If you live your life in a standard dictionary "Métis" means offspring of a white person and an American Indian, which is not entirely true today since most Métis are born of at least one Metis parent. The word, we are told, is derived from the Latin word mixticius or mixed. Riel himself wrote as much.  I have seen at least one dictionary which included the words bastard and mongrel as part of its definition.  "Metis" is also the name of a Greek godess.  It is also the name of one of the moons of Jupiter.  The good and very helpful people at the National Achives tell me the word was used in 12th century France to refer to a type of cloth made by weaving different kinds of material together.

All of which is to say that dictionaries are not going to help us very much to understand Métis people in North America today.  It is reasonably certain the term did not come from the indigenous communities or people to whom it was initialy applied by outside writers.  The word appears on maps in Quebec and New Brunswick in the mid 1700s. Although the victors of the Battler of Seven Oaks (Cuthbert Grant, Falcon etc.) called themselves Bois Brules, rather than Métis, Riel was using the term by 1869 in his own letters referring to Red River population.

The term was included, but not defined, as a reference one of three Aboriginal peoples in Canada in the Constitution Act of 1982. 

As it applies to Aboriginal people in Canada, there is no formal, official or legal national definition of Métis.  Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 identifies  Métis as one of three Aboriginal peoples in Canada, but the term itself is not defined.  There have been and are local, provincial, and territorial, and even academic attempts to define Métis for specific purposes and programs throughout history, but none that applies to all Métis everywhere for all  time.

Who is a Métis? 

During the First Ministers' Conference on Aboriginal Matters between 1983 and 1992, governments and Aboriginal leaders from five national representative organizations agreed that a Métis is a person of mixed Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal ancestry who self-identifies as a Metis person and who is recognized as a Métis person by a Métis community.

This is a much more difficult question to answer, even among Métis people themselves.  Just as there are very many very different collectivities of people who are supposed to be captured by the word "Indian", there are many very different collectivities of people who are covered by the term "Métis".  That variety includes peoples from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans and from Arctic  Circle to the Gulf of Mexico who created and continue to create indigenous communities from the 1600s to the present day.  Many of these peoples may not have historically called themselves "Métis"  (Bois Brulé and Acadians for example) but they were all mixed blood peoples living their lives as indigenous peoples between the two sets of parent cultures.  Whatever their historic origins and terminology, it is the descendants of those people today who are Métis within the meaning of Section 35 the Constitution Act, 1982.

Not in the sense that they are the only Métis.  Many Métis do have French ancestry, but even in Red River, by 1870, the numbers of French-Indian and non-French-Indian Métis was about the same at 5,000 each.  Certainly not in the legal and current constitutional sense of the word which was intended to cover any Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal mix anywhere in Canada who identified as Métis. 

Definitely not, alhough there are many prairie Métis who have been brought up to think that way.  Independent historical research over the last twenty years in both Canada and the United States has established beyond any doubt that there were and are many Métis communities which are independent of and which both pre- and post-date the more often studied prairie Métis.  Unfortunately several generations of Canadian academia, by concentrating their research on the prairie provinces, have created that mistaken impression.

No, although I have seen at least one organization who had that requirement in their membership code!  In fact a large percentage of Métis have had Métis marrying Métis for generations.  My father was the first (as far as I know)  in his family line to marry a "white" woman since the 1780s.

No.  The majority of even status Indians today are mixed blood and most of them are not Métis. 
There were some Métis who were included in Treaties and some of them still identify as Métis. There are literally millions of Canadians who think of themselves as white who have Aboriginal ancestry, but they are not Méis -- at least not yet.

This is where things get really tricky.  Generally speaking, non-status Indians are Indians who have lost or been refused registration under the Indian Act.  Those people, for the most part, do not identify themselves as Métis.  However, when off-reserve representative organizations were forming in the late '60s and early 70s, Federal and provincial governments refused to fund separate organizations for Metis and for Non-Status Indians.  As a result the two sets of Aboriginal people -- Métis and Non-Status Indians -- jointly developed organizations and these organizations encouraged many people of Aboriginal ancestry, who did not consider themselves, culturally, to be Indians, to identify themselves as Métis. 

