An Annotated Bibliography of Major Writings in Aboriginal History, 1990-99

Abstract

In the fall of 1999 long simmering tensions between Native and non-Native Maritime fishers reached a breaking point following the Supreme Court’s Marshall decision affirming the region’s Aboriginal fishery. Mi’kmaq leaders insisted that the federal government’s regulatory policies quickly adjust to accommodate the recognition of their treaty fishing and hunting rights, whereas non-Native fishers accused the court and the federal government of betrayal in their apparent unwillingness to look after the public interest. Violence followed, resulting in the destruction of Mi’kmaq lobster traps and the vandalizing of processing plants. These events, derived from conflicting interpretations of historical treaties and their contemporary expression, are but one recent development in the long-standing debate over the role and meaning of Aboriginal history in Canada. As the Marshall decision reveals, many Canadians do not support the idea of Aboriginal rights, while many others do not understand the meaning of the term. Outside the realm of Native rights, courtroom dramas over allegations of residential school abuse make clear to all the financial and moral costs of ignoring past statesanctioned injustices against both Aboriginal groups and individuals. As Native leaders have long argued (and as many historians must be pleased to hear), diffusing the cross-cultural tensions requires dialogue and mediation, built on a solid base of carefully contextualized historical knowledge. Over the past decade, as more and more court decisions have reaffirmed long-denied Aboriginal rights and exposed long-hidden abuses, historians have come to play an increasingly important, if not always appreciated, public role. The responsibility this role places on historians is ominous yet stirring, for what scholars of Native