Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal LifeIn arresting, but harrowing, prose, James Daschuk examines the roles that Old World diseases, climate, and, most disturbingly, Canadian politics--the politics of ethnocide--played in the deaths and subjugation of thousands of aboriginal people in the realization of Sir John A. Macdonald's "National Dream." It was a dream that came at great expense: the present disparity in health and economic well-being between First Nations and non-Native populations, and the lingering racism and misunderstanding that permeates the national consciousness to this day. "Clearing the Plains is a tour de force that dismantles and destroys the view that Canada has a special claim to humanity in its treatment of indigenous peoples. Daschuk shows how infectious disease and state-supported starvation combined to create a creeping, relentless catastrophe that persists to the present day. The prose is gripping, the analysis is incisive, and the narrative is so chilling that it leaves its reader stunned and disturbed. For days after reading it, I was unable to shake a profound sense of sorrow. This is fearless, evidence-driven history at its finest." -Elizabeth A. Fenn, author of Pox Americana "Required reading for all Canadians." -Candace Savage, author of A Geography of Blood "Clearly written, deeply researched, and properly contextualized history...Essential reading for everyone interested in the history of indigenous North America." -J.R. McNeill, author of Mosquito Empires |
Contents
Indigenous Health Environment and Disease before Europeans | 1 |
Territorial Dislocation and Disease | 11 |
Early Competition and the Extension of Trade and Disease 174082 | 27 |
Despair and Death during the Fur Trade Wars 17831821 | 41 |
Expansion of Settlement | 59 |
Erosion of Health during the HBC Monopoly 182169 | 69 |
Canada the Northwest and the Treaty Period 186976 | 79 |
Treaties Famine and Epidemic Transition on the Plains 187782 | 99 |
Other editions - View all
Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of ... James Daschuk No preview available - 2019 |
Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of ... James Daschuk No preview available - 2019 |
Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of ... James Daschuk No preview available - 2014 |
Common terms and phrases
aboriginal Alberta Anishinabe Archaeology Assiniboine Athabasca band Battleford Beaver bison Blackfoot Boreal Forest Buffalo Calgary century Chief Chipewyan communities Cumberland House Dakota David death decade disease dominion Dunneza early economic Edgar Dewdney edited Edmonton Ethnohistory European famine Fort Macleod Fur Trade Glenbow Archives groups Hackett HBCA House Post Journals Hudson House Hudson's Bay Company hunger hunting Ibid Indian Affairs Indian Agent Indian Reserve infection James John Lake Land Macdonald Mackenzie Manitoba Press McDougall measles Medicine that Walks Métis microfilm Missouri Montreal mortality Nations Niitsitapi North American North-West Mounted Police Northern Plains Northwest Ojibwa Ottawa outbreak Papers Plains Cree Prairie Forum Qu’Appelle Red River Regina region Remarkable Sickness reported reserve population Rupert's Land Saskatchewan Herald Saskatchewan River Sioux smallpox Smallpox Epidemic Society spread starvation Subarctic territory Toronto Press tuberculosis University of Manitoba University of Toronto University Press Western Canada Winnipeg winter