32 
Pinally, iron and gunpowder gave him the muzzle-loading gun, 
which was infinitely more effective for war and the chase than 
the Indian^s bow and arrow. Gun, steel hatchet, and steel knife, 
these three things by themselves gave the French-Canadian an 
immeasurable advantage, as we can see from their effect on the 
Indian tribes that first acquired them. Thus a handful of Micmac 
who crossed from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland early in the 
eighteenth century quickly exterminated with their muzzle-loading 
guns the unhappy Beothuk, whose feeble bows and arrows gave 
no chance of effective resistance. The Iroquois, equipped with 
hatchets and guns by the Dutch colonists in Pennsylvania, easily 
drove the Huron tribes from their homeland around lake Simcoe; 
and the previously insignificant Cree marched northwest from the 
hinterland of James bay, and raided the whole valley of the Mac- 
kenzie river, driving before them the unfortunate tribes that had 
been too remote from Hudson bay to secure firearms from the early 
trading posts. ^ 
No tribe in the New World, again, not even the highly civilized 
Maya and Inca peoples of Central America and Peru, was acquainted 
with the practical applications of the wheel,- which the French-Can- 
adian settler turned to many uses. The carriage wheel gave him 
rapid and easy transportation ; the water-wheel ground his corn ; the 
windmill pumped his water; the spinning-wheel twisted his yarn; 
the potter’s wheel facilitated the shaping of his household vessels; 
and the pulley increased his capacity for moving heavy weights. 
The Indian relied on man-power alone. Pie ground his corn with a 
pestle and mortar, twisted by hand the little yarn he made, and 
fashioned his pottery either by building it up in short strips (coiling), 
or by the still cruder process of hollowing out the stationary mass 
by hand.^ 
We should not forget, also, one other great difference between 
the French-Canadian immigrant and the Indian whom he dispos- 
sessed. During the first two hundred years of colonization the 
1 C/. also Kelsey’s description of the Crec attackin'; the Blackfoot: “Their enemies, many whom 
they cannot rout. But now of late they hunt their enemies. And with our English guns do make 
v'm tlie.’’ The Kelsey Papers, with an introduction hy Arthur G, Doughty and Chester Marlin, 
Published by the Public Archives of Canada and the Pul, lie Record OlTice of North Ireland, Ottawa, 
1929. p. 3f. 
- Many tribes used a wooden hoop in games. 
3 Although few immigrants were scholais, writing yet preser\ed for them the ancient lore anrl trans- 
mitted a knowledge of new diseoveries. Probably many Indian inventions failed to take root because 
they could be inipartetl only orally. 
