History
At the time of European encounter, the Wolastoqiyik were a primarily agrarian people who supplemented their diets by hunting, fishing and gathering fruits, berries, nuts and natural produce. Their headquarters was Meductic, on the Saint John River.
The French explorers were the first to establish a fur trade with them that became important through their territory. Some European goods were desired because they were useful to Wolastoqiyik agriculture and hunting. The French Jesuits also established missions, where some Wolastoqiyik converted to Catholicism; with years of colonialism, many learned the French language. The French called them Malecite, adapting the name they had been told by other tribes.
Read more about this topic: Maliseet People
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man’s judgement.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
“In the history of the human mind, these glowing and ruddy fables precede the noonday thoughts of men, as Aurora the sun’s rays. The matutine intellect of the poet, keeping in advance of the glare of philosophy, always dwells in this auroral atmosphere.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)