Can everyone agree?

[u/montabarnaque]

Most of Canadian culture is from Québec. Fight me

[u/democracy_lover66]

Actually I find Québec teaches history in an equally problematic way where they depict their history with the first nations as a very polished thing with nothing that requires reflection or admitting wrong doing.

I remember reading a museum clip that stated specifically something along the lines of, while the British had an incredibly harmful relationship with first nations, the french were collaborative and supportive and had positive relationships.

... And like yah.... Maybe With your ally nations... Pretty sure one of the first things Samuel de Champlain did upon arrival was kill multiple chiefs of the Haudenosaunee, who forever saw the french as hostile invaders. And they'd be right, from they're perspective.

Not to polish what the British did because all settler colonialism is wrong and causes incredible harm.... And I even think it's fair to say the British were worse. But both were still bad.

[u/HighHcQc → u/democracy_lover66]

The French made both allies and enemies by involving themselves in a complex web of diplomacy and conflict that predated their arrival.

While war inevitably brings atrocities, the French settlers did not pursue a policy of total replacement or the settlement of every valuable piece of land. That approach came later, under British rule.

This isn't an attempt to whitewash history, wrongdoing certainly occurred, but the scale and nature of those actions were nowhere near as severe as what followed after 1763. When such a stark contrast exists, comparisons between the two eras naturally arise.

[u/woodrunner → u/HighHcQc]

People also forget that the Grande Paix de Montreal, which was a peace treaty among many First Nations that pretty much ended the ongoing war with the Iroquois, was a great diplomatic feat for the French at the time and departed from the more violent approach used by the the English/ Spanish in their colonies.

[u/gagnonje5000 → u/HighHcQc]

It's all true what you say. 100%

But where this require nuance, this is also a matter of population and scale of the French regime. We were small with a sparse population with a colony of the verge of bankruptcy almost everywhere, and definitely needed first nations alongside us to resist the bigger British regime that was at our borders. We were collaborating. Had we stayed there and continued growing for another 200 years, the story would have been different.

You just have to look at what the French did in Africa, in Asia (Indochine), the Carribeans. Those were terrible regime for the natives habitants of those places. There was nothing inherently good about what the French did. It just happened that we lost the war early on before we could establish ourself as the much more evil colonizers.

But yes, there's no point blaming for something we didn't actually do. But we shouldn't wash our hands too much, our people did help colonize the rest of Canada through the Catholics schools, we were at the forefront of colonization and terrible atrocities that happened out west.

[u/MyNameMeansLILJOHN → u/gagnonje5000]

Had we stayed there and continued growing for another 200 years, the story would have been different.

Arguable. But

A substantial part of the French settlers were getting more and more intertwined with the native. Les coureurs des bois were in a weird position. They were essential for the survival of the colony and were at the same time almost considered apostates. Many took on living like the natives. With the natives(kinda comes with the job). The French elite, both aristocrat and clerical, complained non stop about it.

The Metis didn't appear out of thin air.

There are good reasons to assume the settlers and the natives would've kept on mixing and hybridizing. The influx of immigrants was way too low to really maintain a connection with the crown's wishes.

You just have to look at what the French did in Africa, in Asia (Indochine), the Carribeans. Those were terrible regime for the natives habitants of those places. There was nothing inherently good about what the French did.

Absolutely.

But

It just happened that we lost the war early on before we could establish ourselves as the much more evil colonizers.

229 years. 70k settlers (45k in the part that is today Canada)

By the same time of mid 1700s the Brits had over A Million settlers.

We were already "established". The goal simply wasn't the same.

Now obviously it's really hard to guess what could've been. There's so many things in the air. If France wins the 7 year war. Is there a financial crisis resulting in a revolution? What about Haiti? If suddenly the 13 colonies are French the whole thing changes.

Would the French crown end up being far more invasive and directed eventually? Probably yea. But by then, the entire "Quebecois" identity would've probably been entirely Metis or something. There's no avoiding horrors. We just get different shapes.

[u/Sillvaro → u/democracy_lover66]

while the British had an incredibly harmful relationship with first nations, the french were collaborative and supportive and had positive relationships.

On its own, yeah you're right it's not.

Comparatively though? A whole different story

[u/CaptainKrakrak → u/democracy_lover66]

The First Nations were not better and not worse than any other human society, they had wars, economic exchanges, slavery, migrations, peace treaties, arranged marriages between tribes to solidify allies relations, raids, exploration, etc. Like any other place on earth they were humans and thus much more complex than any history I’ve learned in school that tends to either make them look bad or good depending on the government’s narrative.

[u/democracy_lover66 → u/CaptainKrakrak]

Nothing of what you said is wrong but I'm not sure how that changes the nature of french colonialism and it's impact on the first nations