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Missionaries, Merchants and the Mi'kmaq Issues of Exchange in Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth-Century Acadia

To a substantial degree Europe entered North America through the doorway of Acadia where, in the sixteenth century, the French came into contact with the Mi'kmaq. Contact between these two groups was played out primarily within the arena of trade so that during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries the exchange of matter predominated their interaction. Despite this fact, the Mi'kmaq and French were possessed of antithetical notions concerning the meaning of trade itself and this divergence established what might be regarded as a European colonial pattern of regarding the New World of Acadia – a pattern with potentially devastating effects for the Mi'kmaq community. I refer to “matter” here as “that which forms a relationship among and between ourselves and other human beings and the created world,” and the exchange of matter as the primary mode by which human beings negotiate boundaries or perceived incompatibilities among themselves. In effect, negotiation of such boundaries constitutes recognition of the fundamental meaning of not only other humans but also of one’s relationship with them. The critical role played by exchange within the creation and maintenance of human community was a reality that the Mi'kmaq appear to have embraced at least from the time of earliest contact; this people possessed a basic understanding of the definitive character of exchange for