Summary of the Book National Dreams by Francis Daniel
Aboriginal people faced a lot of discrimination from the settlers from England who envisioned molding the new Dominion of Canada in the image of the Mother Nation. Slaves, Jews, Asian of any type and blacks did not have the need to apply for any membership. One group that mainly suffered from this ethnocentric view of the nation was the Aboriginals (Francis 70). Recent events have seen an interest in the traditional culture and history of the Native population of Canada such as Land claims and treaty rights, and with such developments, it is easy to forget how mainstream Euro- Canada was a generation ago when aboriginals were considered backward savages. Textbooks are not only an excellent …show more content…
Aboriginal communities received little or no attention at all from the non-Native Canadians. Scholars wrote a few pages at best and a few lines at worst. An example of this was an award winning 1898 text by W.H.P Clement that took eleven sentences, to sum up, the habits and characters of the Indian. Textbooks which mentioned the Aboriginal people started with a brief overview of the Indian tribes adopting a relatively standard approach and the moving on to more crucial matters (Francis 71). Student’s quickly noticed that the English and French colonialists were given far much attention than the indigenous population. The materials devoted to the life of the Aboriginals primarily focused on what they lacked. Textbooks stressed on the fact that Aboriginals did not have a written language and consequently had no books, no schools, no laws; they did not live in houses and they additionally lacked sophisticated …show more content…
Many Canadians believed that the culture of the Indians was not suited for modern industrial civilization and that their only hope was to join the mainstream white society. Aboriginals were segregated socially, economically marginalized and silenced politically. Their contribution to the history of Canada is not documented, and issues which affect them are not addressed. This marginalization continues in contemporary times are marginalized, and their spirituality has been dismissed as nothing more than fiction. Additionally, their claims to traditional territorial lands have never been
Aboriginal people faced a lot of discrimination from the settlers from England who envisioned molding the new Dominion of Canada in the image of the Mother Nation. Slaves, Jews, Asian of any type and blacks did not have the need to apply for any membership. One group that mainly suffered from this ethnocentric view of the nation was the Aboriginals (Francis 70). Recent events have seen an interest in the traditional culture and history of the Native population of Canada such as Land claims and treaty rights, and with such developments, it is easy to forget how mainstream Euro- Canada was a generation ago when aboriginals were considered backward savages. Textbooks are not only an excellent …show more content…
Aboriginal communities received little or no attention at all from the non-Native Canadians. Scholars wrote a few pages at best and a few lines at worst. An example of this was an award winning 1898 text by W.H.P Clement that took eleven sentences, to sum up, the habits and characters of the Indian. Textbooks which mentioned the Aboriginal people started with a brief overview of the Indian tribes adopting a relatively standard approach and the moving on to more crucial matters (Francis 71). Student’s quickly noticed that the English and French colonialists were given far much attention than the indigenous population. The materials devoted to the life of the Aboriginals primarily focused on what they lacked. Textbooks stressed on the fact that Aboriginals did not have a written language and consequently had no books, no schools, no laws; they did not live in houses and they additionally lacked sophisticated …show more content…
Many Canadians believed that the culture of the Indians was not suited for modern industrial civilization and that their only hope was to join the mainstream white society. Aboriginals were segregated socially, economically marginalized and silenced politically. Their contribution to the history of Canada is not documented, and issues which affect them are not addressed. This marginalization continues in contemporary times are marginalized, and their spirituality has been dismissed as nothing more than fiction. Additionally, their claims to traditional territorial lands have never been