The Canadian treatment of the Indians in the western provinces was also marked by an absence of the bloody wars which characterized our westward advance. The only uprising against the Whites was the Riel Rebellion in Manitoba, in 1869, which was by the half-breeds rather than by the Indians and which had special underlying causes. All this has been accomplished without the Whites in any way fraternizing with the Indians.
During the French period, the Canadian Indians always sided with the French against the English, because under the influence of the Catholic priests, the French Indian half-breed was regarded as a Frenchman and, as a result, influenced his mother's people in favor of the ruling race.
There were plenty of offspring of white frontiersmen and Indian squaws all along our frontier, but these half breeds were everywhere kicked out and despised as Indians. This attitude toward the lower race has always characterized our American frontier and while very unpopular with the natives, has served to keep the White race unmixed, in sharp contrast to the French and Spanish colonies.
Canada still has more than 100,000 Indians, four times as many in proportion to the whole population, as in the United States.
Newfoundland, for geographical reasons, even though it has politically no relation to Canada, is the most convenient starting point in reviewing in more detail the subdivisions of the country.
Larger than Ireland, the island claims to be the "senior colony" of the British Commonwealth. John Cabot, a Genoese, sailing from Bristol, discovered it in 1497, according to the traditional account, and took possession of it in the name of Henry VII. Within a few years fishermen, not merely English but French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Basque, were landing there to dry and cure the enormous quantities of cod caught on the Great Banks, which still form the principal wealth of the colony. In fact, some writers believe that the island may have been discovered long before the time of Columbus, by fishermen. At any rate, the effective occupation, though scarcely the continuous settlement of Newfoundland, long antedated the colonization of Virginia and many of the original English residents came from Devonshire.
The aboriginal inhabitants, the Beothics, disappeared half a century ago. They were probably Eskimos, or closely related to them, and are sometimes spoken of as "Red" Indians, in contrast to the "Black" Indians, the Micmacs, who have recently immigrated in small numbers from New Brunswick.
Newfoundland has nearly a quarter of a million inhabitants, but its backward stage of development still makes it little known to the outside world.
On the mainland a long strip of the Atlantic Coast and a large triangle of land behind it are attached to Newfoundland administratively, under the name of Labrador. Because of its scanty population it may well be disregarded in the present discussion.