The movement of one cultural group into the territory of another has always produced conflict: a conflict which is resolved at times by the obliteration of one group, but more often by a gradual fusion of elements drawn from both. This study examines the conflict between the Europeans and the Indians precipitated by the arrival of the French in the New World. The Indians were necessarily affected by the fur trade and the religious and social development of New France, and the meeting of contrary cultures resulted in most cases in the obliteration of that of the Indian. However, a fusion of Indian and European elements sometimes occurred, resulting in the birth of a ‘Canadian’ culture. The process has been repeated with the immigration of every new cultural group to Canada.

This study analyses the conflict and traces the fusion of Canadian culture in its initial stage. First published in 1937, the book has proved an importance contribution to an area of early Canadian history which has been receiving renewed attention. This edition contains the original text with the addition of an index and a new chapter appraising some of the leading developments of the past few years.

Alfred G. Bailey (1905-1997) was an ethnohistorian, anthropologist, university builder and administrator, and among the first of Canada's "modernist" poets. He was Honorary Librarian and CEO of the University of New Brunswick Library from 1946 to 1959. From 1946 to 1964, he was the first Dean of Arts at UNB, and from 1965 to 1969, he was Vice President Academic. He retired in 1970.

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‘The book has not been superseded since its first publication…It remains the major study of the subject, a useful reference work, and point of departure for honors and graduate students.’

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‘In 1937, for the first time, a Canadian historian produced a realistic, historical presentation of the Canadian Indian by combining anthropology and history…he sketched out the entire cultural interplay between the French and the Eastern Algonkians, a crucial period in which racial relations passed from equality to dependence…[it] still remains the best account of cultural conflict in early Canadian history.’

Ethnohistory