CANADA'S INDIAN PROBLEMS^ — JENNESS 379 



In the cases of segregation just noted there is no intention, explicit 

 or implicit, to encourage any merging of the protected races with their 

 protectors, because white people, particularly those of Anglo-Saxon 

 and Teutonic stocks, have strong prejudices against intermarriage 

 with colored peoples. (Japan, we may notice in passing, likewise 

 discourages the intermarriage of her nationals with the Ainu). But 

 when Denmark insulated the Eskimo of Greenland, and the United 

 States and Canada placed their Indians on reserves, not only did they 

 aim to raise the Greenlanders and the Indians up to the white man's 

 cultural level, but they looked forward quite frankly to ultimate 

 amalgamation. There was no color bar to prevent this amalgamation, 

 no prejudices other than the economic and cultural. The natives were 

 expected to mingle with the whites on equal terms as soon as they 

 reached maturity and gradually to merge their blood. Hence the 

 insulation or segregation of these peoples is merely a temporary expe- 

 dient equivalent to the placing of orphan children in training institu- 

 tions; it is a very different measure from the segregation of the Bantu 

 and Bushmen tribes in Africa, or of the blacks in Australia. 



It would be wrong to suppose that this segregation or insulation of 

 the Indians and Eskimo aimed at eliminating every trace of their old 

 cultures and blotting out their languages. Both peoples have already 

 enriched our civilization in many ways, and may conceivably enrich 

 it still further. In educating them to play a part in the economic and 

 cultural activities of the modern world we desire to eliminate only 

 such features of their former life as definitely hinder their progress 

 and render them less adaptable. Accordingly, in Greenland, Denmark 

 has promoted the use of the Eskimo language and the hunting of 

 seals in kayaks ; but she has also enforced the study of the Danish lan- 

 guage and culture, has developed fishing into a large-scale industry, 

 and, wherever possible, fostered new activities such as the breeding 

 of sheep and goats to raise the economic level. 



Canada's administration of her Eskimo has the same ultimate aim 

 as the Danish, even though from geographical reasons it necessarily 

 follows a different course. Greenland is an island that until recently 

 was accessible only by sea during a few months of the year, and it 

 lacks any large deposits of minerals except some relatively unimportant 

 cryolite beds. Only its sealing had any attraction for foreigners, and 

 that was located largely off the uninhabited northeast coast. In closing 

 the country to foreign traffic, therefore, Denmark ran no risk of inter- 

 national complications, and in closing it to her own people she aroused 

 jio internal dissension, because it was not a field for colonization or for 

 any enterprise that looked for profits. Whether it has been closed long 

 enough, and whether the Greenlanders, now admittedly more Euro- 

 pean than Eskimo, can successfully administer their own affairs, is a 



