Four Accounts of Mi'kmaq People of Newfoundland

We do not often get the chance to look at the documents from which history is written. These documents can be found in government archives, at universities and sometimes in the library.

The following are four accounts of Mi'kmaq people in Newfoundland. They are taken from letters, reports, books and interviews written about Newfoundland from the 1 700s to the 1990s. Some of the old language is quite difficult to understand. The documents have been edited to make them easier to read.

As we have seen, it is important to know who wrote these accounts and why. Research and imagination have been used to try to give an idea of the point of view of the people who wrote about the Mi'kmaq.

It is always hard to write about people from another time or another culture. It is hard to imagine how they felt and what they thought about. This is true of the words written about Mi'kmaq people in the following documents. It is also true about the following attempts to write about the people who wrote about the Mi'kmaq. This is one of the challenges of history—to be critical of what we read. And to be aware of the biases of those who wrote about the events and people of the past.

Credit: Shane Kelley.
Man-of-War ships arriving St. John's harbour.