All of the previous information  is presented to establish that the existence of Métis within the geographic area of what is now called the United States is not a matter of opinion or theory -- it is an irrefutable historical fact whether people choose to recognize it or not.  That this fact is so little known in the U.S. is a condemnation of academic historians in both countries who, for whatever reasons, have ignored or even repressed the Métis reality of colonial North America.
 

There are several other sections and articles on this site which deal with mis- understandings related to Métis definition and identity and they will not be repeated here, although links to them may be offered as the issues arise.  There are however some very specific misconceptions (or lack of historic perspectives) which most Americans (and most Canadians, too, for that matter) too often take as fact.  The first of these is so obvious it almost seems foolish to address it. The simple fact is that, between 1492 and 1776, there was no United States of America and for at least100 years after that date that ÏNationÓ was largely confined to the eastern part of the contin- ent.  At the same time it is historically demonstrable that during those three centuries literally hundreds of thousands

of mixed blood individuals and families lived their lives and formed their communities. The same factors (and in many cases virtually the same extended families) that produced the more celebrated Canadian Métis populations also evolved elsewhere in North America. [See this link for a detailed description of those factors.] The challenge faced by modern American Metis is how to rediscover that history and how to reassert a connection to that heritage.  It should also be kept in mind that there are two scenarios in which Metis identity can arise.  The first relates to those who are descended from historic Metis families.  The second are those who are the result of modern-day metissage -- the sons and daughters of Indian with non-Indian marriages today.

In 1978 I was faced with very much the same problem in terms of Métis history  in Ontario.  I dev- eloped a four-pronged strategy in that situation that should serve just as well in the American context.  Since Métis are obviously created by the interaction of Indian and non-Indian populations, research was focused on known current Indian reserves and communities. It is here we can expect to find the most Indian and non-Indian interaction.  Of course, historic communit- ies and reserves which may no longer exist must also be taken intoconsideration. Since so much contact between the two sets of people involved the fur trade, another team was focused on fur trade forts and communities which grew along well establish- ed and documented fur trade routes.  The same French (and subsequent English) regimes that for- med the original fur trade  oriented

French fur trading posts in what is now the U.S.A. Source: The Owners of Eden, The Romance of Canadian History, Robert  MacDonald,Evergreen Press Ltd. Vancouver, 1974. Pg. 97  basis for the evolution of Canadian Métis populations extended from the Arctic Circle through the Ohio Valley to the Gulf of Mexico.

It seems more than a little unrealistic to assume the young men who so enthusias- tically interacted with MiÌgmag, Iroquois, Huron, Cree, Ojibwe, and Assiniboine women in the north, would be any less attracted to the social and economic advantages of relationships with Pawnee, Cherokee, Lakota., Omaha, and Osage women simply because they lived further south. There are other factors which are almost completely ignored by conventional historians.  It is no accident that many expelled Acadians were relocated to (largely French) Louisiana. The effect of the French American alliance against the English just prior to, during and after the American revolutionary period created a magnet which drew French Canadians to the States.   Once the English established sovereignty in North America in 1763, and then had that sovereignty halved by the American Revolution in 1776, the United States became a natural haven for French Canadians -- most of them already mixed blood -- who wanted to flee from what they considered to be English domination and oppression.  To say nothing of the fact it gave them an ideal opportunity to hide their Aboriginal ancestry in favour of describing them- selves as French.  In more modern times the failure of the 1837-38 rebellion in Quebec and the economic depressions in Quebec in the 1900s created a flood of "French" migration to the States. Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the U.S. Will probably be even more help-

ful in the U.S. than in Canada since blood quantum rules are far more prevalent in . the U.S. And -- by definition -- those identified in records as having an insufficient quantum to be enrolled could well be eligible to be identified as Metis Another key source of historic information are the missions and the records kept by missionaries in various areas and historical periods. It is clearly documented in the Many Hands of My Relations that missionaries often concentrated their efforts on mixed bloods and self-identifying Metis as a way of encouraging Indians to copy the "civilized" halfbreed efforts. The closer to the imaginary Canadian/U.S. Border one gets the less the differences are between Canadian and American Métis realities.  The fact nobody was sure exactly where the border was located --at least in the west-- until the 1820s makes any attempt at hard distinctions completely arbitrary.  Conventional history would have us believe that the Red River Settlement in present day Manitoba was the original major western concentration of Métis.  In fact, the actual western centre was Pembina in present day North Dakota which was only discovered to be a few miles south of the border in 1821.  The Catholic churchÌs fear of losing French souls combined with the HudsonÌs Bay CompanyÌs fears of losing furs to the American market resulted in a migration to the Canadian side of the border under the leadership of the renowned (infamous to some) Cuthbert Grant, hastily dubbed Warden of the Plains for his services.