Mi'kmaq Distitution

By Daniel N. Paul, April 7, 2003

Abraham Gesner became Indian Commisioner after Joseph Howe. Although, like Howe, a believer in the supremacy of European based civilization values he was, also like him, compassionate. His reports were just as condemning of English neglect. In fact he also predicted, without generous assistance forthcoming from the government, that the end of the Mi'kmaq was probable. He made the following comments in 1847:

"Unless the progress of their annihilation is soon arrested, the time is close at hand, when ... the last of their race, to use their own idea, "will sleep with the bones of their fathers." Unless the vices and diseases of civilization are speedily arrested, the Indians ... will soon be as the Red Men of Newfoundland, or other Tribes of the West, whose existence is forever blotted out from the face of the Earth."

A few quotes from "The Best of Abraham Gesner" by Allison Mitcham, Lancelot Press, Hantsport, Nova Scotia, ISBN 0-88999 585 0:

"Diminuation of numbers and the final extinction of a savage race, yielding their territory up to civilized occupants, is a feature not peculiar to America. It might be supposed that after their wars... and encounters with the whites had terminated, the Aborigines would multiply, yet experience has proved exactly the reverse. Among the most prominent causes of the decrease of the natives has been the introduction of European diseases. Exposed to the inclemency of the weather, and destitute of the proper diet and treatment required for contagious diseases, numbers are swept off annually by complaint unknown to them in their state...."

"...From the clearing and occupation of the forests, the wild domain of the moose and caribou has been narrowed. Being hunted by the dogs of the back settlers, these animals have become scarce - thus the Indian has been deprived of his principal subsistence, as well as the warm furs that in olden times lined his wigwam. Indigenous roots once highly prized for food have been destroyed by domestic animals.... These united causes have operated fearfully, and have reduced the whole tribe to the extreme of misery and wretchedness..."

"...Almost the whole Micmac population are now vagrants, who wander from place to place, and door to door, seeking alms. The aged and infirm are supplied with written briefs upon which they place much reliance. They are clad in filthy rags. Necessity often compels them to consume putrid and unwholesome food. The offal of the slaughter-house is their portion. Their camps or wigwams are seldom comfortable, and in winter, at places where they are not permitted to cut wood, they suffer from the cold. The sufferings of the sick and infirm surpass description, and from the lack of a humble degree of accommodation, almost every case of disease proves fatal. In almost every encampment are seen the crippled, the deaf, the blind, the helpless orphan, with individuals lingering in consumption, which spares neither young or old. During my inquires into the actual state of these people in June last, I found four orphan children who were unable to rise for the want of food - whole families were subsisting upon wild roots and eels, and the withered features of others told too plainly to be misunderstood that they had nearly approached starvation...."

St George's Bay Mi'kmaq

Mi'kmaq Distitution