecois are the "real" indigenous people so why bother listening to those few up north? The second effect is that it strengthens (in the Quebecois paradigm) the Quebecois claim to indigenous land.

Of course, this "Quebecois are indigenous" meme is wrong for one simple reason: indigenous people in Quebec do not recognise the Quebecois as an indigenous group.

[Atlantis]

I don't know the first thing about Canada.

In black Africa, the French taught the natives the typical French curriculum to make proper French men out of them, for example, making black Africans recite: "our ancestors the Gauls" at school.

What the French managed better than most in the colonies was corruption. They seem to have a natural talent for getting the corrupt local elites into their pocket.

[Godstud]

French colonialism? How about Vietnam?

In general, French colonialism was more haphazard, expedient and brutal than that of the British. Paris never articulated a clear and coherent colonial policy for Indochina – so long as it remained in French hands and open to French economic interests, the French government was satisfied.

To minimise local resistance, the French employed a ‘divide and rule’ strategy, undermining Vietnamese unity by playing local mandarins, communities and religious groups against each other. The nation was carved into three separate pays (provinces): Tonkin in the north, Annam along the central coast and Cochinchina in the south. Each of these pays was administered separately. There was no national identity or authority; according to one French colonial edict, it was even illegal to use the name ‘Vietnam’.
http://alphahistory.com/vietnam/french- ... n-vietnam/

Ignoring Vietnamese resistance, the French built schools, hospitals, dams, canals and railroads, raising enormous taxes which the Vietnamese could not afford. Economic conditions for the Vietnamese spiraled downward.
http://www.learn-french-help.com/histor ... etnam.html

[Lightman]

Qatzelok just can't accept that he's just another settler-colonialist, like the rest of us.

[QatzelOk]

Quebecois people pretend that they are native. First, they go and claim that they have indigenous ancestry, which may even be true. Then they claim that this makes them indigenous.

Indigenous in the sense that (some of the) indigenous welcomed the presence and intermarriage of these early French settlers.

As in Africa, North America's native populations were internationalized by French traders/guides who spoke several native tongues and traveled all around the continent. French would logically be the continental language of the native peoples of North America (excepting the parts of Mexico that were stolen by the USA.) if it hadn't been for the intolerance and racism of the British Empire.

Why do natives honor the English language as if it were their own?

[Decky]

The Vietnamese had the right idea about how to treat the peaceful french "settlers."

[Godstud]

The French exploited where they could. That's just a fact you don't like to omit, Qatz.

You sure didn't address what the French did in SE Asia. That things were different in North America had more to do with the French/British lacking significant technological superiority. French are despised in Laos for what they did.

Africa:
Instead, the French sought to control the West African populations. By contrast, in the British colonies the approach was the opposite: they used local power holders rather than installing a whole new administration. Each system aimed to benefit the colonizers. The French were rather harsh in their administration and their attempts to increase their economic footholds, utilizing such means as forced labor (courvee) and imprisonment (indigenant) to maintain and expand their interests.
http://www.africa.upenn.edu/K-12/French_16178.html

Oh, the noble French indeed...

[QatzelOk]

Decky, Godstud, and any other thread-jacking trolls, call us when you get to North America in the early 18th Century.

In the meantime, click on the OP link and read about a "Great Peace" might look like, and why Montreal was a logical place for one of these things to be signed.

Let me give you a hint: Montreal port is next to a long sloping mountain. The city has always been indefensible, so it has surrendered to four different nations, including the USA for a few days during the American Revolution.

Having surrendered so many times makes you indefensible to anyone, and that allows for a lot of personal freedom and expression. But it needs to be anchored by a polite, diplomatic and tolerant civic space that allows for a rich life for people of every nation or caste.

The UK was never configured this way - it was always the Empire of banks and navy, and the anachronistic caste system renders the public space bleak. The natives of North America (1701) didn't have a class system, and this caused New France to mutate into something very similar. It was better than what we have now.

[Pants-of-dog]

Indigenous in the sense that the indigenous welcomed the presence and intermarriage of these early French settlers.

No, there were only thirteen marriages between indigenous people and French settlers.

Thirteen. That is a statistically negligible amount. Learn your history.

This is why the Québécois have only a 1% admixture with indigenous populations.Source.

As in Africa, North America's native populations were internationalized by French guides who spoke several native tongues. French would logically be the continental language of the native peoples of North America excepting the parts of Mexico that were stolen by the USA.

Cree already functioned as a continent wide trade language in many ways.

[QatzelOk]

Pants-of-Dog, learn what "intermarriage" means before saying "learn your history."

Sexual contact isn't the same thing as marriage. And statistics aren't as meaningful as anecdotes and an accumulation of stats and records. So don't get too smug.

There was a great deal of sexual contact, and many French simply became native, running away from the euros never to return. This happened in this direction to a great scale, while native to euro conversion (unforced) was very rare.

[Decky]

And statistics aren't as meaningful as anecdotes

[Pants-of-dog]

Pants-of-Dog, learn what "intermarriage" means before saying "learn your history."

Sexual contact isn't the same thing as marriage. And statistics aren't as meaningful as anecdotes and an accumulation of stats and records. So don't get too smug.

There was a great deal of sexual contact, and many French simply became native, running away from the euros never to return. This happened in this direction to a great scale, while native to euro conversion (unforced) was very rare.

1%.

And I am not even going to get into how they can determine how many of these unions were between European men and indigenous women. But you probably have some myth where Quebec settlers never raped anyone.

[Godstud]

The French were the most humane and good of all the imperialist colonizers! It's true, because QatzelOk says so!

[layman]

QatzelOk is possibly the most sanctimonious creature on POFO.

I think I understand much better what POD means by North Americans expropriating native culture.

It is incredible to watch him lecture us British while literally living off ex native lands. You couldnt make it up.

[Ganeshas Rat]

And how about Cambodia? No, I think, all must agree, only the Russian respected the natives.

[Godstud]

I know. Been to Laos. They really really really don't like the French.