There are three major events that we can look at as being, not only directly parallel, but specifically related to the history of Metis nations we are now familiar with. There are the Cherokee people, the Mexican people, and the third I'll bet my life nobody has heard of the Red and White Republic of Fredonia. It would be suprising enough that each of these events would parallel Canadian history, but I think it can be proven beyond any doubt that they were directly and genetically connected to the Metis Nations of the north of Canada.

Since we don't really have time to spell this all out in any detail, let me just describe how fragments of this pattern came to me at different times and then came together in a rush to point me at the conclusion I just described for you. I don't even remember now exactly whether it was a book ar an article of some kind that it came from, but there was a specific reference to the fact the Mexicans who fought the Mexican revolution were wearing what were called Canadian drop front pants. As far as I know now, the only other two places they were worn was in Quebec, and in Red River. No big deal but did get me thinking about Mexico and the meztizzo or halfbreeds who actually won the revolution in that country. Then there was the name MacDonell popping up all over the place. Theyø were invovled in the Sault uprising, they were involved in the Red River uprising, and it turns out there was a Macdonell in a wheel chair in Mexico at the time of the revolution who was a brother of the MacDonell in the Sault.

I suppose most of you, especially John Wayne fans, would know that there was a Red River just north of Mexico. I thought it was a coincidence too, until I noticed on a map that there was a Canadian River just North of that again. Then there was this weird little story about a Montezuma the Second that poppped out of two or three places. It seems there was some halfbreed in 1835-36 running around between the Sault and Red River dressed as some kind of General, complete with sword and gold epaulletes, and trying to raise an Indian Liberation Army among the disgruntled halfbreed sons of fur traders. He was almost drowned and damed near froze, before he disappeared from sight, apparently without his army. But something bothered me about this story. It was always set up as one of the quaint little colorful sidelights historians love so much because it proves history can be fun but at the same time this guy was being tracked and reported by a number of different agents and agencies from the Sault to Red River. If it was such a joke, why was everybody so worried about him?

Then there was the Cherokee and the Trail of Tears. It sounded so much like Acadia, or the Sault, or (later) Red River all over again. Well it didn't take very much digging to find out that the Cherokee, by the time of the removal, were almost all halfbreeds. Even when the U.S. Supreme court ruled they had a right, as Indians, to their lands, the Georgia State legislature was to decide that they had lost that right because they weren't Indian they were halfbreeds. Where had I heard this story before? Over and over again.

Finally the missing piece of the puzzle fell into my hands even though the man who wrote it didn't even know the puzzle existed. It was a book called the "The White Savage John Dunn Hunter." This book, which was a biography of Hunter (no relation even though my father's name is John Dunn) told the story of an attempt to set up a white/native state between Texas and Mexico on the part of a coalition of Indians, halfbreeds, and whites. They negotiated a piece of land from Mexico, declared their independence and raised the red and white flag of The Rebpublic of Fredonia. The attempt was thwarted when the leaders were assassintated (by Austin of Austin Texas fame, it is suspected.) The clincher was that the other groups involved in the attempt were Cherokee and those segments of many other tribes who had joined the Tecumseth Confederacy. I wondered what had happened to them, and I wonder if that was where Montezuma the Second was heading. His name was Dickison or Dickenson. Did you know there was a Captain Dickinson at the Alamo?

What follows is the end of that article I wrote when I first seriously got into Aboriginal history:

"We, as Native people, are in the process of reasserting our own history. Only in the last decade have our people had the resources to explore and research Canadian history from a Native perspective. And from that perspective, a parallel but very different scenario is emerging which sharply contrasts with conventional, academic history. In the process of uncovering our history, we have uncovered our roots, not only as a Native people, but as Canadians. In a very real sense, we are the first Canadians, and historically, have fought to maintain that identity in the face of Provincial and National opposition. Our history is the history of Canada, too, and must be fully understood if Canadians are to fully know what it means to be Canadian.