After crossing to Alaska fifteen thousand years would pass before the flow of nomads finally slowed and stopped on the barren rocks of Patagonia. The migrants belonged to either of two distinct families: Indian or Inuit. They resembled each other in the colour of their skin which ranged from brown to yellow but not red. The First Nations owed their allegiance to their family, their band, their village, their tribe and in the case of several tribes, their confederacy. Families grew into clans and clans into tribes and depending on their access to good hunting and fishing. They occupied defined territories which they claimed as their exclusive property. The lands belonged to the tribe collectively and were not divided among its members all of whom had equal rights. Strangers were not welcome. There was no concept of a pan-Indian idenity. Each tribe spoke its own language and regarded its members as "the people." This absence of a recognized common lineage was a significant factor in the Natives' failure to resist the European onslaught. This critical factor was worsened by: their growing reliance on European manufactured products (metal awls, needles and kettles, iron arrowheads and axes); the fur-trade rivalries; the colonial …show more content…
Lawarence River shared similarities with the Micmac, but spoke a different language. Their economy was based on inland resouces like fresh water fish and caribou. They and the Micmacs, who were allies of the French, had common enemies - the Mohawk and later the English. The Montagnais lived in eastern Quebec and their close kinsmen, the Naskapi, in the eastern half of the Labrador peninsula. The Algonkins lived between the Ottawa and the St.Maurice Rivers; the Ojibwa in northern Ontario; the Cree from about the middle of the Labrador peninsula westward to the prairies; the Beothuk in Newfoundland. The Micmac were allies of the Maecites and enemies of the