By Robert DesJarlait Introduction Métissage is the racial ideology that forms the basis of the identity of the Métis in regard to the notion of race. In other words, the ideology forms the basis of the belief that the Métis are a race. This notion of race can be found in publications published by various Métis writers, organizations and associations in Canada. For example, Adrian Hope, a founding member and former president of the Métis Association of Alberta, wrote: “The Métis...are the best of two peoples. The early explorers and fur traders were the strongest, bravest and most adventuresome of the European Male, as the weaklings did not last long in this world. The ones that remained selected the strongest and most beautiful of the Indian woman as their mates, and we are the children of these unions.”(1) To reinforce his racial thesis, Hope noted that, “until recently, ranchers are of the belief that the raising of purebred livestock was the only route to go, but lately have found out that cross-breeding results in a much better offspring. That is what we Métis are, better.”(2) The ideological nucleus for contemporary Métis thought -- i.e., Métis as race -- is found in the words of Louis Riel, who sought to establish a separate Métis nation in what is now Manitoba. Riel’s writings have given impetus to the nationalistic fervor that marks Métissage today. Although Métissage is usually associated with Canada, it has developed adherents in the United States. There is also the notion that the Métis consider themselves as an indigenous people. This notion is based on virtue of the fact that the Métis are a mixed heritage people; that is, a people whose heritages are a mixture of European and Native American heritages. In the United States, this has been given a broader definition -- i.e., any person with a mixture of European, Asian, or black and Native American heritage is Métis. This essay concerns itself with the question of -- who are the Métis? More specifically, who are the Métis in terms of race, ethnicity, and culture? Are the Métis an indigenous entity? And, most importantly, do the Métis have a rightful claim to sovereignty? Much of this paper deals with labels. These labels are used by social scientists and anthropologists to define and conceptualize the social realities and diversities of human beings. The definitions that these labels provide are not absolutes. What one terms and defines as, for example, race, culture, or ethnicity may be termed and defined differently by another. Thus, the methodology is arranged in a manner that the writer feels best fits the definitions of race, culture, and ethnicity in relation to the topic. I Race The foremost question is - are the Métis a race? Contemporary terminology would identify the Métis as biracial. Yet this label poses several problems. In particular, biracial assumes that race is a biological fact. More specifically, biracial implies that an individual is the result of two races. However, there is no biological basis to race -- i.e., there is no scientific evidence that race exists. Contemporary notions of race were first established by Swedish botanist and taxonomist Carolus Linnaeus in 1758. According to the Linnaean system, human beings are all members of the kingdom Animalia, the phylum Chordata, the class Mammalia, the order Primates, the family Homididae, the genus Homo, and the species Homo sapiens.(3) Linnaeus then divided the species Homo sapiens into four basic varieties - Americanus (American), Europaeus (European), Asiaticus (Asian), and Afer (African).(4) He applied the four humors that reflected the medieval theory that a person’s temperament arises from a balance of four fluids. For the American, he wrote: rufus, cholericus, rectus (red, choleric, upright); the European, albus, sanquineus, torosus (white, sanguine, muscular); the Asian, luridus, melancholicus, rigidus (pale yellow, melancholy, stiff); and the African, niger, phlegmaticus, laxus (black, phlegmatic, relaxed).(5) Linnaeus further divided the four varieties into behaviors -- American was regitur consuetudine (ruled by habit); European was regitur ritibus (ruled by custom); Asian was regitur opinionibus (ruled by belief); and, African was regitur arbitrio (ruled by caprice).(6) Essentially, what Linnaeus had done was to create the four races of man, each with attributes that were specific to the race and each with its own color -- red for the American, white for the European, yellow for the Asian, and black for the African. In 1775, his student, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, refined the Linnaean system by adding a fifth “race,” and, most importantly, “singled out a particular group as closest to the created ideal and then characterized all other groups by relative degrees of departure from this archetypal standard”(7) Blumenbach chose to name this ideal group, Caucasian. Thus, the notion of race was not based on biological fact. Eighty years later, Darwinism strengthened the notion of “race.” It was not Darwin himself who developed a racial ideology of the “survival of the fittest,”; rather, it was his adherents, i.e., the social Dawinists, who took the Darwin’s ideas of natural selection and, combined with Blumenbach’s ideal archetype and Judeo-Christian ethics, developed a racial scheme that solidified and institutionalized the idealism of race. Thus, race as we know it, is a social construct derived mainly from perceptions conditioned by the events of recorded history, and it has no basic biological validity.(8) It is nothing more than a social, cultural, and political invention.(9) There are no pure “races,” and no other groups are physically, intellectually, or morally superior to others.(10) However, as the case of the Métis attests, race nevertheless forms the basis of identity for both the individual and the group. If race is not a biological reality, then why is race a factor in social reality? Race as a social and political construct allows for the dominance of one group over another. In the dominant group, racial distinctions become a tool of domination. “Putting simple, neat racial labels on dominated peoples -- and creating negative myths about the moral qualities of those peoples -- makes it easier for the dominators to ignore the individual humanity of their victims. It eases the guilt of oppression.”(11) We need to look no further than North America to witness the social construct of race as a tool of oppression. The colonization of the American Indian speaks volumes of race, used as a social and political construct, for the dominance of one group over another. Europeans and Euro-Americans alike sought domination over an indigenous population that was labeled as “pagan,” “savages,” “uncivilized,” “unclean,” and “immoral.” Even those who sought to have a biological connection to the American Indian expressed the sentiments of the colonialist. In the words of Louis Riel, the “father” of Métissage: “The Metis, because of their superiority over the Indian tribes, dominated them. With God’s help, they were always victorious over the tribes who attacked them. The Metis are the men who, with arms, tamed the Indian nations and then pacified them, maintaining good relations with them in favour of peace. It is they [the Metis] who, at the price of their blood, brought tranquillity to the North-West.”(12) Riel’s statements contains all the terminology of the dominator. The Métis dominated them; the Métis tamed them; the Métis pacified them. A racial ideology was important factor in establishing Métis identity. Riel firmly stated this ideology of Métis as race when he wrote: “The French word Metis is derived from the Latin participle of mixtus which means ‘mixed.’ The word expresses the idea of this mixture in as satisfactory a way as possible and becomes, by that fact, a suitable name for our race.” (italics mine.)(13) Certainly Riel was correct in adopting Métis as a group label. These people were, after all, a people of mixed heritage that shared commonalties. In particular, they were the descendants of French fathers and Ojibwe or Cree mothers. Métis was one of several labels that were used for these people of mixed heritage; other labels included half-breed and Bois Brules. But the union of two heritages did not equate equality of those heritages. Rather, one dominated the other. This notion of superiority of one over the other was made clear by Riel: “I remembered that half-breed meant white and Indian and...I remembered that the greatest part of my heart and blood was white”(14) In her brilliant essay, End of the Failed Metaphor, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn writes: I read quite by accident “The New World Man,” an essay by the gifted, Spanish-speaking novelist Rudolfo Anaya...Anaya says that the people of the Southwest are the “fruit of the Spanish Father and the Indian Mother.” He alternately labels them Hispanic and Chicano. He glorifies Malinche, who was the first Indian woman of Mexico to bear children fathered by a Spaniard. Without talking much about the fact that she was a captive of men and had little free choice in the matter of who was to father her children, Anaya says “in our mothers is embodied the archetype of the indigenous Indian Mother of the Americas” He describes his duality in this way: “The Spanish character is the aggressive, conquest-oriented part of our identity; the Native American nature is the more harmonious, earth-oriented side.” He calls for the assimilation of those two natures. The fragility of this resolution lies in Anaya’s willful dismissal of indigenous myth. Yet he must know that there are no versions of origin, no discussions of wisdom, goodness, kindness, hospitality, nor any of the other virtues of indigenous, tribal society without the seed, and spirit, and power of the indigenous fathers. To accept the indigenous woman’s role as the willing and cooperating recipient of the colonist’s seed and as the lone repositor of culture is to legitimize the destruction of ancient religions, the murder of entire peoples, the rape of the land, not to mention the out-and-out theft of vast native homelands. To do so dismisses the centuries of our modern American Indian histories when our fathers fought and died and made treaties in order to save us from total annihilation.