Labrador Inuit - History and Cultural Relations

Contacts with the Labrador Inuit before 1700 generally involved hostilities with European whalers and fishermen. Initial relations with French traders who began arriving in 1700 were also characterized by hostility, but eventually gave way to peaceful trade, with the Inuit supplying cod and seal to the trading posts in southern Labrador. From 1763 to 1949, the Inuit were in contact with the British, and over that period the culture was transformed from an isolated hunter-gatherer one to one reliant on European-Canadian society. The Moravian missionaries who established a mission in 1771 were a key influence, and effectively replaced the traditional religion with Christianity and involved the Inuit in a trading post-based settlement and economic system. After 1926 the Hudson's Bay Company replaced the mission store as the central trading post.

As regards the Inuit of Quebec, the first trading post was established near their territory in 1750. From then on, the Inuit were slowly drawn into the European-Canadian Economy, a process that was essentially completed by the twentieth century. Central players in this were the Anglican missionaries, the Hudson's Bay Company, and whaling and fishing stations. After 1900, the Inuit were caught in the middle of fur trade competition involving the Hudson's Bay Company and the French fur company, Révillon Frères, which further involved the Inuit in the fur trade.

Since the 1950s in Labrador and the 1960s in Quebec, the Inuit have been drawn further into European-Canadian society and enmeshed in an administrative and economic framework involving both the two provincial and the national governments. Among major changes are the formation of permanent communities, involvement in commercial fishing and wage labor, compulsory education, and English or French replacing Inuit as the primary language.