A decade later, the term "Métis' was negotiated into the constitution by these groups, represented by the Native Council of Canada (NCC) with the specific intention of including all NCC constituents who identified themselves as Métis.  Within that constituency there were, and are, significant numbers of people who legitimately consider themselves to have a kind of dual identity or citizenship.  They are both Metis and Non-Status Indians.  In fact, Bill C-31 permiited more than 100,000 people -- some of whom had learned to  identiify themselves as Metis -- became status Indians under the Indian Act. This is more likely to be true east of Ontario and less likely as you move westerly.

If you mean are all Métis people part of a single tribe, definitely not.  And certainly not in the sense that collectivities of Cree or Haudenoshonee, or Dakotas are tribes, respectively.  But there are descendants of all of these tribe who identify themselves as Métis, and there are some Metis leaders who think their particular constituents/collectivities should be organized and recognized as a tribe.

No.  In fact, just the opposite.  One of the reasons people of Aboriginal/Indian ancestry call themselves Métis is that they don't wannabee Indians because, culturally and sociologically they are not Indians.  I have certainly known a number of people who hid out in the Métis "camp" until they could figure a way to be registered as Indians -- but they really were Indians, not wannabees.  As one young fella from the NWT put it, "We are not wannabees, we are have-to-bees -- have to be Métis."

There are so many variables of time, place and circumstance involved in this question that it is virtually impossible to provide a single answer to it.  But two identifiable sets of answers can be offered.  The first set deals with factors of self-identity and the second set deals with elements of cultural relationship.

The first legal definition of "Indian" in Canada would certainly have included every Métis person I have ever met or read about.  The current usage of the term "Métis" -- persons of mixed Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal ancestry -- could include every Indian I have ever met and most of the Indians I have read about.  Obviously legalities and legislated definitions will not serve us well here, especially when we consider that both terms were first applied by Europeans to indigenous groups who did not, at first,  use the terms to apply to themselves.

Since the differences between Métis and Indian are not strictly genealogical, and legal distinctions are notoriously arbitrary and/or ambiguous, we must turn to the unique situation of each individual or collectivity to whom the terms are being applied.  In that unique situation an individual or collectivity "learns" to call him, her, or themselves either Indian or Métis.  Self-identification is one pragmatic indicator of who is an Indian and who is a Métis. That self-identification  then becomes one of the differences between Métis and Indian who might otherwise have similar genetic and cultural backghrounds.

Clearly, self-identification, in and of itself, does not exhaust the difference between Indian and Metis.  Recognition or validation of one identification or the other by the collectivity concerned becomes a signficant factor.  The specfic historic character of a "traditional" Indian collectivity was distinct from that of a parallel "traditional" Métis community.  In many, but certainly not all, circumstances "traditional" Métis collectivities were and are distinct from settler or immigrant collectivities.  We can, therefore expect to identify some differences between some Indian and some Métis collectivities by vitue of the differences in cultural manifestation -- lifestyle and language, to name two.

It is equally clear that there is a huge overlap or gray area between Indian and Métis -- particularly in urban centres.  I have known many -- including leaders of Indian and Métis organizations --whose identity shifted between Indian and Métis over a period of decades.  From my point of view it is perfectly legitimate for some to hold a kind of "dual identity" in the Indian-Métis continuum, while others assert hard and fast distinctions related to their own particular circumstances.

This question has the same level of difficulty as the one above, and for the same kinds of reasons.  Here too we find a huge gray area in which self-identification plays an even greater role in determinng the difference between Métis and white or non-Aboriginal collectivities.  In the national census of 1991, 1,002,675 Canadians reported Aboriginal ancestry with 212,650 identifying as Metis. But in 1996 only 799,010 indicated  Aboriginal identity and only 210,190 of those identified as Métis.   Demographers in 1979 indicated 15% of the Canadian population had "Native" blood.  And that did not take into account the much higher percentages (some say as high as 85%) in Quebec and even higher north of the 60th parallel.  In fact, I estimate the term Métis could include up to 8,000,000 Canadians today if mixeed Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal ancestry were the only requirement!

 Many Métis are not visibly different their "white" neighbors, and others are not visibly different from their Indian predecessors.But the simple fact is that people who identify themselves as Metis do not perceive themselves to be, and do not experience their lives to be part of the life of the "white" population, nor of being an integral part of the Indian community. .  The experience held most in common by most Metis peoples in most places throughout most of history is that of living their lives in a third world between the other two sets of cultures -- Indian and non-Aboriginal.  That is a major difference between being Métis and being "white." 