(15) The New World Man that Anaya spoke of -- who, in the language of the colonizer was called Mestizo -- was not found only in the Southwest. He was also found in the woodlands of Canada. Like his Spanish brother to the south, he spread his seed amongst the indigenous women of the north. Even the label by which these two mixed heritage New World Men applied to their myth of race was similar - Mestizo and Métis. However, unlike his Mestizo brothers, the Métis did not have a Malinche. There was no one indigenous woman who served as the archetype. Indeed, the archetype was hidden beneath a cloak of humor. Among the voyageurs was a centuries old joke. “How long after the first Frenchman stepped ashore was the first half-breed born?” The answer -- “Nine months.” In reality, intermarriages in the colonies and eastern settlements were few and far between. The 1686 census of New France/Acadia lists two intermarriages out of a population of 1,677.(16) The Dictionnarie Genealogique des Familles Canadiennes, a 1700 census of the Province of Quebec, lists a population of over 26,000; only 94 intermarriages are listed.(17) It was in the hinderlands, far away from community and family, that the men of the colonies found the nameless Indian Mother. This nameless archetype was not found in one Indian Mother; it was, rather, found in the women of one particular tribe. “The Crees were especially favored because the white men found their women more attractive, more dependable morally...and more intelligent than those of other tribes”(18) Through marriage, the French progenitor male established economic ties with tribes in the interior. These marriages were according to “the custom of the country.” In 1800, voyageur Daniel Harmon wrote in his journal: “This evening, Mons. Mayotte took a woman of this country for a wife, or rather a concubine. All the ceremonies attending such an event, are the following. When a person is desirous of taking one of the daughters of the Natives, as a companion, he makes a present to the parents of the damsel, of such articles as he supposes will be most acceptable...should the parents accept the articles offered, the girl remains at the fort of her suitor, and is clothed in the Canadian fashion.”(19) Half-breed girls were especially desirable. Through the seed of the progenitor male, the proportion of Indian blood in the offspring gradually declined and the term “half-breed” became inaccurate. It was at this point, in the 1850s, that the term Métis was applied to describe the New World Man of the North, a term that reflected the diminishing indigenous bond with the Indian Mother. II Culture and Ethnicity Mixed-heritage individuals are those whose ancestry is derived from more than one social group. Heritage, as used here, implies culture and/or ethnicity that is passed on to a succeeding generation. The term culture itself has a myriad of meanings and definitions. As a anthropological concept in regard to indigenous culture, culture can be defined as: The...“complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by [humans] as a member of [a] society”(20) Further, it is the biosphere that the indigenous society arises that influences and is reflected in the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, morals, customs of the indigenous society. Indigenous is defined as: communities, peoples, and nations...which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories, or parts of them. Together, indigenous and culture mean the original cultures of a specific land area before colonization or conquest. Ethnicity, on the other hand, can be regarded as a group identity that is formed by cultures that have, through the historical process, coalesced into a homogenous grouping of peoples located within a specific geographical area. These groups “belong to a relatively distinctive sociological type. This is a group the members which have, both with respect to their own sentiments and those of non-members, a distinctive identity which is rooted in some kind of a distinctive sense of its history. An ethnic group is...always a group consisting of members of all ages and both sexes and ethnicity is always shared by forebears at some level. It is thus a transgenerational type of group.”(21) Ethnicity is not in itself an absolute. Ethnicity can remerge into a newer synthesis of ethnic pluralism and identity. For example, both the United States and Canada exemplify a reemergence of immigrant ethnic groups into contemporary ethnic entities. Ethnicity can dissolve and reemerge into new groups and identities. An example is Ojibwé-Anishinaabé. Many non-Ojibwe people, Indian and white alike, assume that Ojibwé and Anishinaabé mean one and the same. To some extent, this is true. However, Ojibwé and Anishinaabé are distinct terms. Ojibwé people are Anishinaabé people -- but then so are fifty-one other indigenous culture groups. A partial listing of these groups includes the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Blackfeet, Gros Ventre, Cree, Fox and Sauk, Potawatomi, Menominee, Shawnee, Kickapoo, Ottawa, Abnaki, Algonkin, Micmac, Pequot, Mahican, Powhatan, and Wampanoag. These indigenous groups at one time formed one group called the Anishinaabé, meaning human being. The Anishinaabé inhabited the area that now forms present-day New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Maine. In approximately 900 AD, many Anishinaabé subgroups began to migrate eastward. Although anthropologists would label these groups as separate indigenous cultures, they were essentially subgroups who, in their new biospheres, developed into autonomous tribal cultures. Whereas they developed group identities that reflected their environments, their reemerging cultural modes of existence reflected customs, traditions, ceremonies, and language associated with an Anishinaabé group identity. In essence, these reemerging cultures represented an Anishinaabé ethnicity. They were the progeny of a nation -- i.e., a community based on common descent, territory, history, language, religion, and a way of life.(*) In this context, Ojibwé -- an Anishinaabé word meaning Keepers of the Scrolls -- would be considered the cultural label, and Anishinaabé the ethnic label. It is largely the Anishinaabé peoples that the Métis claimed descent from. And, it was through the intermarriages of European nationalities with indigenous cultures that the mixed offspring of these unions have claimed themselves an indigenous group of people, i.e., indigenous in the same sense as Indian peoples. Does the historical process support and validate this claim to an indigenous identity? III Colonialism Colonialism is the formal establishment and maintenance of domination by a foreign sovereign power over an indigenous population, to exploit them economically, through the establishment colonies and the suppression of human rights. The age of modern colonialism in the Western Hemisphere began in 1492. By the fictive doctrines of discovery, conquest, and settlement, the emerging nation-states of Portugal, Spain, France, and England imposed European institutions and culture on indigenous peoples and lands. In 1534, under the fictive doctrines of discovery, Jacques Cartier lay claim to the St. Lawrence River, and its shores, for the French Crown. In 1604 and 1608, Samuel de Champlain established the first French colonies in New France - Acadia and Quebec. In 1627, the French government initiated its colonial policy through the Company of New France. Mercantilism was the main policy of colonial control. “Mercantilism was characterized by state control over the economy to protect the interests of the country that implemented the policy. It operated on the basic premise that there was a finite amount of wealth in the world and that each nations had to compete for its share...The colonies, acting as extensions of a given country, helped them achieve self-sufficiency by providing that could not only be sold back to the colonies as finished goods and also to other countries. At its heart, mercantilism equated money and power, making the prime objective of any country the acquisition of as much wealth as possible.”(22) Fur was the main resource that formed the basis of the mercantilism system in New France. The initial European colonialism model that was established in New France was the boreal riverine empire. Colonies were established along river systems; the larger and longer the river, the more valuable the empire. In the boreal riverine model, a main colonial port -- for the export of furs -- was established, e.g., Quebec. Outlying trading posts were connected to the main port through interconnected river systems.(23) In 1663, New France became a royal province. The boreal riverine empire model evolved into the European colonialism model called the settler empire. Under this model colonial ports became colonial cities whose export-oriented economies depended economically, administratively, and militarily on their respective colonial powers.(24) In New France, “grants of land, called seigneuries, with frontages on the St. Lawrence, were apportioned to proprietors, who then allotted holdings to small farmers, or habitants. [As] more land came under cultivation...the white population grew.”(25) Both the bovine riverine empire and the settler empire modes of colonialism co-existed. As the eastern colonies transformed into the settler empires, the bovine riverine empires reestablished themselves on the peripherals of colonial empire. At the heart of the bovine riverine empire were the fur traders. “The term voyageur, a French word meaning “traveler,” was applied originally...to all explorers, fur-traders, and travelers.”(26) More specifically, the voyageurs were the men who manned the canoes. “Voyageurs formed a class as distinct in dress, customs, and traditions as sailors or lumberjacks.”(27) They came from the settlements in New France and served as subtraders in trading expeditions. Typically, these expeditions ranged from three months to three years. The voyageurs adapted the birch bark canoe as their mode of transportation on the riverways. Cultural borrowings from American Indian tribes included pemmican -- a dried foodstuff composed of venison and berries. Pemmican later became exploited as a commodity in the lucrative fur-trade economy. The voyageur was one of the founding factors in the development of Canada. To the voyageur is given credit for the naming of the lake and rivers in the Northwest. The woodlands through which their canoes roamed were seen as largely devoid of human habitation. “Obviously, civilized man found it incredible that such a bounteous empire as the northern mid-continent basin should have been uninhabited save by “savages...’”