Aboriginal History: A Reader

Kristin Burnett and Geoff Read eds., Aboriginal History: A Reader. Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 2012. 512 pages. ISBN, 978-0-19-5432350. $84.95 paperback.I remember taking Canadian History in Grade 8, far too many years ago. The course dealt with European exploration of Canada and the gradual settlement of the northern part of the continent by French and British settlers. The Aboriginal inhabitants of the land were important only insofar as they helped or hindered the triumphalist narrative of the development of what eventually became the modern Canadian state. I was too naive at the time to realize the important omissions of the class and its textbook - the almost total absence of the stories of the people who lived here pre-contact and who had to react to, first the trickle, then the mass influx of European and other settlers and the racialist attitudes and diseases that they carried with them.Fortunately, a wide variety of people have been working for decades to deconstruct this narrative, to tell the story more fully and accurately, and to challenge the conventional orthodoxy that largely ignores the contributions of Aboriginal peoples to Canadian history. The editors of this reader, Kristin Burnett and Geoff Read, laud Olive Patricia Dickason's 1992 work, Canada's First Nations: A History of Founding Peoples from Earliest Times, that sought to write the history from the perspective of the Aboriginal inhabitants of the geographic region that would become Canada. This narrative, in and of itself, challenged the trite, inaccurate, yet pervasive misperception that Canada was a country with little history; self-evidently, history in Canada did not begin with the arrival of White men. Burnett and Read seek to extend Dickason's challenge to mainstream interpretations of Canada's past by providing a suitable companion reader for early-year survey courses in Aboriginal History. Their approach provides an impressive collection of articles and primary documents to shine light on the challenges that Canada's Aboriginal people have faced and struggled to overcome as a result of European, and then subsequent Canadian colonialism.The editors have organized the reader effectively. They provide an extensive introduction; it capably lays out the book's structure, describing and linking the fifteen chapters. The chapters cover a striking array of subjects: Aboriginal worldviews, early contact, population demographics, war, the fur trade, the Metis and issues of identity, Federal policy, the Indian Act, residential schools, region and culture, the economy and Aboriginal labour, women, health and wellness, activism, and treaties and self-governance. Each chapter follows a common pattern. All (save the first) include two historical articles, plus additional photographic or textual primary material. Each chapter includes an introduction to set the context for the subsequent readings. The editors clearly lay out the objectives students should achieve through read- ing the chapter. The learning objectives transcend simple acquisition of knowledge, and focus instead on developing students' understanding of deeper issues and forming broader conceptual linkages. The scholarly articles reflect, naturally, a wide array of issues. They also represent a cross section of opinion. The reader includes work by senior professors and professors emeriti as well as junior academics and senior graduate students. Many of the contributors are Aboriginal, and roughly half of the contributions consists of new work specifically for this volume. The articles reflect diverse approaches to studying history. Each chapter concludes with questions for consideration that engage students across the spectrum of Bloom's taxonomy of learning, from recall of information to more substantive subjects that would make for excellent essay topics and compelling group discussions. …

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