American Indian Culture and Research Journal

The mixing of the races, as the cliche would have it, began in North America as soon as Europeans and Amerindians met; it was another manifestation of a universal phenomenon that was re-experienced under the particular conditions of the New World. But the universality of the event in its biological sense was not matched by a corresponding generality in its social and political aspects. In this regard, racial intermixing was as individual as the societies experiencing it. In the New World, such powers as Portugal and Spain accepted it as an inevitable consequence of colonization and sought to deal with it by integration and assimilation. France also sought to assimilate Amerindians, but added her own dimension by trying to use racial intermixing as an instrument of empire. In so doing, she unwittingly helped to prepare the way for a phenomenon which she not only did not want, but would have disapproved of thoroughly: that is, the development, among the Metis of the Canadian Northwest, of the sense of a separate identity, the spirit of the "New Nation." Although in Canada today, the Metis are identified with the West, specifically with the three prairie provinces (Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta), it is doubtful that there was any more mixing of the races, in a biological sense, in those regions than in the East or on the West Coast. In fact, the reverse may well be true, at least as far as the East is concerned; Jacques Rousseau, eminent Quebec biologist, claimed in 1970 that 40% of French-Canadians could find at least one Amerindian in their family trees. What did not occur on either coast or in the St. Lawrence Valley was the emergence of a clearly defined sense of separate identity, of a "New Nation." In comparing the Metis of the Northwest with those of the Northwest (principally Red River, but also Hudson Bay and the Great Lakes), the question immediately presents itself: why did a "New Nation" arise in the latter region but not in the former? And why do we never hear of the Metis on the West Coast? For that matter, why do we practically never hear of Metis in the Northeast?

A standard answer of the Metis people to those curious as to when the Metis originated has been: "Nine months after the first White man set foot in Canada." The inhabitants are chiefly of Canadian origin, all more or less imbued with Indian blood. Not being previously aware of the diversity in the character of the inhabitants, the sudden change from an American to a French population, has a surprising, and to say the least, an unpleasant effect; for the first twenty-four hours, the traveler fancies himself in a real Babel. ... The business of a town of this kind differs so materially from that carried on in our cities, that it is almost impossible to fancy ourselves still within the same territorial limits. William S. Keating, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1823 Introduction At what historic moment and for what cause do a "people" spring into being? This is an especially pertinent question for the western hemisphere. Following the invasion of the American Indian worlds by various European nation states, four centuries of colonization, subjugation and intermingling have produced ample opportunity for the genesis and recreation of bold new ethnicities and identities. There are nonetheless critical geographical and cultural variations across the hemisphere. In South and Middle America, composite "mestizo" populations, now a majority, have been heralded as the "New Peoples," a felicitous term coined by Darcy Ribeiro. In North America, by contrast, a number of factors, among them a color-coded caste system entrenched by mid-nineteenth century, combined to discourage the historical emergence and cohesiveness of such hybrid groups. Except for small bi- and tri-racial enclaves in the Southeast, many of which still survive, the only instance of large scale formation of a new people occurred in the Red River valley of the north.

From time immemorial groups of Cree Indians from the interior woodland regions travelled down the lowland rivers to the coast of James Bay every spring. They came to feast on fresh geese and to socialize with others who also came to intercept the migrating flocks. The Indians travelled down the rivers as families or groups of families, while the inland regions they left behind held shared hunting areas rather than carefully defined and defended individual or group hunting lands. Thus they were generally peaceful people, establishing kinship and friendship networks throughout the James Bay region. They lived simply with few material goods. A wigwam suited the housing needs of their nomadic lifestyle. They spent the goose hunting seasons near the shores of James Bay, on the flight path of the birds. Summers were spent along the rivers at the best fishing spots. In winter they moved into the woodlands in search of fuel, food, and protection from the elements. Fur bearing animals provided both food and clothing for the harsh winter months. The environment was fickle. Drought, floods, excessive cold or heat, and disease often disrupted the normal food supplies, bringing starving conditions to the people who relied on them. It was, however, a way of life that lasted for many thousands of years. Granted a charter from the British parliament in 1670, the Hudson's Bay Company was given a monopolistic right to trade furs in the lands draining into Hudson and James Bays, an area it named Rupert's Land. By a single stroke of the pen many thousands of miles distant, a way of life was altered permanently by forces in many ways beyond the control of the Native inhabitants of the fur-rich lands.

A striking aspect of the historiography of Metis studies in Canada and the northern United States relates to the fact that Marcel Giraud's classic study, Le Metis Canadien, published in 1945, did not have the immediate effect of stimulating a great deal of additional research. While the quality of Giraud's work was of such high standards that his book is still an invaluable source, nonetheless it is useful to consider why it did not serve to spark further research in a wide variety of areas of the history of Peoples of Indian-European ancestry. Initially the problem was one of timing. The work appeared in 1945 when most historical research had been interrupted by World War II. New momentum was slow to develop. In the case of Native studies, the pace did not begin to accelerate until the 1960s. Initially anthropologists and archaeologists took the lead. They were primarily interested in Indian history. Much of their attention was focused on questions of contact tribal locations, post-contact migrations, changing ecological circumstances, and kinship systems responding to a variety of post-contact environmental as well as socio-economic pressures. The opening of the Hudson's Bay Company archives to the scholarly community and its subsequent transfer from England to Canada further stimulated work and permitted researchers to venture into new areas. Charles A. Bishop was one of the first ethno-historians to make extensive use of this previously inaccessible data base. Geographers and historians soon followed and a growing body of scholars began sifting through the Hudson's Bay Company's massive records.