(28) In the Euro-centric paradigm of “discovery,” indigenous lands were considered Terra Nullius. In this paradigm, rivers, lakes, land formations did not have names. There were no people, save for a few “savages.” Hence, it was land for the taking. This paradigm served as an effective tool of the colonialzing invader. Despite the historical fact that the lakes, rivers, streams, mountains, and land formations had names in indigenous tongues, and despite human presence for thousands of years by indigenous peoples, the renaming of the land in the colonizer’s tongue, and the reduction of indigenous inhabitants to a few “savages,” made is easier for domination and oppression to occur. By renaming the land, the land, in essence, became the land of the colonizer. This subversion of indigenous people went much deeper. It also included the sexual exploitation and sexual oppression of the life-givers of the original peoples - the women. The idea that the voyageurs sexually exploited indigenous women is never considered in the literature of the voyageurs. Rather, the literature focuses on adventuresome and daring nature of the voyageurs. The typical voyageur was married with children and left his family behind in Montréal. Indeed, between 1708 to 1717, nearly one quarter of the entire male population of Montréal annually made the trip to the fur regions of the Northwest. The seigneuries of other regions show various figures of men engaged in the expeditions, figures that range from 55% to 20 %.(29) Sex was a strong lure for men in the vast woodlands. One writer states: “Voyageurs, traders...and explorers all felt the call of nature in their loins and so, took wives...one can almost be positive a wife was to be had and children raised if a man remained in the [fur] service for several years.”(30) As one voyageur boasted...”I have been forty-two years in this country. I have had twelve wives...There is no life so happy as a Voyageur’s; none so independent, no place where a man enjoys so much variety and freedom as in the Indian country.”(31) However, the sexual exploitation of indigenous women could only be hidden under the veneer of wilderness romanticism for so long. Jackie Lynne writes: Several powerful aspects of colonialization imposed upon First Nations women which changed our lives were capitalism (mercantilism), the church, the state, and the military. All these forces systematically created women’s subservience to men. For example, European colonizers intended to accumulate capital through the production and circulation of commodities. Fur was the main attraction to Canada, and First Nations women were especially essential to the fur traders. The Europeans used the presence and influence of First Nations women to penetrate new territories and secure new markets. Thus, First Nations women were integral to the creation of commodity production. However, their position in that new society was one of slave. For example, in 1714, a Hudson’s Bay Company officer, as part of an expansionist strategy, “obtained” a Chipewyan woman whom he referred to as “slave woman.” He kept her with him for two years so that she might learn their system of commodity exchange and the value of British goods and private property. She was then sent into the interior to recruit Chipewyan people to come to York Factory and begin trade. Her confinement to the fort was a form of hostage-taking where she was forced to accept the Western values of capital and private property. As First Nations society became transformed through a policy of capitalism, First Nations women were also sexually commodified. Women were purchased through a system of exchange. For example, women were bought by alcohol, and other European goods. In the first century of the Hudson’s Bay Company, European women were not allowed to travel or to live in Canada known as Rupert’s Land at that time. Neither were mixed family formations allowed in or around the fur trade posts. This further encouraged relations of dominion as European males used First Nations women for sex. ....Some took First Nations women as their “country wives,” lived with them and had children. While on the surface, this seems like a respectable practice, all too often these women and their children were abandoned by the white men at a later date. The phenomenon of the “country wife” was a form of sexual exploitation which was used by the officer class, and was a more subtle form of sexual exploitation. In these relationships, First Nations women were concubines -- secondary wives without legal sanctions. These relationships, particularly when First Nations women became dependent on white men, created serious differences between First Nations women, and their culture. “Country wives” and their children were not deemed legitimate property of men by English common law. Therefore, these families were abandoned.(32) Anaya’s mythical paradigm of the Indian Mother had been, in the North, reduced to a captive of men who had not only violated her, but turned her into a object of scorn among her own people. And it was the children of these unions that Louis Riel reached out to and, through whom, he ignited the flame of ethnicity. IV Development of an Ethnicity As a result of the French and Indian War of 1754-63, France lost its colonizing control in Canada. England annexed New France and began to develop its dominion of Canada; in 1867, the English passed the British North American Act and the Confederation of Canada was established. The Dominion of Canada united Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. Rupert’s Land, a vast territory located in northern and western Canada, remained in control of Hudson’s Bay Company. The territory had been chartered, in 1670, to Hudson’s Bay Company by King Charles II of England. In 1811-12, a colony was founded in the Red and Assiniboine river valleys. The official name of the colony was Assiniboia. According to Métis historians, the Métis, as an ethnicity, began with the Seven Oaks Battle on June 19, 1816. The Seven Oaks Battle resulted from a conflict between Métis employees of the North West Company and a militia of Hudson’s Bay Company employees. Of the 25 militia soldiers, twenty were killed. The Métis victory “freed trade from the restraints which governments and private monopoly sought to impose on it”(33) In essence, the victory gave the Métis free rein to exploit the resources in the Red River valley region and to sell those commodities in the free trade market. Joseph Kinsey Howard writes: “...their conception, slowly developed after Seven Oaks, of their race as unique and dynamic. This was the basic determinant of their destiny...”(34) By the 1830s, the Métis formed a distinct group identity based on Euro-American and Indian cultural characteristics. Indian cultural characteristics and borrowings included beaded floral art forms influenced by Ojibwe and Cree art. The renown Métis woven yarn sash was an adaptation of Ojibwe sashes that, before Euro-American contact, were woven from plant fibers. Their language, called Michif, was formed by a pidgin vocabulary of French, Ojibwe and Cree words. Known for their expertise in the fur trade, the Métis additionally established a trade based on pemmican, a dried foodstuff used for thousands of years by North American tribes. With the decline of the fur market, the Métis began exploiting the buffalo herds. In their annual hunts, the Métis slaughtered buffalo by the hundreds and established a thriving trade in buffalo hides. In 1836, Hudson’s Bay Company bought back the colony and created the District of Assiniboia. After the creation of the Dominion of Canada, England began to initiate policies that would annex the northwest, including the District of Assiniboia. The District of Assiniboia was composed of Métis, French, English, and Scots. The Red River colony itself was composed largely of Métis. The Métis formed over one half of the population in Assiniboia. The Métis opened trade routes to St. Paul, Minnesota. By 1856, trains of two to three hundred ox carts freighted goods to and from St. Paul and the Red River settlements. These ox trains carried furs, pemmican, dried buffalo meat, moccasins and skin garments. On their return, they brought foods, tobacco, dry goods, ammunition and farm implements. In 1868, the English passed the Rupert’s Land Act. The act called for the surrender of lands, rights, privileges, liberties, franchises, powers and authorities within Rupert’s Land and for the admission of Rupert’s Land into the Dominion of Canada. Led by Louis Riel, the Red River colony responded by setting up a provisional government that would represent the District of Assiniboia. Under the Declaration of the People of Rupert’s Land and the North West of 1869, the colony sought to establish a governmental entity that would be recognized when united with Canada. In addition, Riel and his council issued a Bill of Rights. Article 11 reads: Treaties to be concluded and ratified between the Government and several Indian tribes of Indians of this Territory, calculated to insure peace in the future.(35) According to one Métis historian, these acts were “promulgated in the name of the ‘New Nation’. The Bill of Rights gave the Métis ‘moral justification,’ and the declaration provided a legal basis for the movement. These documents claimed sovereignty for the Métis people, who then elected Riel as the president of the new nation.”(36) Although the acts are often cited as clear evidence of the establishment of a Métis “Nation,” nowhere in the documents does the name Métis appear. If it had been the intention of Riel to establish a separate, sovereign Métis nation, as Métis historians contend, then why wasn’t the bill of rights titled the Métis Bill of Rights?; or why wasn’t the Declaration of People Act titled the Declaration of the Métis of Rupert’s Land and the North West? The answer is that Assiniboia was not exclusively populated by Métis people. Certainly, the provisional government council would be tabled by a strong representation of Métis people, and the president would be Métis. Yet, Riel knew that all privileges, customs, and usage within the territory had to be respected. This included not only the Métis but the other Euro-Canadians who represented just under half of the population of Assiniboia. To guarantee their support, the Bill of Rights provided for a free homestead pre-emption law. Indigenous peoples were not accorded equal rights under the Bill of Rights. As stated, treaties would continue to be negotiated in the same manner used by the colonializing powers. However, treaties were nothing more than fictive legal documents that appropriated tribal lands with the “surplus” lands opening for settlement by settlers. Presumably, Riel’s strategy would mirror the methods of colonialism as a means of attaining title to indigenous lands. In the end, Riel failed to establish a separate province for the peoples of Assiniboia. Following the annexation of the Rupert’s Land by Canada in 1870, and establishing Manitoba, in place of Assiniboia, as a province, the political economy of the Metis was destroyed. The Canadian government then extinguished Métis claims to title through individual land and grants scrip. In 1871, Riel went into exile in the United States for his execution of Thomas Scott during the Rebellion. Nine years later, Riel returned to Canada at the request of Métis in Saskatchewan. His return led to the failed 1885 Rebellion. It was during this second rebellion that Riel solidified the ideology of the Métis as race. However, in the interim period, Riel had spent time in two mental institutions and he had undergone a spiritual experience that left him with Messianic delusions. Riel described this experience: “...The same spirit who showed himself to Moses in the midst of fire and cloud appeared to me in the same manner. I was stupefied; I was confused. He said to me, ‘Rise up, Louis David Riel. You have a mission to fulfill.’ Stretching out my arms and bending my head, I received this heavenly messenger.”(37) Indeed, at the Métis community of Batoche, the priests, who had refused to cede to Riel’s demands, were held captive and Riel, in their place, performed mass. Riel used the pulpit to harangue his followers. During one such service, Riel said: “Look! Look at those devils murdering your whole nation, see your wives and daughters ravished before your streaming eyes, your children tortured, dishonored, disemboweled by the savage soldiers paid to destroy the half-breed nation! To arms! Or will you crouch and submit? God tells you to follow me; the Holy Ghost is with me in my person. Courage; we will conquer!”(38) Unlike the Red River Rebellion that was largely a resistance without violence, the Second Rebellion involved armed conflict with Canadian troops and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The rebellion failed and Riel and other leaders were charged with treason. Riel was captured, tried for high treason and, on November 16, 1885, he was hanged in Regina. His execution was widely opposed in Quebec and had lasting political ramifications that continue to this day. V Contemporary Métissage Race as a social and political construct is not necessarily negative. Although race as a construct serves as an effective tool to dominate groups of people, race, as such, can, and does, create a powerful group identity for those whom the construct oppresses. “From the point of view of subordinate peoples, race can be a positive tool, a source of belonging, mutual help, and self-esteem. Racial categories identify a set of people with whom to share a sense of identity and common experience...It is to share a sense of peoplehood that helps locate individuals psychologically, and also provides the basis for common political action”(39) However, race as a social construct is based on biological notions of race. Within the socio-political construct, the “subordinate” individual identifies with being a member of a distinct race in the biological sense. This is clear in the ideology of Riel -- that two races, i.e., white and Indian, formed to create a new race, i.e., the Métis. Contemporary Métis thinkers continue to advance the idea of Métis as race and as the founders of North America. The most prominent are Martin Dunn, Claude Aubin, Duke Redbird, and Jean Morisset. The following excerpts provide insight into the modern ideas of Métissage. Martin Dunn: It is a historical fact that Métis/mixed bloods and were...identified as being a distinct indigenous race. As European Crowns battled for control of the “new world” a new race was born in the trenches, fusing the Native heritage of the Indian with the dreams of the European immigrants in a new land.(40) (With Claude Aubin): In spiritual terms, it can be said that the Métis are at the centre of a medicine wheel of the four principal races of man. This medicine wheel incorporates the four colours of the red, black, yellow, and white races. The Métis are the spiritual link between the spirituality of all the races and that of the Aboriginal people....it would be more accurate to describe Métis as “living treaties” between the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal races...like other races of people, we too have our destiny and our prophecies.(41) Duke Redbird: The fact is that all of the races and ethnic groups in Canada are being integrated into the psychological and geo-physical reality that is North America and that THE METIS ARE THE ONLY ETHNIC GROUP INDIGENOUS TO THE CONTINENT. All other races, including Indian and Inuit, came from elsewhere at some other time. Contrary to the implications and assumptions of most writing on the Metis, the Metis see themselves through their oral traditions and myths as: (1) A race apart from both white and Indians and the only race indigenous to Canada: (2) Having established a viable -- if conceptually invisible to white perception -- civilization at least a century before confederation; (3) A founding nation equal to the French and the English in the development and growth of Confederation.(42) Jean Morisset: But what exactly is it all about, this multiculturalism, before the term was ever invented, that came to constitute, by the mere power of things, all inter-native, trans-tribal or “cross-frenche” metissage?...this geographic hybridization touched streams, mountains and rivers and affected the entire country at every ford, every bivouac and every sacred spot...If you need at least a few drops of savage blood in order to be Metis, then what could the flood of place names such as the following ones reveal: riviere au lait: milky river riviere boucanee: smoked river riviere enragee: enraged river riviere tannee: tanned river riviere qu’appelle: calling river riviere oualla-mette: walla-walla river reviere sauvageuse: making-you-wild-river without forgetting, of course, the lac beau-lake, Montana, Dakota, Minnesota, Ouisconsin, Assiniboine, etc. Metis. Metchif. Metchiff. La langue metive. Geographie Metisse! Metis geography! But who are the Mohawks? Who are the Iroquois? They are the Montours, Delisles, Pel[le]tiers of Franco-savage origin having passed into English in this American of the “melting pot” like...tens of thousands of Franco-Francos.(43) Dunn clearly considers the Métis a race -- in the biological sense. With Aubin, Dunn reinforces the Linnaean system of the four races of man. In the Dunn-Aubin paradigm, the Métis are placed at the center of the four races -- not only as a physical entity but a spiritual entity as well. Redbird confuses race and ethnicity; he vacillates between the two terms. Beyond his confusion, there are the deeper implications of his perceptions -- that the Métis are a founding nation and are the only indigenous peoples of North America. Morisset establishes Métis identity within a geographical/geophysical sphere. To Morisset, the naming of the continent has brought it into existence. Furthermore, the seed of the progenitor French colonizers created the tribes that exist today. Since race is not a biological fact and is, instead, a socio-political construct, does Métissage lend itself to the notions of race within that construct? The literature of Métis thinkers certainly expresses that notion. Indeed, these writers have gone over and beyond the socio-political construct of race and consider race as a biological fact. Redbird comes the closest to seeing beyond the socio-political construct, i.e., Métissage as representing an ethnic entity. But he fails to go the entire distance and falls back on the idealism of Métissage as race. Race and ethnicity. Although interrelated, they are two different terms. Race is a pseudoscientific notion based on the physiognomic differences in human groups. “An “ethnic group” is a reference group invoked by people who share a common historical style, based on overt features and values, and who, through the process of interaction with others, identify themselves as sharing that style. “Ethnic identity” is the sum total of feelings on the part of group members about those values, symbols, and common histories that identify them as a distinct group. “Ethnicity” is simply ethnic-based action.”(44) What is clear is that the idea of a Métis ethnicity began to coalesce under the guidance of Louis Riel. Initially, Riel’s influence was largely limited to the Red River Settlement. Fifteen years later, when the Métis settlements in Saskatchewan sought the aid of Riel, the Métis had not, at that point, developed into a strong ethnic entity. It was only after Riel answered the call and went to Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan Métis were galvanized, as an ethnic entity, into armed resistance. Elsewhere in Canada, a majority of Métis had little concern for the events unfolding in Saskatchewan. Had there been a stronger ethnic element among the overall Métis populace, then there would have been at least voiced opposition to the Canadian government’s efforts to crush the resistance. However, “the large Michigan group [that accounted for nearly half of the entire Metis population], descendants of the first of their race, had lost their Métis identity though they had retained some of their French tradition; they had never heard of Riel’s ‘New Nation.’ Nor had 1,450 in Wisconsin, several thousand in Missouri and Illinois, and two dozen who had unaccountably strayed into Iowa.”