Assuming that Indian unity is both possible and desirable -- and that is a whole other question --
the answer is still "no."  Historically it was very often Indian and White communities who decided Métis/Halfbreeds were not part of their respective worlds.  It was Métis communities that developed out of those circumstances and who had to evolve a distinct indigenous existence between the two sets of parent cultures.  In effect Métis are a living bridge or a living treaty between two sets of people in North America.  Métis are, in a very practical way, the solution to a problem created by Indian and Immigrant collectivities.

Isn't Métis just a romantic idea?

Definitely not.  Métis are indigenous peoples who are struggling tu assert their reality and cultures between two parent cultures which often appear to be dedicated to the oppression and destruction/extinction of Métis cultures.  Riel is not the only Métis to have given his life so that Métis cultures could survive.  There may be some who think it is "in" or romantic to call themselves Métis, but they are the first to disappear back into their Indian or immigrant community when the real struggle overshadows their historic fantasies.

I don't know.  Try this questionnaire as a way of answering this question?

Yes, although I didn't always know that.  My grandmother took the "secret" of our Métis ancestry to her grave.  I later discovered I am descended from at least four Métis families -- the Gladmans and Vincents and Truthwaites of Red River and the Moores of Moose Factory.

How do I prove I am Métis?

That depends in part on who you are trying to prove it to, and in part why you are trying to prove it.  As far as I know there are only two viable methods for "proving" you are Métis.  The first is to show, via a collection of documents (birth and marriage certificates, etc) that you are descended from people who are historically known to have been Métis.  The second is to be validated as a Métis by a Métis community via oral testimony or acceptance as a Métis member of a Métis organization.  In the case of modern land claims agreements you would also be expected to meet whatever other requirements (i.e residency as of a certain date) a stakeholding group might establish.  As a rule, the more benefits that are to be made available under a claim, the higher the proof quotient will be.  Membership in a Metis organization, however, is probably sufficient to access most government programs and services designed for Métis peoples.

On the other hand, if you don't want anything from anybody,  you can probably call yourself anything you want.  Klingon, mabe?!? Who's going to care?

How do I find out if I have Métis ancestors?

The first step is to check with your own relatives --especialy the older relatives-- and write down as many family names, dates and places as you can. If there is even a whisper from the family closet that one or more relatives might be "Native: or "Indian" or "Métis" put these on a separate list.  If you are lucky, one or more of these people might have been associated with a mission or with the Hudson's Bay or other fur trading company.  These people kept very detailed records of employees, servants etc.  If that doesn't work, there are now scores of  Métis family trees online that you can check out.

No, but ... There are three good reasons to do so.. A legitimate Métis organization can play a role in confirming your Metis identity.  As a member you may have access to programs and services that are difficult to access any other way.  It can be a viable way to involve yourself in the development of a modern Métis culture.

Then start one.  Call a meeting.  Post a notice.   Start a local newsgroup or listserv.  Send some email.  Leave a message in my guestbook. Find out who is out there waiting for you to start something.  You might be pleasantly surprised.

No.  In fact I don't think any two Métis organizations have exactly the same criteria -- nor should they.  The regional differences in the history and circumstance of any particular Métis group are too variable to make that possible.  To say nothing of the political agenda of any given Métis leader or executive committee.  Most organizations require some kind of proof of Aboriginal ancestry, but the nature of that proof varies wildly.  Most also have age and residency requirements within the territorial jurisdiction of the specific organization.
 

No -- but many do, and most want to.  Both the Federal and some Provincial governments provide funding to some Métis organizations, but they are not required to do so by law.  There are two basic types of funding, core funding and program funding.  Core funding is repeated annually  and provides for office space, operating costs, executive salaries and support staff.  Core funding is increasingly difficult to get.  Program funding is designed to provide resources to undertake specific  initiatives, (health, training, community activities) and is usually for fixed period of time (from several months to several years), and is always tied to government department priorities.

