The word Métis is one of the most misused in the mainstream today; it is more often employed to refer to all those mixed bloods of European and Indian descent, or sometimes more specifically of French and Cree descent, and less often used to refer to the actual people who have historically self-identified as Métis, those of the Red River national tradition.
It is as if the word "Canadian" suddenly came to refer to all the descendants of former British colonies, so that Canadians, people from the United States and Australians all became one political and cultural identity that superceded any distinct traditions of three peoples. This article is dedicated to the history of the Métis of the Red River political and cultural tradition, the only Métis.
Early Métis History
The first French Cree half-breeds of the North-west to do so began to self-identify as Métis, Mitif or Métif as early as the last decade of the 1700's. During this period and the beginning of the 1800's, several distinct Métis communities began appearing as the Métis were developing a particular role in the fur-trade, primarily as suppliers but also as trappers and freighters.
The Métis of the Red River conducted annual buffalo hunts based on Nakota organization. Although the buffalo hunts supplied the North West Company traders with pemmican, the buffalo hunt contributed to a development in Métis nationhood as a subsistence activity and by engaging the Métis in warfare with the Lakota. These engagements made the Métis aware of their increasing military and political presence on the prairies.
La Grenouillère (Seven Oaks)
The Battle of la Grenouillère (Seven Oaks) occurred when the Hudson's Bay Company attempted to outlaw the Métis buffalo hunt to prevent the supply of pemmican to North West Company traders. As a group of Métis under the leadership of Métis Cuthbert Grant were transporting buffalo meat near an HBC post, a militia came out to stop them. At the cost of a single Métis, the HBC governor Semple and all of his men but three were killed.
After la Grenouillère the two fur-trading companies were amalgamated into the HBC, and the Métis stopped being hired by the company. It was at this period that the Métis became independent traders and were first called les Gens libres, or the Free People. Métis independence was further confirmed in 1849 when the HBC indirectly accepted Métis ignorance of the supposed HBC monopoly.
Otipeyimisowak; the Battle of le Grand Coteau
Métis independence was affirmed again in 1851, when the Métis were confronted with their largest single conflict with the Lakota Sioux. As the Métis crossed into the Grand Coteau country they were met with party of Lakota numbered at approximately 2500 warriors. The Métis quickly gathered their carts into a circle and dug rifle pits in a ring around the outside. For two days the Lakota attacked in waves, all of which were repelled by the Métis, although often barely, and the Métis suffered only one casualty as they were well hidden in the pits and the tall grass.
The culmination of Métis nationhood in the events just described layed the foundations of the Métis reaction at Red River and on the Saskatchewan, when a foreign power again began settling the land and making laws without the consent of all of the Native inhabitants.
Sources:
Siggins, Maggie. Riel: A Life of Revolution. Toront: Harper Collins Publishers, 1994.
Trémaudan, Auguste-Henri de. L'Histoire de la nation métisse dans l'ouest canadien 4ième éd. Saint Boniface: Éditions des plaines, 1984.
Woodcock, George. Gabriel Dumont: The Métis Chief and His Lost World. Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers, 1975.
Leslie Skinner - Tânisi, My name is Leslie Skinner and I am a young Métis student of Political Sciences and Native Studies at the ...
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