(45) The genesis of a mixed heritage ethnicity began two years before the resistance at Red River. “The first Indian Act was enacted in 1868 (S.C. 1868, c.42) Section 15 of that Act embodied the following statement concerning those whom the Act applied:”(46) 15: For the purpose of determining what persons are entitled to hold, use or enjoy the lands and other immovable property belonging to or appropriated to the use of the various tribes, bands, or bodies of Indians in Canada, the following persons and classes of persons, and none other shall be considered as Indians belonging to the tribe, band or body of Indians interested in any such land or immovable property. Firstly: All persons of Indian blood, reputed to belong to the particular tribe, band or body of Indians interested in such lands or immovable property, and their descendants; Secondly: All persons residing among such Indians, whose parents were or are, or either was or is, descended on either side from Indians or an Indian reputed to belong to a particular tribe, band or body of Indians interested in such land or immovable property, and the descendants of all such persons; and Thirdly; All women lawfully married to any such persons included in the several classes herein designated; the children of such marriages, and their descendants. The last statement strongly affected Indian identity. Essentially, the statement stressed the sexist notion that if Indian women were married to Indian men who belonged to recognized tribes, bands, or bodies of Indians, the children were recognized as Indians. However, if an Indian woman was married to a non-Indian, her children would not be recognized as Indians. This was despite the fact that the Indian woman was, for example, a full blood member of a recognized tribe. This led to a special status for Indian women who had married outside their tribes. They and their children became non-status Indians. In the Kafkaesque universe of Canadian Indian affairs, these women and their children were Indian yet they had no status as Indians. With the policy of “involuntary enfranchisement,” many of the Indian children of succeeding generations eventually lost knowledge of the tribes they were descended from. Essentially, two groups of mixed heritage peoples evolved. One was the non-status Indians; the other were those people descended from historical Métis communities. Alberta initiated the impetus for modern Métis identity. “From 1885 to the 1930s the Métis lived, essentially, as refugees. They had...no land base...eight colonies of Métis...gained legal status and grants from Alberta in the 1930s.”(47) In 1932, the first official Métis association was established -- the Halfbreed Association of Alberta & NWT. This organization served as a model for Métis identity throughout Canada.(48) In 1938, the organization was renamed the Métis Association of Alberta. The Saskatchewan Métis followed by establishing their own association in the late 1930s. For the most part, these organizations lacked political power and, most importantly, a strong base of constituents. If a Métis ethnicity existed, it failed to respond as a political entity in terms of numbers. The real growth of political awareness developed in the early 1970s. In 1969, non-status Indians established the B.C. (British Columbia) Association of Non-Status Indians. This led to Métis and non-status Indian political coalitions in several provinces -- the Ontario Métis and Non-Status Indian Association (1971), the Quebec Métis and Non-Status Indian Association (1972), the NWT (Northwest Territories) Métis and Non-Status Indian Association. These groups, called the Native Council of Canada, were founded as the Congress of Aboriginal People (CAP) in 1971. CAP was formed to serve the interests of both non-Status Indians and the Métis. In 1982, Canada passed the Constitution Act, 1982. This reads: s. 35(1) The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed. (2) In this Act, “aboriginal peoples of Canada” includes the Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples of Canada. In 1983, the Métis National Council (MNC) was established in response to the Constitution Act, 1982. This was a coalition of several Métis associations -- the Métis Nation of Ontario, the Manitoba Métis Federation, the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan, the Métis Nation of Alberta, and the Métis Provincial Council of British Columbia. Both MNC and CAP have emerged as powerful nationalistic organizations. They claim representation of, according to 1996 Canadian Census figures, 302,970 people. Of this total figure, 210,190 are Métis and 92,780 are non-status Indians. Alberta has the highest Métis population, 50,745, followed by Manitoba (46,195), Saskatchewan (36,535), British Columbia (26,750), Ontario (22,790), Quebec (16,075), Newfoundland (4,685), Northwest Territories (3,895), New Brunswick (975), Nova Scotia (860), Yukon Territory (565), and Prince Edward Island (120).(49) Although both the MNC and CAP work toward the common goals of establishing Métis and non-status Indian rights, they also reflect the factionalism and splintering that exists among provincial Métis groups -- for example, each claims to be the sole representative voice of Métis people. CAP, for example, represents provincial Métis organizations that are not associated with MNC. These include the Métis Association of the Northwest Territories, Métis Association of Alberta, Métis Association of British Columbia, and the Labrador Métis Nation. One of the main differences between the two groups is defining “Métis.” CAP, for example, supports the notion that aboriginal is an all-inclusive definition in which “Métis are included within the meaning of the term ‘Indians and lands reserved for the Indians.’”(50) In addition, “the inclusion of Métis is not a new inclusion but rather an elaboration of the people the current term ‘Indian’ was intended to include [in Section 91 (24) of the Indian Act of 1985 in defining Indian].”(51) This is despite the fact that in R. v Blais [1998], the court rejected the claim that Métis are Indians as defined under the Indian Act. In response to the court’s decision, CAP filed a lawsuit in 1999 for recognition as defined under Section 91 (24); the lawsuit claims that the Métis are entitled to the same rights and benefits as Indians registered under the Indian Act of 1985. As part of the lawsuit, CAP claims that as a distinct community, “those Métis who inhabited the territory administered by the Hudson’s Bay Company between 1670 and 1870 collectively constituted the ‘Métis Nation.’” The claim of the Métis constituting a “nation” in the years cited, ca. 1670-1870, is subject to analysis. The Cambridge Dictionary of American English defines: “nation noun a country, esp. when thought of as a large group of people living in one area with their own government, language, and traditions.” In addition, “A nation is also an American Indian group, esp. one that is a member of an American Indian federation.” Federation is defined as “a group of organizations, states, etc., that have united to form a larger organization or government.” Although the definitions of nation in the European concept and North American Indian concept differ, one of the equalizing factors between the definitions is that a nation is comprised a body of people with their own form of government. The historical records strongly indicate that the Métis did not exist as a nation under the definitions given. This is especially true in the years 1670 to 1870. Indeed, the term Métis did not come into common usage until the 1830s-40s. There are those advocates of a Métis nation who cite Riel’s establishment of a provincial government as marking the point in time when the Métis nation was created. However, Riel’s Declaration of the People of Rupert’s Land and the Bill of Rights made no mention of a Métis nation. Indeed, the word Métis or half-breed did not appear in the documents. That Riel sought to establish a nation is clear; however, the nation that Riel sought to establish was composed of other Euro-Canadians in addition to the Métis. The Métis National Council (MNC) has veered away from an all-inclusive definition that includes both Métis and non-status Indians. Under MNC guidelines, Métis is defined as: 1.0 Definitions A. Provincial Members as Accepting Group 1.1 “Metis” means a person who self-identifies as Metis, is accepted by the Metis Nation through the Acceptance Process and: (a) is a descendant of a Metis person who resided in or used and occupied the Historic Metis Nation Homeland on or before December 8th 1869; or (b) is of Canadian Aboriginal ancestry, can demonstrate sufficient connection to the Metis Nation and is resident in the Metis Homeland at the date of enrollment; or (c) was adopted as a child, under the laws of any jurisdiction or under any Metis custom, by a Metis within the meaning of (a) or (b) or a descendant of any such adoptee. B. Core Group Only 1.1 “Metis” means a person who self-identifies as Metis, is of Historic Metis Nation ancestry, and is accepted by the Metis Nation through the Acceptance Process. C. Core Group Accepting Others 1.1 “Metis” means a person who self-identifies as Metis, is accepted by the Metis Nation through the Metis Nation Acceptance Process and; (a) is of Historic Metis Nation ancestry; or (b) is of Canadian Aboriginal ancestry other than the ancestry in 1.1 (a)(52) MNC guidelines further the definition of “Métis nation”: 1.3 “Historic Metis Nation” means the Aboriginal people then known as the Metis or half-breeds who resided in the Historic Metis Nation Homeland on or before December 8th 1869. 1.4 “Historic Metis Nation Homeland” means the area of land in west central North America used and occupied as the traditional territory of the Metis, or half-breeds as they were then known, on or before December 8th 1969. 1.7 “Metis Nation” means one of the “aboriginal peoples of Canada” within the meaning of s.35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 and which is comprised of all Metis Nation Citizens.(53) The MNC’s agenda focuses on hunting rights, land rights, and self-governing rights. Basically, the MNC seeks a sovereign land base in which Métis settlements would become akin to First Nations reserves or reservations; and like reservations, Métis settlements would maintain a degree of self-governance and self-determination. In the MNC’s perspective, the Métis, defined as an “aboriginal people,” have an inherent aboriginal right to sovereignty. That is, because the Métis, like Indian people, are considered aboriginal, they have the same rights as Indian people. MNC’s claim to sovereignty is based on the Royal Proclamation of 1763. MNC states: This unilateral extinguishment of Métis rights [through the Manitoba Act] violated the principals of the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which set the standard by which governments were to deal with Aboriginal peoples. The Royal Proclamation provided that the land of Aboriginal peoples was not to be dismembered piecemeal by encroaching settlers. The Crown assumed responsibility for protecting the rights of Aboriginal peoples.(54) Under the Royal Proclamation, “the lands west of the Appalachian height of land were ‘reserved’ to the Indians as their Hunting Grounds...Indian Nations governed the Proclamation Territory under their own laws.”(55) In the wording of the Royal Proclamation, there is no mention of Métis, half-breed, or aboriginal. It is also clear that it is specifically the Indian people that the Royal Proclamation is directed toward under the Indian Provisions: And whereas it is just and reasonable, and essential to our Interest, and the Security of our Colonies, that the several Nations or Tribes of Indians with whom we are connected, and who live under our Protection, should not be molested or disturbed in the Possession of such Parts of Our Dominions and Territories as, not having been ceded to or purchased by Us, are reserved to them, or any of them, as their Hunting Grounds...