The Term Nation

Now, let's take a look at the term and the concept of "nation." Again, I don't want to get bogged down in sematics, but we should keep in mind that nation states, as we know them today did not, in 1491, exist anywhere in the world. There is no doubt that highly sophisticated political systems did exist in preColumbian America and do exist today. That the variety, subtlety and complexity of these systems was and is often invisible to the political consciousness of Western Eurpeans, as we heard yesterday, does not change the fact that Native nations existed and flourished both before and after Columbus got lucky.

People who deny the existence of valid and viable Native nations in North America are usually imposing Eurocentric criteria, like fixed boundaries, constitutions, literate institutions, and enforceable codes of behaviour. Like the Canadian constitution, this system breeds relatively fixed forms of government that always exist or speak, even if nobody is listening.

In the political psyche of Aboriginal North America a different set of political constructs had evolved in addition to those Europeans were conditioned to recognize. Aboriginal political organization had to accomodate flexible land use and occupancy, consensus modes of decision making, holistic lifecycle relationships, and flexible leadership roles and functions. These elements generate a nation or state in which government speaks only when it is spoken to -- what a great idea -- to be governed only when necessary to respond to a significant situation faced by the group. 

The basis for political organization in the Aboriginal nation was kinship, individual consensus, and negotiated alliance. In any case, it should be understood that many of the Metis Aboriginal nations I am going to refer to were virtually invisible to most historians because the Metis nation modes tended to follow the Aboriginal rather than European concepts. In this presentation, I am going to use the term "nation" in its broadest sense, refering to aggregates of people who identify themselves as a social and political entity.

Now, at last, with the framework I have just outlined in mind, we can examine the development of specific Metis nations. To establish my personal perspective in that area I will simply tell you that I think there are at least two Metis nations on the North American continent today. The first is the Metis nation of Mexico and the second is the Metis Nations of Quebec --that is, I consider Quebec to be, in fact, if not in name, a Metis nation. That, in itself will convince most historians that my roof is short a few shingles.

Perhaps when I add that I think those two nations are not only Metis, but that their histories are connected through a series of still other Metis nations, the Canadian Historical Society will confirm my reservation for a rubber room. But that is the inescapable conclusion my research is drawing me towards. I will leave it to your judgement, onceø you have heard me out, as to the truth or viability of my conclusions.

As I un-read documents, papers, and books about Metis nations over the past 10 years I began to get a eerie sense of deja vu, A definite pattern --this time in terms of what happened and how it happened-- emerged that was common to all of them. I think you will have a better chance of understanding what I am talking about if you compare the events of specific nations to that pattern as I go along. So I will outline that pattern for you.

First of all, of course, the existence of one or more distinctly mixedblood communities.

Secondly, that community is established in advance of and economically and politically indepenent of, major white or Indian settlement.

Thirdly, an outside group, either European or colonial, or Indian, attempts a take-over of the area.

Fourthly a negotiation process is begun, usually by the Metis group, to establish possession of land, and exclusive or shared jurisdiction with the outside group.

The fifth element involves the failure of the negotiation process.

The sixth check point is one or more armed encounters.

The seventh is the recognition and apparent accomodation of the Metis leadership.

The eighth is the imposition of legal and political techniques which dispossess the halfbreed community.

I think the first clearly identifiable community of mixed blood peoples in Canada are the Acadians of Nova Scotia. There is more than enough hard, written evidence to establish that, by the time their community was developed, they were certainly not "pure"French. I remember being taught in school that the Acadians were removed from their communities because they were French and -- after the fall of Louisburg would not take an oath of allegiance to the English King. I later discovered that they also refused allegiance to the French King, and they claimed their community as an indigenous group distinct from both Indian and Whites --French or English.

Following the defeat of the French by the English some Acadians, in the mid 1750's were "deported" back to France, some were assigned to a penal colony in the Faulklands, some to Louisiana where we now have another pocket of Metis heritiage --the Cajuns. Others fled north, and west to the St. Lawrence Valley, and to the Upper Great Lakes around the Sault area. As one of the first "Trail of Tears" the expulsion of the Acadians is faithfully recorded in history, butthe role of "metissage" in that process is played down by historians on every side of the issue. By the way, did you know that Lor Selkirk of Red River, Manitoba fame, tried, and failed, to establish a colony in the Maritimes in 1798? But that, I'm sure most of you would think, must just be a co-incidence.

The Canadians

As the Acadians were developing their culture, their community and,,from my point of view, their nation --a similar process was developing further up the St. Lawrence. In fact here we see a shortlived, but self-conscious attempt on the part of the French to create a new race. Intermarriage between young Frenchmen and Indian women are not only accepted, they are financially encouraged with special doweries or grants of land. The original plan was to "Frenchify" the Indians. In fact, the reverse happened and French officials became alarmed at the rate their young men, like Etienne Brule, were disappearing into the woods with their Indian lovers.

