The Cree after 1500
Cree man
In the 1500's AD, people
who called themselves the Eenou lived in the northern part of North
America, around what is now the border between the United States and
Canada. Modern historians call them the Cree. They mostly lived in the forests
of what is now Minnesota and Wisconsin. These people got their food by hunting
and gathering. They hunted
mainly deer and rabbits and fish,
and they gathered wild rice along the riverbanks and fruit in the forest. As they travelled around
harvesting their food, the Cree people lived in big tents called tipis made
of wooden poles and buffalo skins. They travelled up and down the rivers
in canoes.
During the 1600's and 1700's, some of the Cree people
decided to change how they were living. While some Cree people stayed in
the forest, others saw opportunities for a new life on the Great Plains
(modern North and South Dakota and Montana). They left to live there, hunting
buffalo. They got guns and horses
from European traders, and they used them in wars against the Sioux
and the Blackfoot, though at other times the
Cree were allies of the Sioux. In return, Cree traders sold all kinds of
furs to the Europeans.
But like other people in North America at this time, the Cree had no immunity to smallpox, and when they caught smallpox from these traders (or maybe from other Native American people), most of them died. The ones who had stayed in the forest died, and so did the ones who had moved to the Great Plains. Only a few people of the Cree survived, though more than some other groups of people.
The Cree that were still alive in the 1800's ended up spending more and more time with European settlers, as more and more Europeans came to live in what had been the country of the Cree. Many Cree people married French settlers.
One of the European men who came, a missionary named James Evans, invented a way to write the Cree language. Soon many Cree people could read and write, and they wrote down their stories and their ideas. But by the 1900's the Cree people held only a small amount of their old land, where many people of the Cree nation still live today.
But like other people in North America at this time, the Cree had no immunity to smallpox, and when they caught smallpox from these traders (or maybe from other Native American people), most of them died. The ones who had stayed in the forest died, and so did the ones who had moved to the Great Plains. Only a few people of the Cree survived, though more than some other groups of people.
The Cree that were still alive in the 1800's ended up spending more and more time with European settlers, as more and more Europeans came to live in what had been the country of the Cree. Many Cree people married French settlers.
One of the European men who came, a missionary named James Evans, invented a way to write the Cree language. Soon many Cree people could read and write, and they wrote down their stories and their ideas. But by the 1900's the Cree people held only a small amount of their old land, where many people of the Cree nation still live today.