(56) Historical records indicate that mixed-heritage people did not live in exclusive settlements. Rather, they lived in small settlements located in and around trading posts. The typical fur-trade family of the Proclamation period consisted of a Euro-Canadian male, who was a voyageur, an Indian wife, and their mixed-heritage child(ren). “[A] large proportion of them in the later period of the fur-trade era became settlers on the frontier...First the voyageurs lived at the trading posts of these regions; a little later they took up land, on which they resided during the portion of the year when they were not employed in paddling traders’ canoes or absent on trading expeditions to the Indians.”(57) Under the Grants for Settlement provision of the Proclamation, the voyageurs and their families were provided with certain rights for settlement. Most importantly, under the Proclamation, sovereign rights were assigned specifically to Indian Nations and the Crown. Sovereignty was not an individual right; rather, it was right of governments -- tribal and European. Voyageur settlements per se did not have sovereign rights. Although a portion of the populace of the settlements was composed of Indian females and their mixed-heritage children, tribal sovereign rights did not extend to the settlements. Essentially, they lived outside the perimeters of their respective tribal nations and, hence, tribal sovereignty in terms of the land base was not applicable. The MNC’s argument is largely based on the assumption that the land was Terra Nullius and that the land was essentially free for the taking. They claim the right to land because they consider themselves as the third founding nation of Canada. There is, however, a contradiction in their argument. On one hand, they claim to be an indigenous people of North America; on the other, they claim to be a founding nation. One is either one or the other; one cannot be both. VI Métissage in the United States Métissage is not limited to Canada. The ideology of Métissage has adherents in the United States. Today, there are several organizations that claim an affinity to the ethnic dimensions that define Métissage. These include Blue Mountain Métis Community, Association of Southern Métis, Inc., U.S. Metis Alliance, Métis Nation of the South, the Métis Nation of New England, the United American Metis Society, the Métis Nation of the United States, and the National American Métis Association (NAMA). In general, American Métis identify themselves as Southern Métis to make a distinction from the Canadian Métis. NAMA claims to be the “official” voice of Métis in the United States. Founded in 1978, NAMA, due to disputes over leadership positions, has gone under and reemerged several times. At present, it has 200 members. According to NAMA’s policy statement: We Breed people continue to be born and to learn a new language to describe ourselves, celebrating our place here in Life with out Mother Earth. We cannot understand boundaries and borders. We are a Native stock and Mixed Heritage and we are responsible for expressing our Fact. Soon, all the Reservations will be Metis and certainly most of our inner cities are now Metis.(58) All of these organizations have fast and loose rules for membership. Although family tree information is requested, a prospective member who does not have that information can merely state that he/she is of mixed-blood ancestry to qualify for membership. For example, the requirements for the Métis Nation of the South states: Part II: Statement of Oral Tradition (If you do not have legal documents that prove to have First Nations and non-First Nations ancestry, you are required to complete Part II. If you do have such legal documents, you may skip this section, and send a photocopy of the records at your option, or you may choose to complete part II anyway.) I hereby affirm under penalty of perjury, that according to the oral traditions of my family, that I am of First Nations Ancestry, of the ________________________________________ Tribes(s) or First Nation(s), and of non-First Nation(s) Ancestry of the ________________________________________ Tribe(s) or First Nation(s). Part III Statement of Oath of Citizenship “I,____________________________, pledge oath to the Metis Nation of the South. I promise to uphold the constitution of the Nation and to honor the traditions of my ancestors.” By pressing the submit button, you certify under penalty, according to the laws and traditions of the Nation that the above facts are true and complete. Intentional falsification of facts on this form is a crime.(59) All of these groups have established a presence on Internet sites. Interaction between Southern Métis can be found at [email protected]. MetisCulture was founded in 1999 to allow for interactive dialogue between Southern Métis people. It currently has 71 members. Essentially, MetisCulture is a message board that allows member to post comments, opinions, and concerns. The undercurrent of dialogue reveals the idea that Southern Métis are a people who are dispossessed of land and identity. In general, Southern Métis have little knowledge of their own specific Indian heritage. As such, the Southern Métis incorporate a homogenous blend of tribal philosophies, traditions, and customs. There is, however, a dark underside to this appropriation of tribal spiritual and cultural knowledge. This is the sentiment that Southern Métis have a right to that knowledge because tribal nations are perceived through the lens of misconceptions. For example, Indian peoples and cultures are viewed through the stereotypical notions of the vanishing race. And because, according to the Southern Métis view, tribal nations are vanishing, it then becomes the responsibility of the Southern Métis, by virtue of their “native” blood, to uphold and practice those traditions and customs. Recently, one MetisCulture member posted the following: Yea -- I'm sick to death of the doom-sayers, the nay-sayers, and the absurd hypocrisy I have witnessed--for too many years-- in the American Indian Circles-- and the sacrilregous, sanctomonious, crap I have witnessed in the behavoir of young, full-blood, Dancers at Pow-wow, and Indian Youth in general at Public events. Either their Elders taught them nothing at all, or they themselves chose not to listen, thereby showing little to no Respect for either the Elders of the Nation or themselves. Sorry, but this IS the Truth. On the other hand--- it seems the Métis kids and the purely White Dancers know how to Respect the Circle, the Dance, and all of the spiritual overtones of Pow-wow --- funny, isnt it ?? (I’m not exactly laughing) Of course, then there are the "Elders"-----members of the boards of directors of Urban Centers--who tend to fall out Drunk at their own, Public, Events. Some showing --huh ?? Yea, Folks, and I've seen the same from Tribal Officials on Reservations. Believe it.(60) Although this particular posting was extreme in its assessment of indigenous North American peoples, it nevertheless forms the thread of Southern Métis thought that can be found in the writings of other Southern Métis people. Another aspect of identity is the Southern Métis claim to a supposed ethnic identity based on the assumption that the historic Métis had a strong presence in the United States. Although the historic Métis did in fact have a presence in the United States -- in particular, in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Dakota, and Montana -- it is a misconception that all mixed-heritage individuals identified themselves as ethnic Métis. Intermarriages had occurred in many tribes in the United States as a result of contact with fur traders, voyageurs, and trappers. These unions resulted in a mixed-heritage population. However, these individuals did not form an ethnicity in the same sense as the mixed-heritage individuals in Canada. In U.S. treaties, mixed heritage people were referred to as half-breeds, half-bloods or mixed bloods. Fourteen treaties, out of 377, contained specific provisions for half-breeds. The half-breed populace maintained close ties to the tribes that they were related to. The Treaty with the Osage (1825) and the Treaty with the Kansa (1826) are the earliest treaties that cite a half-breed populace. Both of the treaties provided several half-breed individuals with “reservations.” These were not reservations in the legal sense of the term, i.e., they were not sovereign tracts of land. Rather, they were portions of land given to certain half-breeds. The Osage treaty provided tracts of one hundred and forty acres, and the Kansa treaty provided tracts of one square mile. In 1830, a collective treaty with several tribal groups, including the Sioux, Omahas, Ioways, and Ottoes, contained provisions for tracts of land for their half-breed populace. Treaties with the Ottawa and Chippewa (1836), the Sauk and Foxes (1836), and the Chippewa of Lake Superior and Mississippi (1842) contained cash provisions for their half-breeds. In 1847, the treaty with the Lake Superior and Mississippi bands was renegotiated. The terms of the new treaty stipulated that “the half or mixed bloods of the Chippewa residing with them shall be considered Chippewa Indians, and shall, as such, be allowed to participate in all annuities which shall be hereafter be paid to the Chippewas of the Mississippi and Lake Superior, due them by this treaty, and the treaties heretofore made and ratified.”(61) Basically, the treaties with mixed blood provisions provided the half-breed populace with 1) tracts of land located in territory ceded by the band; 2) cash payments in lieu of land; 3) absorption into the band itself and provided with the benefits stipulated in the treaties. The majority of mixed bloods chose to marry into the tribes that they were descended from. In other words, they were absorbed back into their tribes of origin. Their offspring established strong blood ties to the tribe. Those mixed bloods who chose to adopt “white ways,” received land tracts and/or cash payments. The crucial difference between the mixed blood experience in Canada and the U.S. is that a majority of mixed bloods in the U.S. became a part of the tribe. In Canada, mixed bloods chose to remain aloof from the tribes. As the Canadian mixed bloods coalesced into their own communities, half-blood men married half-blood women. These intermarriages diminished the blood line to the extent that the term “half-breed” was no longer applicable. Hence, the term Métis, meaning mixed. Indeed, Louis Riel, who is often referred to as the half-breed leader of the Métis, was only one-eighth Indian. Certainly Canadian mixed-bloods had choices to make. Had they wanted, they could have become part of the tribes of their origins. “Traditionally, individuals could become members of an indigenous society by kinship, intermarriage, adoption, or naturalization, which included ‘mixed blood identities,’ no matter what their ‘racial’ or cultural background. Later, Euro-Americans as ‘whites’ could be adopted or naturalized by Indians through intermarriage and emphasis on exogamy.”