It was also during this period that the earliest use of the word "Canadian" I have found so far showed up. It was applied to the mixed blood Indians around the settlement of Quebec City in 1632. We will come back to the mixed blood settlements of the St. Lawrence after the English take over, and see what happens.

Acadians? Cajuns? Canadians? No, it couldn't be. Must be acoincidence.

The Upper Country

Fuelled by an expanding fur market and rumours of copper, exploration pushes its way into to the upper great lakes area in the 1620's and by 1654 a meeting of halfbreeds of the area is recorded. Even European historians make it pretty clear that Machinac and Sault Ste Marie have large populations of halfbreeds. Given that the French and English and later the Americans take turns "occupying" the area in the name of their Kings, Queens and Republics in the early and middle 1700's, it's not suprising that neither side pays much attention to the fact, until 1763, that the only permanent population in the area are the Indians and the mixed bloods.

History does identify one dominant family in the area, the Langlades and, in particular Charles Langlade, who I call the Riel of the Sault. Born in 1724, the son of a fur trader, Agustin Langlade and, Domitaille, a sister of an Ottawa Chief, not only played what can only be called a nation building role in the Sault area, but a major role in the colonial wars of the day, leading a victorious mixed blood corps which proved to be the balance of victory in several crucial battles. During those many years when neither the English or the French succeeded in dominating the Upper Lakes area, it was this mixed blood family that provided the same kind of leadership that the Riel's were to provide in Red River in the next century.

In fact, the formal surrender of the Sault area to the English was conducted between English officials and Charles Langlade, not the French military. Shortly afterward Langlade's political dominance in the area was confirmed, even by the English who found it politically and militarily expedient to confirm his leadership role in the area. For a century the Metis of the Sault built their nation on the economy of the fur trade, and their military alliances with both Indian and colonial forces, when it became necessary to defend their homeland against the English and later the Americans. It was not because he was French that Langlade was given an Indian name which meant "he who is fierce for the land." Langlade's son, Charles Jr. was to play an equally prominent role on the military front in the 1800's.

I will summarize this section by quoting the report of a researcher in the Sault area, Carolyn Harrington, who worked with me on the Ontario research project:

"There were at least two attempts to set up a separate province or state in the upper lakes region which had the full support of most mixed bloods, particularly the Metis. In fact, it was Metis insistence that resulted in the moves to establish separatestatus.

The first plan for a separate province was proposed by Antoine Lournet de LemotheCadillac in 1760. Cadillac's idea (and that of the Ottawa and Sauteur in his garrison) was to assimilate the Indian population to form one community. Cadillac was arrested, acquitted, and removed from office."

A century later the same fate befell another commander in the area, Robert Rogers who reopened the Michilimackinac fur trade. In response to local, and mostly halfbreed pressure, he considered enlisting the help of the French to set up a separate province. He was tried, and acquitted of treason, but he too was removed from his post.

If we do a quick check of our pattern this time, I think we get aneight for eight match.

The Proclamation of 1763

Before we move on to the Prarie Metis nations, we have to understand the impact of the Proclamation of 1763 on Metis. As most of you might know, this was the document which asserted British soveriegnty over most of North America. What you may not know is that it was to play a major in creating, intentionally or not, a positive climate for the development of Native nations.

From a Native perspective, King Philip's war in Plymouth in the 1670's, and the Pontiac Uprising in l763, were an assertion of Native sovereignty and communal possession of the land, against the voracious expansion of colonial settlement. With the French defeated, and with an obvious need to oil troubled waters on the Indian front the English King issued a Proclalamtion to establish territorial control over formerly Frenchø domains and to correct admitted "frauds and abuses" against Native peoples who were allied with the Crown.

The Proclamation marked out a huge corridor of land from the Gulf of Mexico to the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, excluding "inadvertant" settlement, as Indian land. No new settlement was to take place unless, of course, the Indians wished to sell the land to the Crown. As the first formal description of Native/settler/Crown relationship to the land, the Proclamation which is now entrenched in Section 25 of the Candian Constitution Act of 1982 is a seminal document in the history of technical sovereignty and land use in North America, for both sides of the issue.

On the one hand, it clearly specified that Indians had possession of land that was not to be eroded by expanding settlment. On the other hand it provided the very mechanism the formal treaty process by which Natives were to be deprived of that same land. In effect, the Proclamation also technically eliminated halfbreed and white settlements, in the Indian land area by describing them as "inadvertant".

So far I haven't been able to research this area well enough to determine if any white settlements were actually removed. But there is no question the Proclamation had an immediate effect on the Upper Great Lakes Metis community. Halfbreed petitions of the time which tried to have this issue addressed were set aside on the basis they could not dealt with until the Indian surrender of the land had been arranged. Unlike Acadians, who were physically removed from their lands, the Metis of the Upper Great Lakes found the land legally removed from them.

