Why were the Dene who live along the northern river systems called Slaveys?

Answer 1

The word slave or slavey could not have come from the cree as explained in Wikipedia "Slavey" as the word the Crees use to identify the Dene is "Ah'aayjino" meaning "the other people", or "different people". The early explorers from Europe had the tendency to belittle colored people including Native people of the Americas, and thus it is deduced that the term slavey most likely came from the European Explorers. The various Dene communities dotted the river systems of T'si Deh (Peace River), Athabasca, Thibadeh (Slave River), Tu Cho (Great Slave Lake), Dehcho (Mackenzie River), and Sahtu (Great Bear Lake), and as we know historically the Explorers were in contact with the villages along the way. History shows that indigenous peoples helped the new comers when they came into contact, in that not all Natives were hostiles. It was the same for the Dene in helping the explorers when in contact. Since the Dene did not have monetary system rather only a trade system the Dene helped the strangers without monetary payment but rather by trade. The English of the time called the Irish women who worked as house maids - slaveys, because they worked for little or menial pay [see Webster's Dict. (Page 1353) Sla"vey (?), n. A Maid Servant. [Colloq. & Jocose Eng.] It was likely that the Explorers may have started jocosing towards the unsuspecting Dene helpers and through colloquialism caught with the rest of the crew and ultimately becoming the identity of the Dene along the river systems of present day Northwest Territories to the rest of the British people of upper and lower Canada of the time. Another point to be made here is that the Cree do not have a specific word meaning slave or slavey, and nor do the Dene. Today's information given in attempts at explaining the origin of this word as referred to the Dene is vague and erroneous. Interpretations and/or translations of exchanges between the Indigenous Peoples and the European explorers end up with "lost in translation" state as the Europeans and the Natives of the time had little or no understanding of each other's cultures or about each other's language let alone nuances (for those that attempted to learn), especially post 1492.