Chapter 3: Your Honors Servants

Aboriginal women played a key role in the Europeans discovery of North America. Their tools and wisdom were unmatched by any settler knowledge and their value was known far and wide. The term "your honours servants" came to describe these women. This term implies that they were slaves - property and resources of the fur traders - however they were valuable partners and were allowed some privileges. The European men had emotional attachments to these women and would go out of their way to care for their safety and well-being, ensuring that they were fed and safe from violent threats.

Aboriginal women had performed many tasks including finding and trapping hares and partridges, which in some instances saved the fur traders from starvation. Not only did the women help travel by canoe, but sat in the back to steer and guide down the rivers. This was stopped by high ranking officers in Europe who saw this as not a role for women and that the men should be more in control. An interesting point was raised in class regarding this: did the men allow the women to sit in the back because they knew how to guide the boat, or did the men stay in front because they thought they were leading the way?

Chapter 4: Women in Between

Because of the aboriginal women's position in society they did not keep record of their existence, therefore the only stories we have are based on the records kept by the European settlers.

The Indian women were instrumental in creating and maintaining relations of the white man and the first nations people that they encountered. In this chapter Van Kirk suggests that the aboriginal women began to see the benefits of marrying into the fur trader society. While they were still involved in many economic tasks such as making moccasins and building snowshoes, they were not burdened with the duties that were involved in the nomadic lifestyle of the first nations. Reports of Indian women pursuing European men were uncovered along with assumptions that the Indian women enjoyed the lifestyles. In some situations they had more privileges and freedoms including tools provided by Europeans which made working with hides much easier, as well as being able to consume better parts of foods which were traditionally reserved for the native males.

Although Indian women were gaining respect and value in the fur traders societies, some moving into higher political roles even, there were certain cultural differences that could not permeate into theEuropean culture. One example of this is the Chinook tradition of head binding. The Europeans found the practice of binding their babies heads to a board in order to flatten it abhorrent and forbade their wives to do this. Instead of having their children grow up with round skulls (a sign of slavery) some women murdered their children. Eventually European dominance was achieved and infanticide ceased.

Remember This!: Dakota Decolonization and the Eli Taylor Stories.

Intro - 3

Angela Cavender Wilson's goal in writing Remember This! is to enlighten us to the stories and histories of the Dakota people that have been lost through the colonization of the Dakota nation and the European collection and recording of the history.

The subject of her book is Eli Taylor, a man adopted as her grandfather. Wilson recognized the importance of oral tradition for the Dakota people and responded when she heard of Eli Taylor's desire to have his stories recorded. Before colonization oral tradition was the way in which Dakota people kept their stories and histories alive. Their God - Dakota - "did not provide us with paper and pens.. We remembered with our minds"

These stories are of particular interest to me because I grew up in Brandon, Manitoba, and attended the high school that students from the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation were bussed. While I was not very concerned with the stories of my fellow classmates while I was in high school it is interesting to reflect back on it now. Most of those stories were absent from our education and even Canadian history. To top it off, our athletes were know as the Crocus Plains Plainsmen and were once represented by a fur trader/settler.

Unsettling Settler Societies: Chapter 6

Approxomately 90% of the Mexica population are considered mestizo, a term used to refer to those who were subject

of the racial and cultural miscegenation which began during the Spanish conquest. Until recently, not much attention was

paid to the causes and effects of this process, but instances of campaigns and organizations of Indigenous communities

to reclaim their cultures and lands have sparked new interest.

What differentiates the colonization of Mexico from other "new lands" is that when the Spaniards arrived on shore the

aboriginals had already formed complex communities and cities. Ethnic diversity increased as me Spanish men arrived with

black slaves. After imposing Catholism the Mexican native population began to homogonize and complex religious systems

were eradicated.

The arrival of Spanish women cause the rates of Spanish men marrying assimilated aboriginal women to decline. The

Spanish women were also instruemental in introducing certain fundamental institutions of colonial society ad catholic values.

These white women were usually confined to the household and had the domestic role to organize and maintain a

monogamous family home. Indian and blackwomen were provided as slaves and were treated as subordinates.