260 
there was a shortage of women in the new colony, and Indian girls 
trained in the convents made excellent wives for isolated farmers and 
fur traders. Intermarriage was, thei’efore, very freciuent in French 
Canada, the more frequent because the French, like the Spanish and 
south Kuropeans generally, have never developed the extreme preju- 
dice against racial admixture that characterizes the north Europeans. 
Fhese conditions endured with little change for over a hundred and 
fifty years, allowing racial blending and acculturation to increase 
with each succeeding generation until most of the descendants of 
these eastern Indians became entirely absorbed into the white race, 
or so completely lost their original characteristics that they were no 
longer distinguishable. If considerable numbers still cling to the 
reserves that were allotted to them long ago, it is not because they 
are in most cases incapable of holding their own under modern con- 
ditions, but because as wards of the government they enjoy certain 
economic advantages which they would lose by accepting citizenshi]:). 
File tribes north of the St. Lawrence, and the (Jjibwa bands 
north of the Great Lakes, have readjusted their lives less perfectly. 
Their territories were heavily forested, permitting of agriculture only 
in certain localities, and then only after extensive clearing. The fur 
trade kept them moderately prosperous in earlier days, but the game 
has greatly diminished since white trappers have encroached on their 
domains, prospectors, mining and lumber companies have invaderl 
tlie region, aiul finally the railways have driven thin lines of settle- 
ments through some of the best hunting-grounds. So trajiping brings 
in ever dwindling returns, while the needs of the Indians have in- 
creased rather than decreased. The enterprising white man despises 
them for their improgressiveness, and mining and lumber camps 
undermine both their morale ami their morals. Miscegenation occurs 
slowly, but only with the lowest class of whites who bring about no 
improvement. So civilization, as it flows past tlieir doors, seems to 
be enti-apping them in a backwash that leaves only one issue, the 
absorption of a few families into the aggressive white race and the 
decline and extinction of the remainder. 
The plains’ tribes did not incur the full ])ressure of the European 
invasion until the second half of the nineteenth century, when small 
farming communities wore springing up along the old trading routes, 
the antelope and buffalo were disappearing, and a railway threatened 
