It is also one of the most signficant aspects of Metis history given the current attempts to constitutionalize the Aboriginal right of self-government. Again --and with a little re-phrasing-- I will turn the background history paper I wrote almost ten years ago.

"It is not often emphasized in conventional history that almost four centuries passed between the proverbial 1492 and the established dominance of European settlement in North America in the late 1800's. Given the ethno-centric bias of non-Native historians, this oversight is only to be expected, but --from a Native perspective-- this oversight is critical. For it is in the later part of this 400-year period that Metis developed their culture and aboriginal relationship to the land.

Although the birth records of mixed blood children are conspicuous by their abscence in most archives, it can be safely assumed that wherever White men and Indian women met, mixed blood offspring resulted. As these meetings occurred on a continental basis in the 15-1600's and with increasing frequency as trade and exploration escalated, and since the resulting Halfbreeds interbred with both White and Natives, the mixed blood populations mushroomed into the 1700's. 

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. Over such a vast area and with such diverse populations, it was impossible that a single sociological profile would develop. In eastern areas only the keenest eyes could discern the mixed blood from the Indian, and by 1800 in Ontario, many could not be distinguished from Whites. Still others, in Sault Ste. Marie areas and in Red River, formed communities totally independent, culturally, of White and Indian alike, and often generations before White settlement was established. 

As often as not, they were perceived as Indians by Whites, and as Whites by Indians, and as Natives by their own peers In most frontier communities in the the early 1800's, the distinction was academic --and there were very few academics around. Having a foot in both the Indian and White worlds, the mixed bloods developed a unique cultural adapatation providing valuable and critical service to both Indian and White as middlemen in social, economic, diplomatic and military contexts. The single connective element between the diverse groups of mixed blood people in North America is our relationship to the land.

Usually born of an indigenous mother, most mixed bloods were raised with a Native perception of the land and its use. The land was a resource from which one drew the necessities of life, and not a possession to be exploited. Even when White connection led to exploitation in terms of trapping, the concept of land ownership --in a legal sense-- was alien to a people whose emphasis was on seasonal/periodic --but consistent-- use of the land. But even where the concept of individual ownership of land was alien, the fact of territorial ocupation, and the communal right to use of the land was literally inbred. Historically, our resistance to external restrictions on that use was immediate and often violent.

Although most Canadians have at least a nodding aquaintance with Riel and the western Metis in this context, the historical writings dealing with earlier periods almost obliterate the crucial role the Metis played in the struggles of the colonial period. When the Metis militantly asserted themselves before 1800, historians assumed it was as allies of the French, or the English, or the Indians, in the context of a larger struggle between competing European, Indian, and colonial powers.

From a Metis perspective these battles were fought by Metis to assert their rights and defend their own territory against any and all comers. Even when Metis were specifically identified in distinct military encounters in the 1800's, they are painted as reactionary savages, or as a pitifully brave but backward people embroiled in a futile struggle to preseve their static way of life against the inevitable evolution of White civilization."

As we shall see later, historians, deliberately or otherwise, have grossly distorted the truth about Metis history in Canada. Traditional Canadian history does not even peripherally describe the critical significance of Metis influences in the historic development of modern Canada.