Not exactly -- It is more an idea than an organization.  It was created by a resolution of the 1992 annual meeting of the Native Council of Canada (now the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples) to focus the energies of those Métis who were not represented by the Métis National Council.  It has no formal membership and -- apart from the participation of those who are interested in the idea -- no scheduled activity.  The major accomplishment of the Confederacy to date has been The Métis Circle --a two-day forum with the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and a discussion paper related to that process. 

Despite the tremendous differences in time and place between the various Métis communities throughout North America there are many identifiable commonalities among and between them. They all have Aboriginal ancestry of course and most suffered the bigotry of both Indian and Immigrant prejudice and oppression. On the positive side most had an indigenous relationship to the land and were often able to make a good life for themselves as the people in between the two sets of parent cultures.  In a truly astounding number of cases the relationship among Metis communities -- which are often thousands of miles and many decades apart -- is actually genetic.

Yes.  The Aboriginal and Treaty rights of Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples are recognized and affirmed in the Constitution Act, 1982.

What are the Aboriginal and Treaty Rights of Métis people?

Nobody knows -- exactly.  Courts have determined that Métis do have Aboriginal and Treaty rights, but they have also indicated what those precise rights might be will vary with the time, place and historical circumstance of a particular Métis individual or collectivity involved.

Are all Métis people entitled to all Aboriginal and Treaty Rights?

No.  Aboriginal rights are collective rights specific to use and occupnacy of specific areas of land and, as such, are only accessible to Métis descendants of those who are clearly elligible for such rights on such lands.  Treaty rights (including since 1983, rights derived from  modern land claims agreements) are only available to descendants of those covered by the original Treaty or agreement.  Those who have no demonstrable connection to the specific land covered by that specific Treaty or agreement are not elligible for the specific Aboriginal and Treaty rights involved.

Do Metis have the "right" to tax exemption, free dental care, and  post-secondary school education?

No - for two reasons. The first is that the above mentioned items are not "rights" under treaty or constitution, they they are "benefits" under the Indian Act. The second is that these benefits are only available to Indians registered under the Indian Act.  Just to make things difficult, there are some Métis who are registered under the Indian Act and as a result of that fact, are elligible for these benefits.

Generic scrip is a certificate, usually issued by governments, which states that the bearer is entitled to a specified number (usually 160) of acres in land.  Some scrip also provided that the bearer was entitled, on presentation of the scrip to a Land Registry Office, the equivalent of the land value in cash.  Scrip was often used as a payoff benefit to veterans in colonial wars.  It is different from a land deed in thatit does not describe or relate to a specific piece of land.  The bearer of the scrip chooses the land within a generally proscribed area, then registers his/her choice at a land registry office and is issued a deed to the specific land the bearer has chosen. 

No. In fact most did not.  There are three situations in which scrip was used to address western Metis claims.  The first was under  the Manitoba Act of 1870, the second was after the 1885 Metis Resistance, and the third was as a "carrot" to tempt halfbreeds to surrender (or enfranchise) their status as Indians under the Indian Act when were included in treaty.  There was a promise of scrip made to Metis in Moose Factory when they were left out of Treaty 9, but it was never fulfilled.

It no longer has value in terms of possession of land, but today scrip is significant in a number of ways.  The scrip processes generated voluminous records of people who applied for scrip and these records have become a way of identifying Metis ancestors.  Some Metis organizations insisted for a time that only Metis whose ancestors were eligible for scrip could identify as Metis today Finally the historic maladministration of the scrip process has become a basis for claims for many western Metis peoples.

 A status Métis is a myth.  There is no legal process by which a Métis can achieve the kind of "status" that some Indians enjoy when they are registereded under the Indian Act.  Métis individuals can have their identity as Métis recognized or confirmed by membership in a Métis organization, but this does NOT legally require governments to recognize them as Métis or to provide services and programs to them.  Organizations which sell membership cards on the basis of providing "status" are either misled or fraudulent.

It is a piece of paper (or plastic) that indicates you are a member of the organization that issues the card.  It is NOT a status card in the sense of the Indian Status card.  It does NOT confer Aboriginal or Treaty rights to the card holder. It does not LEGALLY bind any government to recognize card holder as a Métis person, but it will probably get the card holder access to government programs and services designed for Métis people.  It does, however confirm that the organization that issued the card recognizes you as an Aboriginal and/or Métis person within the meaning of Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982.