(62) The fact that tribes were nations in the sense of peoplehood is often overlooked. The book, Miskwaagamiiwizaa’iganing, points this out: The traditional custom of adoption is common among Indian tribes. This custom was also common on the Red Lake reservation and a necessary part of the Ojibwe society since the well-being for all people was a tribal virtue. The Ojibwe society also adopted Indians from other tribes, other Ojibwe tribes, and non-Indians. In the past, birth on the reservation was sufficient evidence for tribal enrollment...in terms of cultural and tribal identity, the dodem clan membership, kinship system, and adoption are some of the tribal identity criteria. The tribal custom does not have an “official” membership criteria.(63) The treaty-making process ended traditional concepts of native peoplehood. The limiting factors of Indian sovereignty, as established in the U.S. Supreme Court decisions rendered by Chief Justice John Marshall in the 1820s-30s, imposed a domestic, dependent nation sovereignty that denied tribes the right to determine traditional membership within their own nations. Another factor that has led to the myth of a Métis ethnic presence in tribes in the U.S. are surnames. For example, many Ojibwé-Anishinaabé families have French, Scot, and English surnames. The assumption is made that European surnames indicate a Métis intermarriage somewhere in the Indian family lineage. Although mixed blood marriages did occur, and European surnames were adopted, in most cases the surname was assigned to Indian families in which there was no intermarriage. The European concept of first names and surnames were introduced to the American Indian by the federal government. Therefore, the government implemented a system for issuing a surname to a family head. The procedure was either an attempt to translate the father’s Indian given name or to randomly select a common name drawn from a hat. This procedure was sometimes done in random fashion that members of a family had different surnames. Since the French and Norwegian folk were common in the Midwest, which also includes the Red Lake area, French and Norwegian surnames were commonly assigned names. The surnames of the Red Lake people reflect this random assignment for surnames. After the federal government assigned surnames for the people of Red Lake, the tribal rolls for the Red Lake Band was established. (64) Indeed, Indian people who choose to research their family tree to trace their Métis surname find a gap in connecting their surname to historical Métis surnames. They can trace the surname to a grandparent or great-grandparent, but they find a space, or a break, in which the name cannot go beyond that and be connected to an interconnecting, intermarrying relative who has historic Métis roots. This gap represents the fact that a connection does not exist. Rather, it is a surname that had been literally drawn out of a hat and assigned to a generation twice or three times removed. The quest to establish a Métis ethnicity in the United States is based on the false assumption that a large Métis ethnicity existed in the historic past. Certainly there were Métis people who settled in the U.S. They were, however, a minority among the general mixed heritage populace. Indeed, the majority of mixed bloods did not subscribe to Louis Riel’s ideology of a mixed blood ethnicity. There is also a fallacy that the Southern Metis could somehow receive “recognition” through the BIA. With such a minute constituency -- one that numbers perhaps 1000 nationwide -- the Southern Metis are hardly in the position to exert any political leverage whatsoever for recognition. The federal recognition process recognizes only tribal entities that can, through an exhaustive process, prove their historical tribalness. Without any real indigenous roots, the Southern Metis, at best, can claim to be a homogeneous group -- one composed of a mixture of enigmatic tribal beliefs, traditions, and customs. But a true tribal people, they are not. Like the Métis in Canada, the Southern Métis have revised history to fit the conception of a people dispossessed of land and stripped of identity. Whereas the Métis are an ethnicity formed and shaped by the Canadian socio-political environment, American Métis have very little foundation on which to establish an ethnic identity. Conclusion “Racial categories (and ethnic categories, for they function in the same way) identify a set of people with whom to share a sense of identity and common experience...It is to share a sense of peoplehood that helps locate individuals psychologically, and also provides the basis for common political action.”(65) Certainly the Métis, as an ethnicity, share a sense of peoplehood that has resulted through the need for common political action. Indeed, the very history of the Métis strongly indicates that Métis group identity was largely shaped and formed in reaction to political pressures of the Canadian government’s efforts to annex Rupert’s Land in the late 1860s. However, the ethnic dimensions of group identity were limited. It wasn’t until the 1970s that a strong ethnic infrastructure emerged in reaction to the socio-political oppression of mixed-heritage peoples. This was, of course, a period when group power movements representing people of color -- Black power, Red power, Chicano power -- emerged in the political consciousness of North America. The turmoil of the 70s led to concessions by governments in the United States and Canada. In the case of the Métis, the concession of aboriginal recognition was granted in the Constitution Act, 1982. However, aboriginal recognition did not, nor does it, imply sovereign rights. S31(1) clearly states that existing aboriginal rights...are hereby recognized and affirmed. For the Métis, this means their hunting and gathering rights as an aboriginal people, and these rights have been recognized and affirmed in recent court decisions. The other part of s31(1) -- The existing treaty rights...are hereby recognized and affirmed -- is clearly intended for those who have sovereign rights, i.e., the indigenous First Nations and Inuit peoples of Canada. The definition of sovereignty is implicit in its meaning in regard to tribal/First Nations. David Wilkins writes: “[T]he description of tribes as ‘governments’ stems from their status as the original sovereigns of America with whom various European states and, later, the United States, engaged in binding treaties and agreements. Clearly the tribes’ sovereign status continued through the colonial period and under the Articles of Confederation, the Northwest Ordinance, and the earliest draft of the U.S. Constitution”(66) Although Wilkins is writing about tribal nations in the U.S., the principals of sovereignty are essentially the same in both the United States and Canada. Wilkins further writes: To define [sovereign] status, it is important to identify certain characteristics of tribal nations. First, and most obvious, tribal nations are indigenous to the United States, while all other individuals and groups are immigrants. Second, “tribalism” or “tribal status” is a unique concept emphasizing collective or group rights and affirming the sovereign status of the group. From an indigenous perspective...tribal sovereignty has several manifestations. First, from both an internal and intergovernmental perspective, it entails a political/legal dimension -- including, but not limiting to, the power to adopt its own form of government; to define the conditions of citizenship/membership in the nation; to regulate the domestic relations of the nation’s citizens/members; to prescribe rules of inheritance with respect to all personal property and all interests in real property; to levy dues, fees, or taxes upon citizen/members and noncitizens/nonmembers; to remove or to exclude nonmembers of the tribe; to administer justice; and to prescribe and regulate the conduct of federal employees. Second, and more broadly, tribal sovereignty entails a cultural/spiritual dimension. Sovereignty ‘can be said to consist more of continues cultural integrity than of political powers and to the degree that a nation loses its sense of cultural identity, to that degree it suffers a loss of sovereignty.’”(67) The factors that Wilkins lists applies to tribal groups. As such, tribalism or tribal status is reserved for those indigenous groups that inhabited North American before the coming of European immigrants. It is clear that the Métis do not fit the definition of tribalism or tribal status since they did not, nor could not, exist before the coming of Europeans. With a mixed-heritage of European and Indian ethnicity, they could not possibly have any claim to sovereign rights. The Métis drift toward sovereignty is keyed to recent Canadian Supreme Court decisions that have upheld Métis hunting rights, e.g., R. v. Powley. Yet, despite several decisions that have favored Métis hunting rights, sovereign rights have eluded them. One of the most important decisions that clearly affirmed indigenous sovereign rights as opposed to Métis efforts to gain sovereign rights occurred on July 20, 2000. The Supreme Court denied an appeal by Ontario Métis groups and organizations who claimed a right to share in the profits of Casino Rama, operated by the Mnjikaning Ojibwe First Nation. The Mnjikaning Ojibwe receive 35 percent of the profits and the rest goes to 133 status First Nation reserves in Ontario. Under a 1996 agreement with the Ontario government, the casino profits are used to strengthen tribal economic, cultural and social development. The proceeds are distributed only to Ontario First Nations communities who have sovereign status as recognized under the Indian Act. The Court rejected the Ontario Métis appeal on the grounds that the Métis are not a tribe and do not have sovereign rights. The issue of land and sovereignty to land permeates the Métis perspective in both Canada and the United States. There is, in Métis thought, a sense of Lebensraum. This is the German Nazi ideological concept of a tribally rooted people dispossessed of their land, and a people who have been oppressed by the dominion of stronger nations. The