438 HYBRIDITY AND ABSORPTION 



witliout wives, and readily entering into alliance "witli tlie native 

 women. The children of such unions were admitted to a perfect 

 equality with the Whites, when trained up in their settlements ; and 

 in the older period of French and English rivalry the Indians were 

 dealt with on very different terms from those with which they are 

 now regarded, though even yet some memory of older i-elations 

 survives. 



During the wars between the French and English colonists to the 

 north and south of the St. Lawrence, in the seventeenth and eighteenth 

 centuries, the alliance of neighbouring Indian tribes was courted; 

 and the traditions of the fidelity of the Hurons to the French, and 

 the loyalty of the Iroquois to the English, are cherished as incentives 

 to the fulfilment of obligations entered into on behalf of the little 

 remnant of the Huron nation remaining on the River St. Charles, 

 below Quebec ; and to a liberal and generous policy towards the Six 

 Nation Indians settled on the Grand River and elsewhere in Western 

 Canada. 



But also in the primitive simplicity of border life, the half-civilized 

 Indian and the rude settler meet on common ground; and in some 

 cases the friendly relations established between them have survived 

 the more settled condition of agricultural progress in the dealings. 

 In this respect the older colonists of Quebec fraternized far more 

 readily with the native population than has been the case with English 

 settlers. The relations in which the early French colonists stood to 

 the Indians of Lower Canada bore more resemblance to those of the 

 fur traders of the North-west in later times, and were of a kindlier 

 nature than those of the intrusive European emigrants of the present 

 century. Prior to the accession of Louis XIY. to the throne, the 

 French possessions in the New World had been regarded as little 

 more than a hunting ground to be turned to the same account as the 

 Hudson's Bay Company's territory ; and the peopling of Canada had 

 given little promise of permanent colonization. Priests and Nuns 

 alone varied the usual class of trading adventurers who resort to a' 

 young colony. But soon after the king reached his majority, a 

 systematic shipment of emigrants to Canada was organized under the 

 direction of Colbert ; sundry companies of soldiers were disbanded in 

 the colony; and then, at last, the necessity of finding wives for the 

 settlers was recognized. Thereupon a system of female emigration, 

 with bounties on marriage, was established. Colbert, writing to the 