It is certain that many Metis of the area, including the Langlades left the area or reestablished their communities in what is now Wisconsin and Illinois. And others, including Indians, began to trek north and west in search of new sources of fur and trade. But 53 Metis communities in the Upper Great Lakes have been identified in the area by the 1830's.

The Canadian Reserve

As I said we would, I want to take a second look at the mixed bloodø communities on the St. Lawrence again, now that the British are in control. Interestingly enough, there is at least one French-Canadian analyst, Jean Morisett of the University of Montreal, who proposes that the other land area dealt with the in the Proclamation, the Province of Quebec, was being set aside, literally, if not intentionally, as a halfbreed reserve. His intriguing concept sees the Proclamation as setting up white reserves on the east coast, a huge Indian reserve through the Ohio Valley corridor, and a halfbreed reserve in what was then described as Quebec.

The new wrinkle is that the "new race" of the St. Lawrence, for whatever reasons, are indentified as French, as being European or, at least, White and are accomodated on that basis, rather than being removed as they were in Acadia. The English, as we shall see, would not make that "mistake" again. You might keep in mind that there were never more than 10,000 persons who immigrated from France and a very small proportion of them were women. In fact its amazing how few references there are to immigrant French women in the materials I have been researching.

I haven't tracked down any precise figures on how many French left after the final British victory, but it doesn't take much of a jump in logic to presume that most newborns in the old province of Quebec were and are mixed bloods.

The Buffer State

There were three pieces of colonial legislation in the 1700's that seeemd to set the stage for a formal native state in colonial America. The Proclamation of 1763, by recognizng the existence of Indian lands, the Quebec of Act of 1774, by extending Briish (as opposed to colonial authority) into the interior, and the creation in 1775 of Indian superintendents who were independent of colonial authority had two immediate effects. It angered the seaboard colonies to point of revolution, and it fed a growing convition that a Native Buffer state would be created in exchange for Native alliance to the Crown, or at least neutrality in the case of colonial revolution.

In the short term, the American Revolution, in itself, didn't change much for Aboriginal people in what is now Canada. But hindsight dictates that the Treaty of Paris in 1783, which ended the revolution, was the tombstone of Native sovereignty in North America. The trick for colonial authorities was to dig the grave without falling into it. The creation of the United States and the cession of southern Great Lake and Ohio country, without so much as a mention of Indians or Indian lands, blatantly belied Crown protection of Indian lands under the Proclamation of 1763 and subsequent Acts and treaties.

Just as Native allies of the French in the Maritimes and on the St. Lawrence had been confused at the transfer of Indian lands by the French to the English, English Native allies were outraged that the English King would surrender Indian lands to the United States without even notice or consultation. Only the most deft and machiavellian diplomacy by Indian Affairs, buttressed later by a system of "loyalist" land grants north of the new border, averted an insurrection.

There were proposals, from both American and British sources, advocating the creation of a Native state as a buffer between the White opponents in the "new" world, more as a way of solivng colonial rather than native land problems. The outbreak of the war of 1812 seemed a complete affirmation of Indian expectations. The capture of Michilimackinac and the victories of Brock and Tecumseth at Detroit resurrected, briefly, the dream of a Native state. But any hope of realizing that dream died with Brock and Tecumseth toward the end of the war. The Treaty of Ghent, which subsequently ended the war, was a rude awakening, and although the terms of treaty specified Indians were to retain the lands they held in 1811, the subsequent decades of bloody American history were to prove otherwise.

North of the border, history was to prove less bloody but no less devastating, particularly for mixed bloods. Decimated by disease, dispirited by war, fragmented by treaties and borders, and unecessary as allies in settler wars, the Indian population were no longer a major threat to settlement and certainly in no position to militarily assert claims of sovereignty. The issue of Native ownership of land, however, was considerably more problematic, as was the increasingly ambiguous position of mixed blood peoples.

Back on the Home Front, in almost direct proportion to the demise of the military and political significance of Indians in colonial life, there was a corresponding but brief rise in the influence and significance of mixed blood populations on every level of frontier society. Although the Hudson's Bay Company controlled, on paper, the vast area of Rupert's Land, by 1800 as events at Red River were to prove the Company was entirely dependent on mixed blood cooperation. Trade and transportation of goods were, in practice, the domain of the Bois Brule and the Voyageur, most of whom by this time were mixed bloods. The families of these men were the majority in all but the largest settlements. Those the Bay couldn't or refused to employ became the core of the competing companies or established independent businesses processing food stuffs for the trade.

A proud and powerful, resourceful and skillful people, our forefathers had every expectation of taking their rightful place in the new nations that were forming in the socalled "new" world. As the lifeblood of the frontier economy, the muscle of the colonial military, and the diplomats of White/Indian statemanship, they played a critical role in the evolution of North America up to 1800. But concern over Indian affairs was pushed into the background as trade and settlement spread west in an increasingly conscious attempt to control a continent in the face of growing American competition.