 There was both conflict and cooperation between the Europeans and the native people.  Early European settlers in North America took over the land of indigenous peoples, the people who were natives of North America.

 Indigenous people were forced off their land but they continued to work hard to hold onto their cultural identity and to regain their rights.  Today, new laws in Canada allow indigenous peoples to use their own languages in their schools, and native people are working to have their own languages on street signs in their communities.  The Inuit, nomadic hunters, lived in the Arctic. They had great survival skills and were fine craftsmen and artists.  In the 1990s the Inuit people convinced the Canadian government to grant them a vast section of land called Nunavut or “Our Land”  D

 In the 1700s as more and more settlers came to the united states, Native American people were squeezed into smaller and smaller areas of land. By the late 1800’s many groups were forcibly moved to and confined on reservation land under the control of the government.  During the 1900s Native Americans worked along with other groups in the U.S. to gain civil rights. By the late 1900s, conflicts between Native Americans and the U.S. government were being settled peacefully by the courts.

 At first Canadians preferred European settlers and laws set limits on immigrants who were Jews, Asians, or Africans. But today people of all ethnic groups may move to Canada as long as they can financially support themselves.  In Quebec special laws promote French culture and language, but many French Canadians want more. They want Quebec to become a separate country, while the Canadian government wants Canada to remain one country. This conflict between French Canadians and English-speaking Canadians still remains unresolved.  D  d

 Poverty, political problems, and famine caused thousands of Europeans to come to the United States during the 1800s. At first there was plenty of work but then conflict arose between the U.S. and citizens. During the 1850s thousands of Chinese came to the U.S. to work in the California gold mines and to build railroads. Many other groups felt the Chinese were taking to many jobs.  In 1882 the U.S. passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which stopped Chinese workers from coming to the U.S.  During the 1900s Spanish-speaking people immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico, and Central and South America. Conflicts have arisen over whether public school classes should be taught in Spanish as well as English. Some have also tried to pass a law making English the official language of the U.S.  Today, conflicts between cultural groups within the U.S. continue to exist. However, most Americans attempt to find peaceful solutions to these problems, and ways to cooperate with one another.