Canadian Race Relations Foundation

'Race and Gender' is a compilation of articles that focus primarily on American colonialism, from the beginning of the seventeenth century until northern colonialism or the 1775-1783 revolution. Therefore, the articles explore the complex issues of race and gender and social change during the colonial era. The authors focus on the history of men and women, race and the question of race, and cultural identity. Other articles touch upon the Six Nations Indians, masculine nature of the Fur Trade, Canada’s Black population, education, and midwifery.

Historians in recent years have given far more attention to the role of black Americans and Indian Americans in the revolution. We know now, as Indians have always known, that Indians fought, bled, and died to make the white man free. We know also that other Indians fought, suffered, and eventually lost their homes and their lands as loyal allies of King George III. And, we know that, tragically, Indian nations were frequently divided among themselves during that war - brother against brother. (p. 175). Recent historical studies of the mixed blood people of western Canada have concluded that within this broad category, there were specific groups that can be differentiated on the basis of ethnicity, religion, and class. In the period before 1870, there was a discernible Anglophone mixed blood groups, sometimes known as the 'country-born.' (p. 389).