While stick and ball games were played throughout North America before and during European colonization, “modern lacrosse” spawned from cross-cultural exchange between European settlers and Indigenous peoples. The first documented encounter between Europeans and indigenous stick and ball games was recorded in 1636 when Jesuit missionary Jean de Brébeuf wrote to his superiors of a game played by members of the Huron tribe in Canada. In his account of the game, Brébeuf commented on the resemblance of the stick used by the Huron to a Bishop’s crozier (or “la crosse” as it is known in French). The rest, as they say, is history. Following Brébeuf’s lead, “lacrosse” became the European word for stick and ball games played with a strung pocket mounted on a stick. While European settlers were intrigued by the fast-paced and often brutal games they witnessed local indigenous people playing, it would not be until the mid-18th century that the first recorded game between Indigenous and non-Indigenous players would take place.
Before launching into the history of Indigenous and non-Indigenous lacrosse games, it is important to discuss the context within which this cultural exchange was possible. The relationship dynamics between Indigenous peoples and European settlers was markedly different in the Canadian context than in the American context. American concepts of Manifest Destiny (the belief that white Americas were divinely ordained to settle the entire continent of North America) dictated complete intolerance of Indigenous “savagery” in any form. Stick and ball games, due to their spiritual, militaristic, and cultural significance to Indigenous peoples, were held up as examples of the “savagery” that must be expunged from the continent. In Canada, however, European-Indigenous relations took a much different trajectory. Upon arriving in North America, French traders and explorers fostered strong economic and cultural ties with local Indigenous peoples. These ties, combined with the Roman Catholic Church’s tolerance of Indigenous culture, would foster a receptive attitude that would be inherited by the English in Quebec after the Seven Years’ War. Ultimately, it would be middle-class Englishmen who lived in and around Montreal that forged relationships with the nearby Kanien’kehá:ka (members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy) and learned to play the game known to Europeans as “lacrosse.” In 1844, the first recorded lacrosse game between Indigenous and non-Indigenous players took place.
European involvement in lacrosse remained intermittent until the formation of the Montreal Lacrosse Club in 1856. The Montreal Lacrosse Club organized opportunities for local sportsmen to compete among themselves or their nearby Kanien’kehá:ka neighbors. Over time, the young Montreal gentlemen pushed for the development of sticks with larger taut-stringed pockets that placed a greater emphasis on stick-handling and finesse. Technical innovation aside, the game remained relatively unchanged in these early years; non-Indigenous players continued to use the “bunching” and “mass play” tactics they had learned from their Kanien’kehá:ka competitors. While the sport remained mostly true to its Haudenosaunee origins, the first steps had been taken towards European adaption of the sport and the non-Indigenous appropriation of the game.
In 1860, Montreal dentist and lacrosse enthusiast William George Beers published a small pamphlet of rules, regulations, and instructions for the sport of lacrosse. This would mark the beginning of the colonization of the game. Over the course of the next few decades, Beers would exert control over the growth of lacrosse and champion the systemic reorganization and regulation of the sport based on his perceptions of class, gender, and race. In 1867, Beers codified the first written rules for the sport of lacrosse. Prior to this, aspects of the game such as rules, the length of the playing surface, and the duration of the game were settled between teams before each match. Beers pushed for standardized rules and playing spaces, designated player roles, and the implementation of new “civilized” strategies and tactics that placed less emphasis on physicality. A firm believer in what he viewed as the “physical superiority of Indian athletes,” Beers decided to level the proverbial playing field by transforming the Kanien’kehá:ka version of lacrosse into a “scientific” version of the sport that emphasized structure and finesse and deemphasized physicality. These changes were designed to strip the sport of its “savage violence” and make the sport more appealing to “civilized” Euro-Canadians. According to Beers, the sport of lacrosse was a symbolic torch to be passed from the “disappearing noble savages” of North America to the civilized white gentlemen of the burgeoning nation of Canada.
Following the birth of the Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867, Beers campaigned intensely to have lacrosse officially recognized as Canada’s national game. He alleged that the new Parliament had made the title official, though this was proven to be untrue in the 1960s (lacrosse would go on to be officially recognized as Canada’s national summer sport in 1994). Many Canadians accepted Beers’ fabricated claim and adopted lacrosse as the national game, due in part to its utility as a unifying symbol for the emerging Canadian nationality (functioning much like the symbol of the beaver). Beers’ vision of the “national game” provided middle-class Canadian men with an opportunity to create an identity distinct not only from Mother Britain across the sea and the Americans down south, but also from the Indigenous peoples perceived to be Canada’s civilizational forbearers. Middle-class Euro-Canadians flocked to the “modernized” sport, as it had now been re-packaged as a means for young men to express their masculinity, gentlemanliness, and patriotism in one fell swoop. Many believed lacrosse to be particularly “invigorating” as it was hoped the rough play and physical exertion of the sport would foster the same vitality and strength viewed as inherently imbued in the Indigenous people of the land. As the popularity of the sport increased, lacrosse games swelled to thousands of spectators. To attend a lacrosse game on the weekend was the social thing to do, and spectators travelled from far and wide to watch their favourite teams face off.
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