1. A New Perspective on Development -- 2. At the Brink of Transition: Inuit Relationships at First Contact -- 3. Explorers and Itinerant Traders -- 4. The Whalers: Indigenous Practices Are Both Bolstered and Undermined -- 5. Traders, Missionaries, and Police: A Community of Interest -- 6. Economic, Ideological, and Political Transformation -- 7. The Little Colombo Plan: The State Makes Its Presence Felt -- 8. The State Organizes Cooperatives for Eskimos -- 9. Canadian Arctic Producers: "A Business of Which There are Few Parallels" -- 10. Quebec Pursues a Separate Destiny -- 11. The Federal Government as Promoter and Gatekeeper of Inuit Art -- 12. The Northwest Territories Cooperatives Federate; Inuit Producers Gain Control of CAP, and Dorset Defects -- 13. Convergence: CAP and CACFL Amalgamate and Quebec and the NWT Shake Hands -- 14. Hunters Become Producers of Arts and Crafts: The Effect of the Cooperative on Inuit Work and Means of Production
Summary
From Talking Chiefs to a Native Corporate Elite traces the development of class relations and collective identity among Canadian Inuit over several centuries of contact with Western capitalism. Marybelle Mitchell provides a complete history of Inuit-white relations, starting with the first contact with European explorers in the sixteenth century and ending with ratification of the Nunavut proposal to create an Inuit homeland through division of the Northwest Territories
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 489-515) and index