Early Contact

[Jacques Cartier's men] had a cross made thirty feet high, which was put in the presence of a number of the Indians on the point at the entrance to this harbour, under the cross-bar of which we fixed a shield with three fleurs-de-lys in relief, and above it a wooden board, engraved in large Gothic characters, where was written, LONG LIVE THE KING OF FRANCE. We erected this cross on the point in their presence and they watched it bring put together and set up. When we had returned to the ships, the chief. . . arrived in a canoe. And pointing to the cross he made us a long harangue, making the sign of the cross with two of his fingers; and then he pointed to the land all around about, as if he wished to say that all this region belonged to him, and that we ought not to have set up the cross without his permission."
Jacque Cartier, 24 July 1534

"Columbus did not discover a new world, he established contact between two worlds, both already old."
J. H. Perry

"Every inch of penetration westwards by first the francophone and then the anglophones was dependent on Native support for guidance, food, tactics and negotiations."
John Ralston Saul, Reflections of a Siamese Twin

"The colonial period was a relentless, genocidal and violent ampaign against the people who sprung from this land."
Michelle Good, Truth Telling