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that it was to be peace by
subjugation. The very nature of written treaties was an alien
concept to the North Americans and the document itself had been
translated from English into French, but not into the many Native
languages. The Mi’kmaq leaders thought they were signing an
agreement of cooperation and peace, not a deal surrendering the
rights to their lands. Whatever was agreed to, little tangible
peace came from it. By 1744 all-out war was declared on the Mi’kmaq
by Nova Scotia and New England. Governor William Shirley of
Massachusetts offered money for the scalps of Native people. Again
and again the English leaders would find excuses, often based on
false information, to offer money for Mi’kmaq scalps, encouraging
the wholesale slaughterC of men, women and children for reward from
the Crown.
        In 1760, the Mi’kmaq were again forced to sign a treaty that
would lead them into further poverty and a loss of their land
rights. In 1763, General Jeffrey Amherst proposed to deal with the
“Indian problem” by “inoculating” them by means of blankets. And so
blankets infected with the smallpox from dead or dying soldiers
were distributed to Mi’kmaq families. Amherst and his associates
knew how deadly European diseases could be for the pMi’kmaq and he
had determined the perfect treachery to kill off hundreds of the
feared “savages” without incurring any danger to his men. Unaware
of the deadly nature of the blankets, the local Mi’kmaq accepted
this surprising token of English generosity with
gratitude.
        One of Nova Scotia’s greatest political figures, Joseph Howe,
would be struck by the immense horror of what had happened to these
once proud people. But his efforts could not offset the disaster
that had already occurred. Upon Confederation in 1867, the Native
people became the responsibility of the federal government, which
adopted a paternalistic role. While not as deadly as infected
blankets, the more modern tactics of integrating Mi’kmaq people
into white society would continue to foster physical and spiritual
hardships.
     

Chapter 5
    Chapter 5

     
    St. Brendan’s Isle
    By contemporary standards, we have
come to accept the whole idea of the “discovery” of North America
by Europeans as preposterous. The Mi’kmaq had obviously “found” a
home in Nova Scotia long before anyone else came along. Over
generations their ancestors had travelled here from Asia. Various
European explorers as well made their way here long before those
who would attempt permanent settlements. These brave voyagers of
the distant past remain obscure but not forgotten. Given the
tenuous proof concerning the journeys of John Cabot, who seems to
garner a lot of credit for “finding” this place in 1497, it would
not be fair to write off the claims of the Irish, the Welsh and the
Orkneymen who may have come across the Atlantic long before Cabot’s
official journey.
        The Irish, for example, were adventurous seafarers and by the
eighth century had sailed far to the north and west in the
Atlantic. When the Norse arrived in Iceland in 870, they found an
Irish monk already living there. Other Irish had settled there as
well. One traditional tale relates that the Irish fled the hostile,
heathen Norsemen and sailed on somewhere else for a little peace
and quiet. They may have gone to Greenland to settle peaceably
among the Native people there or even as far as the shores of the
Gulf of St. Lawrence.
        The only further “evidence” of these Irish settlers in the
New World is the Irish legend of the Icelandic merchant, Gudleifr
Gunnlaugsson. He left Dublin in a ship and was caught up in storms
that drove him far away to a land in the west, where he was
captured by an unknown people of tinted skin. These people debated
(in Gaelic!) whether or not they should kill what they saw to be a
troublesome Norseman. An elderly white man came to Gunnlaugsson’s
rescue and set him free, then bid him farewell