Unit 2 Review - Social Studies 10-1

Cultural revitalization

The process of affirming and promoting individual and collective cultural identity through multiple forms, including language and education.

Cultural assimilation

The process of a culture loosing their original identity and becoming absorbed into the dominant identity or culture. The focus of many Europeans during the colonization of North America and the focus of the Canadian government with the First Nations population. The cultural identity of the minority group disappears as its members take on the identity of the other culture.

Residential Schools

Residential schools were places where First Nations children gathered to live, work and study. This was another assimilation tool set up by the Federal government as the Indian Act made them responsible to education First Nations. School age children were taken from their families and the responsibility to run the schools was shared between the Canadian government and various Christian churches. Families had no voice in how the schools were ran; it was a paternalistic show that intended to assimilate First Nations children into the dominant European-esque identity.

Legacies of this system include schools far away from homes, poorly trained teachers, children being punished for celebrating their culture, children becoming alone and cut off from their way of life, returning as strangers and intergenerational trauma.

Many former Residential School students have now been forced to cope with the trauma and mark left by the system. Many turn to substance abuse, whilst the healing process includes varying levels of compensation.

Indian Act

The Indian Act was a piece of legislation passed by the Canadian government in 1876 and stipulated the Canadian government’s responsibilities for the administration of treaties and people considered “Indians”. It is a continuing and controversial legacy of imperialism. Although the act has been amended many times, First Nations continue to argue that the act:

• ensures that First Nations do not receive equal treatment
• limits First Nations rights to self-governance and determination
• and is paternalistic by assuming the Federal government are the best judges for the needs of First Nations.

The Constitution Act that was passed in 1982 recognized “existing Aboriginal and treaty rights”, which was a step forward because it opened the door to settlement of land claims such as the one that established Nunavut.

In 1991, the Canadian government established the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples to help determine the foundations for a fair and honourable relationship between the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples of Canada. The findings found that the “main policy direction, pursued for more than 150 years, first by colonial then Canadian governments has been wrong”.

The findings of the commission resulted in the Canadian government issuing a Statement of Reconciliation towards the First Nations.

Legacies of Historical Globalization in Canada

During the First World War, people of German and Ukrainian descent were interned in camps because they were “enemy aliens”. This was the same for Japanese Canadians during the Second World War. These people lived in very harsh conditions during their internment.

As mentioned before, the Indian Act and Residential School systems resulted in intense intergenerational trauma and cultural destruction. The Canadian government used the policy of assimilation to solve the “Indian problem” and make them more accustomed to what they determined was the “Canadian way of life”.

Indigenous peoples used to be heavily involved in the Fur Trade with the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Northwest Company. This allowed them to gain European tools and cooperate with the Europeans to establish the export of beaver pelts to Europe.

An issue with the Numbered Treaties were the loss of First Nations land and the forcing of First Nations onto reserves. This stretched further by depriving First Nations of their traditional ways of living. This led to various land claims, such as the one that established Nunavut.

European mercantilism affected Canada by stipulating that only British ships could carry raw materials from Canada. Some argue this negatively impacted Canada’s growth, while others believe it preserved Canada’s early identity.

During the Industrial Revolution, around 750,000 European immigrants arrived in Canada.

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 established the systems of governance for British colonies in North America.

The Beothuk people of Canada were destroyed after a genocide occured against them in response to the Beothuk driving away Europeans who set up fish drying racks.

Eurocentrism and Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism is the viewpoint that your ethnicity and culture is superior to that of another. Eurocentrism is the same thing, except with a European point of view. Eurocentric attitudes were always prevalent during colonialism; from Rwanda to South Africa to India to Canada. This spread to technology, religion, culture and governance. In Rwanda, the Tutsis were given positions of power because they were deemed more “European-like”.

Impacts of Colonialism

The Slave Trade & Cheap Labour

Slaves were traded from African countries to countries able to foster cash crops to aid colonial powers in achieving mercantilistic overseas operations. This was also referred to as the Triangular Trade or the Atlantic Slave Trade, given it’s operation in the Caribbean, Africa and Europe. Indentured labourers were responsible for working with no pay following their transportation to a colony. The Emancipation Act made slavery prohibited across all British colonies.

