We Were Not the Savages: A Micmac Perspective on the Collision of European and Aboriginal Civilization

J.R. Miller is a professor of history at the University of Saskatchewan,
the author of Skyscrapers Hide in the Heavens: A History of
Indian–White Relations in Canada, and co-editor of The Canadian
Historical Review.

We Were Not the Savages is a welcome example of a growing literary trend
in Canada: works by Native authors on the history of their nations.
Micmac Daniel Paul has combined his experience as an employee of the
Department of Indian Affairs (1971-86) with a selective reading of
published works to recount the history of “The People,” as he terms
the Micmac throughout, and their interactions with French, British, and
Canadians. His powerfully polemical treatment does an effective job of
sustaining his contention that “The People” were not the savages.

The greatest strengths of Paul’s account are its treatment of the
French regime in the 17th century and the complex story of Micmac
relations with the colonial and Canadian state since the 1940s.
Especially notable in the passages on the early period are his depiction
of Micmac society (particularly governance and leadership) and its
motivation for welcoming and befriending the European newcomers. It was
their deeply ingrained civility, he argues persuasively, that led “The
People” to follow what other, more cynical Native observers have
sometimes described as the fatal “immigration policy” of the Micmac.
The material on the period from the mid-19th century to the present is
also very good, particularly that dealing with the last quarter-century
when the author himself was intimately involved in Micmac-government
relations.

Less successful are the lengthy sections that deal with the 18th
century in general, and Micmac-British relations in particular. Daniel
Paul passionately dislikes British military and colonial policy, and
that passion sometimes gets in the way of interpreting historic events
fairly. His lengthy denunciations of British policy—and, admittedly,
many aspects of that policy were barbaric—fail to take into account
the fact that English commanders were usually operating in a wartime
setting, and amidst a Native population that was allied militarily and
linked religiously with the enemy French.

Other shortcomings are the length of the book (reducing it by a quarter
would have made it just as compelling, but more readable), the lengthy
direct quotations from innumerable documents (these could easily have
been abbreviated), and the many repetitions, all of which could have
been avoided with tighter editing. Despite its shortcoming, this book
can and should be read with profit by anyone interested in the history
of the Micmac and their relations with the strangers that civility,
perhaps mistakenly, caused them to welcome to their shores.