Probably none.  Although the Constitution recognizes and confirms Metis Aboriginal and Treaty rights, it does NOT say exactly what those rights are. Recent court decisions have indicated Métis hunting rights do exist under some circumstances for some Métis who meet very specific requirements.  But they will not apply to you unless you meet those same requirments -- of which community confirmation of Métis identity (i.e. the card) is only one. 

If you live in an area where modern land claims agreements which include Métis are being negotiated and you are accepted by the Metis stakeholders, you will be entitled to whatever rights and benefits flow from that agreement.

The card, however, may  entitle you to whatever BENFITS and//or programs the issuing organization may provide, but it DOES NOT PROVIDE you with  federal recognition for purposes of tax exeemption, free dental care, or free post secondary schooling as an Indian status card does for some Indians.

How do I get a Métis card?

If, after reading the above, you still want a Métis card, be careful who you get it from.  People are reported to be selling these cards on street corners and even on beaches in Florida!!  Virtually every province and territory has at least one bona fide Métis organization and most of them issue MEMBERSHIP cards.  Keep in mind these organizations have no mandate or authority to issue anything but MEMBERSHIP cards.  Each of those organizations probably have different criteria for membership and most of them will require various kinds of "proof" of Aboriginal ancestry, and some minimal age and residency criteria.  Check your phonebook or search engine for the card dealer nearest you.

Can I use my Métis card for exemption from sales tax or crossing the border to work in the U.S.?

Well, you can try.  I have talked with many people who have done it, but they were lucky enough to run into storekeepers and border guards who didn't know any better, and thought "Métis" was some kind of tribe like Cree or Ojibway.  I undertand these cards are now being turned back by American border guards at the Ontario/U.S. border and eastward.

There are dozens of local, regional, provincial and national organizations who represent or claim to represent Métis people in Canada today.  The two most influential national representative organizations are the Congress of Aborignal Peoples (CAP) --formerly the Native Council of Canada (NCC) which formed in 1971, and the Metis National Council (MNC) which split off from the NCC in 1983.  Each of these organizations is funded by the federal government and each is mandated by their registered charters to represent their respective Métis constituencies.  Each of these organizations has provincial affiliates which, in turn have regional zones, which in turn have community locals which in turn actually have the Métis members.  There are at least two smaller and developing national organizations -- The Canadian Metis Council and the Acadian Metis Indian Nation -- who are dissatisfied with the representation of the older organizations and are each trying to develop a national constituency from a regional base.  There are also several independent regional groups in Ontario, Quebec, and Britsh Columbia.  Then there are the Metis Settlements of Alberta -- the only formal Metis landbase in Canada --  who represent themselves as distnct communities and as a collectivity.

Yes, definitely.  Keep in mind that Métis communities were developing for two hundred years in North America before the present  U.S. border was established.  At various times in Canadian history thousands of Métis fled/emigrated to the States. Descendants of those Métis are entitled to identify with their Métis heritage today.  As far as I know, Métis in the U.S. are not yet recognized as Indigenous or Aboriginal peoples by the U.S. federal or any state government -- yet.   It is certain that the Canadian government does not formally recognize any U.S. Métis.

Who represents Métis in the U.S.?

I don't have a comprehensive total of the representative Métis organizations in the States. The handful that have contacted me are listed in the links section of this website.  A few others started up and then faded out of sight.  At least one has mistakenly claimed recognition by the Canadian government on the basis of a letter of solidarity from a small Canadian Métis group.

How do I get Métis  information from the web?

This question is not as easy to answer as one might think.  You might have already discovered that if your put the word "Métis" into a search engine, you will get thousands of "hits" but very few will be the "Métis" you are looking for.  Métis is the name of a moon of Jupiter , which accounts for half of the hits.  Metis is also the name of a Greek goddess which  provides another third of the hits and there is an international networking business called Metis which takes most of the rest.  There is even a rock band called Metis and a game in which very unsavoury characters are metis. What is left over is what you are looking for.  That's the bad news.  The good news is I have already done all of that and all of the best links I have found are already here on this site. 

I have not always included what I call "billboard" sites which only have contact information for a business or organization or sites which only have links that other sites I have listed already contain.  But sometimes it can be a month or more between updates and if you do want to go look for yourself, I suggest you enter a phrase like --

as a way of cutting down on unwanted hits.