What do you want to be when you grow up? A question that is asked of children from the times they are in grade 4 till the day they finally have a career. When talking about 19th century British North America, the beginning of public school started in the ladder half of the century. The type of public schooling that occurred in this time in history was to prepare children to eventually work in the factories. There was no expression of freedom, you learn what you needed to know for a job you were expected to pursue. One comment that was made by our professor was that “how has schooling changed… or has it changed at all.” This made me really think about the ways that schools are ran. In my high school if you wanted to be something different than the “norm” you had to put matters into your own hands and take video conferencing courses and even online courses. If you did not want to put in the extra effort, students would take there English 12, and one senior science. Which for many people is okay, but for example me that was not okay. I don’t like to be normal, honestly I like to be the complete opposite. I want to push the boundaries of that I can be and the careers that I am able to accomplish.
Category: Reflections On the Past
When we talk relationships in New France between First Nations and European we think of European men and Firsts nations women. During my seminar this week there was an interesting question posed by another student which was; “we often hear about European men and first nations women but did European women and First Nations men every have relations?” I found this to be an interesting questions because we rarely ever think about these types of questions. Tracy, our professor had one person come to mind and that was Joseph Brant. Me, being a person who never likes to have a question unanswered started to research him. I found out that he had quite and interesting story.
Brant did in fact marry a European woman. The tale of how they found each other was quite a tangled web. Brant had not one but three wives. The first wife was a non aboriginal woman named Peggy. Peggy was taken captive when young by Native Americans. She was forced to assimilate with the Northwest First Nations. Joseph and Paggy had two children children before Peggy passed away of tuberculosis.
Brants second wife was Suzanna who was a Peggy’s half sister. When requesting marriage from the Church of England was denied due to close kinship. Brant had to go to German minister to marry them. Shortly after Suzanna dies of tuberculosis.
Brants third and final wife was Catherine Croghan, who was the daughter of a Irish Indian Agent father and mohawk mother. Croghan and Brant had seven children.
I found this tangled web very interesting, I don’t think that many people have thought about First Nations men and European women but it did in fact happen. Sometimes three times from he same men. I think that history has to be looked at from not only a woman’s point of view but from a man’s as well.
References
When I think of history I think of many different things. I think about all the historic events and people that made Canada the history rich country it is today. People often think of history as events that have happened when really a huge part of history is about the people who lived those experiences. One of the reasons I love history is because everybody sees history through a different lens, when reading an article almost everybody interprets the information in a slightly different way. Another interesting question that was posed to me was “how do you do History.” In my eyes doing history is just to learn about what happened in the past. I think that statement “history repeats itself” is incredible true, and unless we want to relive some of the most awful moments in history we have to learn how and why they happened.