Considering the Impact on Issues or Events

Session One

Introduce Aboriginal dominance in North America.

• Display an overhead transparency of the map Aboriginal and European Presence around 1650 (Background Information). Point out all the major Aboriginal peoples that surrounded the few tiny European settlements at the time. Remind students that North America was occupied by a number of large and powerful ancient cultures when the Europeans arrived in what became New France in the 16 th century.

Discuss eventual European dominance

• Ask the class why, if Aboriginal populations lived in North America before any others and greatly outnumbered early European settlers, we are not now living according to Aboriginal laws, in Aboriginal-style shelters and following Aboriginal religious practices. Record students' answers on the board. The following ideas might be included.
  • Europeans had technology, such as guns, to overpower Aboriginal people.
  • Aboriginal people wanted to improve their living conditions and adopted what they felt were superior ways of life.
  • Disease killed off most of the Aboriginal populations.
  • Aboriginal people were persuaded or forced to believe in the Christian God and the rest of the cultural practices followed.

Introduce colonization.

• Explain that the emergent dominance of non-Aboriginal culture stems, in large measure, from a difference in motivation between the Europeans who came to North America 500 years ago and the immigrants who arrive today. This difference is captured in the distinction between immigrants and colonizers.
  • Immigration: The movement of people, such as present-day Europeans moving to Canada, into a new area with the intent of participating in its culture, society and economy, and abiding by its laws.
  • Colonization: The movement of people, such as the French and English in the 17 th century, into a new area with the intent of developing the economy, religion and culture primarily for the benefit of its members back home.

Identify colonizing strategies.

• Invite students to imagine they are in charge of colonizing New France. Ask students to suggest strategies they might employ. On the board or the overhead, compile a list of suggestions, labelled Colonizing Strategies. This list is likely to include the following:
  • increase the foreign population
  • develop European-style social institutions; e.g., schools, churches
  • create or control a local economy
  • learn about the territory
  • assimilate the Aboriginal peoples
  • eliminate the Aboriginal peoples.


Ensure that students understand the difference between assimilation and elimination. With assimilation, the local people are amalgamated into the colonizing culture and, with elimination, the local people are killed or driven away. Explain that the root of assimilation is similar; when one assimilates, he or she becomes similar to someone else. Often historians discuss assimilation as one group's acceptance (voluntary or enforced) of the cultural traits normally associated with another group. Point out how students are assimilated into (not destroyed by) the culture of middle/high school when they make the transition from elementary school. To survive in these new surroundings, students change their language, adjust their fashions and learn new routines; e.g., homeroom, lockers, timetables, course electives.

Illustrate colonizing influences.

• Explain that historians believe that two major groups of people–traders and missionaries–affected the mass settlement or colonization of North America by non-Aboriginals, but they do not agree which group had the greater impact. Display an overhead of Colonizing Effects and walk through an example of one of the colonizing strategies–the elimination of Aboriginal peoples. Draw students' attention to evidence of the ways each group may have contributed to or reduced the elimination of Aboriginal peoples.  

Colonizing Effects 

Record evidence about effects.

• Divide the class into teams of three students. Distribute a copy of the briefing sheets, Traders and Missionaries and Colonizing Effects, to each team. Ask students to read these sheets, looking for evidence of the colonizing effects of both the fur traders and missionaries. As a team, students should record this information next to the relevant indicator of colonization. Remind students to record evidence of factors that aided and slowed colonization. Suggest to students that they ignore the rating scale (i.e., -2 to +2) until after they have shared their evidence with fellow students.