The slave trade also depopulated the African continent, while shattering families and communities and depriving them of leaders.

European Settlement

Once colonies were formed, Europeans were incentivized to emigrate to colonies, displacing Indigenous peoples. This also provided a pool of people to run the colony and reduce conflict at home. European culture was also established in colonized countries, spreading religion and eurocentric attitudes.

Aztecs

The Aztecs were killed off due to conflict between their Spanish colonizers and them. Modern-day Mexico was filled with resources that were deemed valuable by the Spanish government in the 1500s, such as gold.

Disease

Disease was easily spread to local populations who did not have immunity to said diseases. This spread diseases such as the Black Plague, Chickenpox and the Flu.

The Congo

King Leopold III of Belgium colonized the area now known as the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This sparked the scramble for Africa. Aboriginals were brutally punished and became forced labourers in the pursuit of rubber. He created a strongly divided country, which created for a weak and easily manipulative country.

India

The British East India Company was set up to obtain resources from India and transport them back to Great Britain where they could be manufactured and processed into products. They used very harsh measures to obtain resources and maintain the smooth flow of goods. The Raj was Great Britain’s direct rule of India, and the Industrial Revolution and mercantilistic policies led to the deindustrialization of India. Refer more to India.

Indigenous Identities

The identities of Indigenous people were negatively affected during colonization; many Indigenous peoples were forced to abandon their traditional way of living.

Rwanda

Divisions fostered by German and Belgian colonizers led to a brutal genocide against the Tutsi population of Rwanda. This genocide led to the loss of nearly a million lives. Rwandan women rose from the civil war to export coffee to support themselves. An International Criminal Tribunal was established in Rwanda to prosecute those involved and Gacaca Courts were set up as a grassroots method of prosecuting low level figures.

South Africa

Eurocentric views and a desire to hold onto power resulted in drastic discrimination against the black population of South Africa. Part of this was called the Apartheid. Nelson Mandela was South African’s first president elected in a universal election and his work allowed for freedom and equality in South Africa.

Capitalism vs. Mercantilism

Capitalism

An economic system based upon free trade, competition and freedom of choice as routes to economic prosperity. Alan Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” laid the groundwork for how capitalism would work.

Mercantilism

The economic belief that a country’s exports must outweigh it’s imports. Money for the monarch to establish a monopoly on trade. This was fostered by the belief that colonies only had cheap, raw materials that could only be processed in the home country, to provide jobs.

The decline of mercantilism

The rise of competition resulted in the decline of mercantilism and the switch to a more capitalistic system. For instance, the Northwest Company created competition in the Fur Trade and resulted in the over-trapping of Canadian beavers. Dissatisfaction for mercantilism in the Thirteen Colonies also led to America becoming an independent country.

Motivations for 19th Century Imperialism

Mercantilism, creating more job opportunities for the home country and providing valuable raw resources

Cheap, indentured labour that was useful for cash crops

The fur trade in Canada, the use of First Nations for these purposes.

Expanding power through land ownership

Acquire valuable raw resources that were once unavailable

Gandhi and Deindustrialization

During the Industrial Revolution, India became de-industrialized because of British mercantilism that resulted in policies banning the import of Indian-spun cotton. This led to mass unemployment.

Mohandas Gandhi was a political leader in India who peacefully resisted British colonization of India. He led India to independence in 1947 and pioneered the idea of India being a self-sufficient country. He worked for the rights of Indians and his nationalist movement. He used the symbol of cotton as a symbol of British oppression and self-sufficiency, a collective conscience to raise India out of deindustrialization. According to Gandhi, by hand spinning cotton and making your own cloth, they would free themselves of the need for British cloth and solve India’s unemployment.

Gandhi also pioneered the idea of the Swadeshi; a philosophy that calls on people to be self-sufficient and be aware of the violence that is caused by various industries, harm towards humans and other creatures.

When India became an independent country, India separated into India and Pakistan to split along religious differences. This led to conflict among regions such as the Kashmir and argument in the Punjab area.