Metis sense of Lebensraum is based on the writings of one man -- a man diagnosed as a megalomaniac, a man who saw himself as a Messiah leading his Chosen People. In the shadows of the gallow and noose, Louis Riel wrote: What did the Government do? It laid hands on the land of the Metis as if it were its own...not only did it take the land from under their feet, it even took away their right to use it. To take away their country was to weaken the strength of their character. I address this question to all those enlightened by the ideals of truth and simple justice. Does justice allow a stronger people to snatch away the homeland of a weaker people? Humanity answers no. Human conscience condemns such an act as criminal and its grievous consequences are many and difficult to measure...One’s native land is the most important of all things on earth. Above all it is made holy through the ancestors who pass it on. To take it away from the people it gave birth to, is as abominable as to tear a mother from her little children at the time they need her most. But the fatherland is called the fatherland because it is the Gift of God, our Father; a priceless heritage -- I should say a divine heritage! A people who unjustly take away the native land of another, commits the greatest sacrilege, because all other sacrileges seem to me are only parts of it. The Metis had their hay lands; the Government took them. They had commons and pasture land for their horses and cattle; it took them too. They had woodlots; the Government seized them. The lands that they owned and which belonged to once, by the Indian title, twice for having defended them with their blood, and thrice for having built and lived on them, cultivated, fenced, and worked them, were returned to them for a consideration of two dollars an acre.(68) Louis Riel’s “enlightened” sense of injustice was ludicrous at best. He was correct in questioning the human conscience for the unjustly appropriation of native land. However, Riel overlooked one minor detail -- what of the unjustness of the taking of native land by a mixed heritage element who renamed the land and who settled the land without Indian title? The most revealing aspect of Riel’s concept of Lebensraum is his use of the term fatherland. In native thought, the land is always the mother. However, in Riel’s convoluted matter of thinking, the land became anchored in the Euro-centric notion of the Judeo-Christian ethos of man as the master of all life upon the earth. In the mind of The New World Man, the land becomes rooted in the European mind set of the dominant male; and in the sexist concepts of male dominance, the land becomes the fatherland. The idea of the land as fatherland gives way to the aggressive, conquest-oriented part of European -- and, hence, Metis -- identity. In sum, the Metis are not a distinct race but rather an ethnicity that has evolved in response to a post-colonial environment. Historically, they played an active role in colonialism by exploiting the resources of indigenous peoples through the auspices of the fur trade companies. With the diminishment of the fur trade, they evolved into a colonizing group of settlers of mixed heritage who, in mind and manner, were European, and they sought to establish a European style of sovereignty on lands that they had settled. They may be considered aboriginal by virtue of the fact that they have indigenous roots. But indigenous they clearly are not. Most importantly, the Metis are the legacy of colonialism. Their roles in the establishment of colonial power was essentially that of indentured laborers. Betrayed by the ideals of a “civilizing mission,” they were marginalized as a people without a history. Like their mestizaje kin of Central and South America, they are the genetic and cultural hybrid of the colonizer and the colonized. Unlike their mestizaje kin, who “overcame the last formal vestiges of political dependency on imperial Spain and established their own nation-states in the image of the motherland [Spain]”(69), the Metis have failed to overcome those “last formal vestiges” because the colonizer remains in power. But, perhaps more crucial, those the Metis have sought to replace have not vanished nor have they relinquished their obligations and responsiblities to Mother Earth. We are still here. Works Cited 1 Metis Nation of Alberta: History of the Alberta Metis, INTERNET: http://www. metis.org/pages/history_metis.html, 1. 2 ibid., 1. 3 Kromkowski, John A., ed., Race and Ethnic Relations 98 / 99, Stephen Jay Gould, The Geometer of Race, Guilford: Dushkin/McGraw-Hill, 1998, 235. 4 ibid., 235. 5 ibid., 235. 6 ibid., 235. 7 ibid., 237. 8 Handout, Race, Culture, and Ethnicity, Prof. Rose Brewer, Fall Term, 1998. 9 ibid. 10 ibid. 11 Root, Maria P. P., ed., Racially Mixed People in America, Paul R. Spickard, The Illogic of American Racial Categories, Newbury Park/London/New Delhi: Sage Publications, International Educational and Professional Publisher, 1992, 19. 12 The Metis: Louis Riel’s Last Memoir, Before Confederation, INTERNET: http:// members.tripod.com/~Metis/rielmemoir3.htm, 2. 13 The Metis - Louis Riel’’s Last Memoir, The Metis of the North West, INTERNET: http://members.tripod.com/~Metis/rielmemoir1.html, 1. 14 Louis Riel Trial Statement, INTERNET: http://www.hpl.hamilton.on.ca/History/ riel/hisspeech.htm, 2. 15 Cook-Lynn, Elizabeth, Why I Can’t Read Wallace Stegner and Other Essays, End of the Failed Metaphor, Madison: The Unuversity of Wisconsin Press, 1997, 147. 16 ACADIAN-CAJUN Genealogy: 1686 Acadian Census, INTERNET: http://www.genweb.net/acadian-cajun/1663 cens.htm and 1686 cens.htm, January, 2001. 17 Tanguay, L'Abbe Cyprien, Dictionnarie Genealogique des Familles Canadiennes, Quebec: Eusébe Senécal, Imprimeur-Éditeur, 1700. 18 Howard, Joseph Kinsey, Strange Empire: A Narrative of the Northwest, St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1994, 39. 19 Nute, Grace Lee, The Voyageur, St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1987, 87- 88. 20 Bodley, John H., Cultural Antropology: Tribes, States, and the Global System, London/Toronto: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1997, 8. 21 Glazer, Nathan and Daniel P. Moynihan, eds., Ethnicity: Theory and Experience, Talcott Parsons, _Some Theoretical Considerations on the Nature and Trends of Change of Ethnicity, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975, 57. 22 Imperial, Political, and Economic Relationships, INTERNET: http://www. calary.ca/HIST/tutor/colony/18imp.html, 1. 23 Volger, Ingolf, European Colonialism Models: Boreal Riverine Empire, INTERNET: http://www.uwec.edu/Academic/Geography/Ivogeler/w111/ macro2.htm, 1. 24 Vogeler, Ingolf, European Colonialism Models: Settler Empire, INTERNET: http://www.uwec.edu/Academic/Geography/Ivogeler/w111/macro3.htm, 1. 25 Encyclopedia Brittanica, Colonialism, INTERNET: http://search.eb.com/ topic?eu=108616&sctn=14&pm=1, 1. 26 Nute, op. cit., 3. 27 ibid., 7. 28 Howard., op. cit., 30. 29 MVNF: The Fur Trade in New France: The Coureurs des bois, Voyageurs, and Hired Men: Residents of Montreal and Trois-Rivieres, INTERNET: http://www. vmnf.civilization.ca/popul/coureurs/resident.htm. 1. 30 LesMetis...Voyageurs and Grandparents: The Northern Rivermen, INTERNET: http://www.jkcc.com/evje/voyageurs.html, 3, 5. 31 ibid., 1. 32 Lynne, Jackie, Colonialism and the Sexual Exploitation of Canada’s First Nations Women, paper presented at the American Psychological Association 106th Annual Convention, San Francisco, CA, August 17, 1998, 2. 33 Howard, op. cit., 56. 34 ibid., 44. 35 1869 Metis Bill of Rights, INTERNET: http://www.nelson.com/nelson/school/ discovery/cantext/western/1869meti.htm. 36 Howard., op. cit., 159. 37 ibid., 317. 38 ibid., 437. 39 Root., op. cit., 19. 40 Dunn, Martin, Metis 101: Understanding Metis in Canada Today, INTERNET: http://www.cyberus.ca/%7Emfdunn/metis/Papers/Dunn/Metis101/Metis101.html, 4. 41 Dunn, Martin, and Claude Aubin, Confederacy Concept, INTERNET: http:// www.othermetis.net/index.html/Docu...s/Confederacy/ConFedWorkshop/ concept.html, 1. 42 Redbird, Duke, We Are Metis, INTERNET: http://www.othermetis.net/index. html/WAM/WAMend.html, 1. 43 Morisset, Jean, The Native Path and its Trance-Cultural Connection, INTERNET: http://www.cyberus.ca/~mfdunn/metis/Papers/trance.html, 7. 44 Royce, Anya Peterson, Ethnic Identity: Strategies of Diversity, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 18. 45 Howard, op. cit., 337-338. 46 CAP Sues Feds for 91(24) Recognition of Metis and Non-Status Indians, INTERNET: http://www.othermetis.net/index.html/Legalmetis/CAPclaim.html, 5. 47 Howard., op. cit., xxi-xxii. 48 ibid., xxii. 49 1996 Census: Aboriginal Data, INTERNET: http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/ English/980113/d980113.htm. 50 CAP, op. cit. 51 ibid. 52 MNC Definition of “Metis,” INTERNET: http://www.televar.com/~gmorin/ metis-MNC.htm, 1, 53 ibid., 2. 54 The Metis National Council, What is the Legal Basis of Metis Land Title? INTERNET: http://www.metisnation.ca/mnc/mncLAND_INTRO.html, 2. 55 Virtual Law Office: Royal Proclamation of 1763, INTERNET: http://www. bloorstreet.com/200block/rp1763.htm, 6. 56 ibid. 57 Nute, op. cit., 177. 58 National American Metis Association, http://www.americanmetis.org/test/ html. 59 The Metis Nation of the South, http://www.newcastle.nu/metis. 60 [email protected], posted by [email protected], April 16, 2001. 61 Kappler, Charles, Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, Volume II, Treaties, Treaty with the Lake Superior and Mississippi Chippewa, 1847. 62 Gregory, Steven and Roger Sanjek, eds., Race, M. Annette Jaimes, American Racism: The Impact on American-Indian Identity and Survival, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1994. 63 Ojibwe Studies, 1981-1982, Red Lake Title IV Program, Miskwaagamiiwizaaga’iganiing: An Introductory Course about the Red Lake Indian Reservation, 20. 64 ibid., 19. 65 Root, op. cit., 19. 66 Wilkins, David, American Indian Sovereignty and the U.S. Supreme Court: The Masking of Justice, Austin: Unviersity of Texas Press, 1997, 22-23. 67 ibid., 20. 68 The Metis: Louis Riel’s Last Memoir, The Coming of Authority, http://www. tripod.com/~Metis/rielmemoir4.html, 1-4. 69 Prakash, Gyan, ed., After Colonialism: Imperial Histories and Postcolonial Displacements, J. Jorge Klor De Alva, The Postcolonialization of the Latin American Experience: A Reconsideration of “”Colonialism,” “Postcolonialism, and “Mestizaje,” Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995. © 2001, Capstone, All Rights Reserved, Robert DesJarlait © 2018, All Rights Reserved, Robert DesJarlait
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