The term Métis refers to those people born of a mixture of
French or Scottish fur traders and Cree, Ojibwa, Saulteaux, and
Assiniboine women. The Métis in the north-west developed as a
people, distinct from either Indian or European.1 During the
French Era (1600-1760), intermarriage between French traders and
Aboriginal women was so common that it is estimated that 40% of
French-Canadians in Quebec today can claim to have at least one
Aboriginal ancestor.2 Before the end of the French era, a sizable
Métis community developed around the Upper Great Lakes. Later
on, more communities developed in the Prairies. The origins of
the Métis Nation link them with the history of the Fur Trade and
the history of Western Canada.
The origin of the Métis community is tied with that of the
Fur Trade in Canada. The British entered the Fur Trade in 1670
with the establishment of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The French
had already been actively involved in trade. It was not until
the late 18th century that British traders chose to pursue trade
in the same way as the French, pushing inland, planting small
posts, and sending employees out to find furs. The same rivalry
which led the two streams of fur trade companies to compete for
customers also led them to plant fur trade posts near each
other. This led to fraternizing among the employees, and as a
result, children born to First Nations mothers and Orcadian,
Scottish or English fathers became the newest additions to the
Métis Nation.
The development of the Métis Nation began in colonial New
France. While the Catholic Church frowned upon interracial
marriage and the Hudson’s Bay Company forbade it outright, First
Nations tribes had no qualms about the issue because it echoed
their previous practices of intertribal marriages.3
Traditionally, inter-tribal marriages established trade and
military relationships. Traders often abandoned their Aboriginal
wives and children, at which point most of the abandoned wives
would attempt to reintegrate into their former communities. As
the number of mixed-blood women increased, they became
preferable as marriage partners to non-Aboriginal men, while men
of mixed-blood origin were often employed at trading posts.4
However, their jobs were usually low-paying and they were often
unable to advance in the company.
As numbers of Métis increased they started to develop a new
and distinct culture. Offspring of the French developed their
own language, Michif, a language that combined French and Plains
Cree. Offspring of English origin developed a language called
Bungi, which was a combination of Cree and a Scots dialect from
the Orkneys. By the mid-19th century, Métis settlements started
to appear around the Great Lakes.
As European explorers started to push further west, traders
from New France accompanied them as they opened up new trade
territory. On occasion, a few men would choose to stay inland,
either as freemen or as employees maintaining an outpost. In
such instances, the cycle of establishing relationships with the
local Aboriginals would begin again.
The Red River was a place where the Métis distinctiveness
grew at a remarkable rate. Red River was composed of French,
English and Scottish decent Métis. Much of the business
transactions linked the French and English speaking communities.
From Red River the Métis communities of the north-west spread
further out to as far as Lac Ste. Anne and the Milk River. These
settlements were used as hunting locations and slowly over time
they came to be a year round community.
Although Red River connected settlements that spread
throughout the northwest, there were Indigenous Métis
communities that were growing and developing along the same time
line as Red River. Trudy Nick and Kenneth Morgan’s Grande
Cache: The historic development of an indigenous Alberta Métis
population, discusses a Métis community that grew out of a
mixing of First Nations and European cultures, but did not
initially have a connection to Red River. Grand Cache is a town
that is about 128 kilometers northwest of Jasper.
French-Canadian free traders traveled inland with the expanding
fur trade and met First Nations in this particular area. These
people became a Cree-speaking Métis population. As trading
routes opened up and the settlements in the Edmonton area began
to flourish, many of the Métis families of this particular area
traveled to fort communities in the Edmonton and Lac Ste. Anne
areas. "It was the establishment of the Lac St. Anne mission in
1842, as much as the proximity of the major trading centre at
Edmonton that drew members of the eastern-slopes groups to the
Edmonton area in the summer months" (Nicks and Morgan, 1985).
The Grand Cache Métis stand as an example of a Métis community
who have links to the greater Métis community, but whose genesis
is uniquely in Alberta.
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