“We are the True Canadians”: The (Métis) Canadian Monopolization on Métis History

*Note on language: I tend to use “Anishinaabe,” “Ojibwe,” and “Chippewa” interchangeably.    

“In the forest, on the river, and across the western plain

As the white man journeyed westward to the land of the Indian

A new race was created, a new nation rose up strong

Hardship as its destiny, and its curse to not belong

In the land from which they came, in the land they helped to build

They found themselves the alien, found their vision unfulfilled

And despite their valiant effort, to defend what they believe

When at last the battle ended, they were only left to grieve

We are proud to be Métis, watch our Nation rise again

Never more forgotten people, we're are true Canadians”

-“Proud to be Métis (The Metis National Anthem)” 

Lyrics by Clint Buehler, Music by Dennis Charney

Copyright © Clint Buehler 1991

Where do I begin ? 

This unofficial, yet widely beloved “Métis National Anthem” by Clint Buehler and Denis Charney has reified falsities about Métis (Michif) history, people and nationhood for decades. I have been asked on more than one occasion what it is like being Métis in the United States. Canadians, Métis and non-Métis alike, typically assume that because there is no ‘official’ federally-recognized Métis Nation in the United States, then I must feel so ‘invisible’, so ‘forgotten’, so ‘unable to access federal funding for college scholarships’ (little do they know I’m a citizen of the Manitoba Métis Federation). ‘The Americans must be so ignorant,’ they mean to say, ‘No Michif left behind!’ 

In some ways, it is actually harder in Canada. 

There are some non-Métis people in the Upper-Midwest and Montana who are at the very least aware of Métis people and history if not fairly knowledgeable about these subjects. On the other hand, many Métis in Canada have internalized various oversimplifications about what it means to be Métis which they then perpetuate through art, film, poetry, song, and public discourse concerning Métis history, nationhood, and ‘identity‘. In the context of the Métis Nation, the US is, for once, not the center of attention. But in the Canadianization of the ‘Métis story’, tens of thousands of Métis in the US are consistently erased, not by Americans, but by Canadians, among them, our own people. Obscuring American Métis consequently obscures fascinating and significant histories of Métis people, significant because Métis people and histories in the US have something unique to offer Métis in Canada. 

The vast majority of Métis in the US come from families who have lived continuously in lands occupied by the United States for at least the last century, and are not recent Canadian ‘immigrants’ registered with provincial Métis governments in lands occupied by Canada–or First Nations band members who are also Métis and who have recently moved to the US. During the 19th century, most Métis in the US and the Territories were either absorbed into tribal nations with whom we typically had familial and social connections, or were strategically assigned parcels of land somewhat far from newly-formed reservations. Distancing our ancestors from reservations was an attempt to sever our ties to these Native communities in order to assimilate us into the white body politic. After all, the less Natives there are, the less funds the United States will have to allocate to fulfill treaty annuities. Besides the tens of thousands of Métis in the US, there are likely thousands, if not tens of thousands more mostly white Americans who have Métis ancestry from Red River, and who may be eligible for Manitoba Métis citizenship, whether or not they even realize it. Métis culture and community persisted in the US and its strongholds are on reservations. But even in the Twin Cities, there are sporadic glimmers of Métis culture here and there: Michif language, food, beadwork, 19th-century quilts and rifles in the archives, and even history presentations. And the public interest in Métis history and culture in the Upper-Midwest is growing. Despite this growing interest, however, the specific historical processes by which many Métis were assimilated remains largely under-researched.

Generally speaking, the possibility of a ‘distinct’ Métis nation or polity in the US would be suppressed before it could even begin, but Métis culture and community continued to thrive. The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in North Dakota could be recognized as the epicenter of Métis culture in the US. Métis jigging is even considered by some Métis in Canada to be more ‘traditional’ at Turtle Mountain, where Michif also continues to be spoken, albeit, by a minority of residents. I believe a case could be made that Turtle Mountain is almost a Métis nation ‘by another name’–or, rather, an extension of the Métis Nation, and conversely, the Métis Nation could be understood as a partial extension of Anishinaabewaki, the Anishinaabe social world. At the very least, the Turtle Mountain Band can be acknowledged as an intensely multiethnic, largely Métis community. Turtle Mountain Chippewas represent a plethora of diverse tribal lineages, though the degree to which they ‘identify’ with these lineages may vary by family, and even by individual. To push the envelope even further, what is considered to be culturally ‘Chippewa’ by Turtle Mountain Chippewas, is occasionally something very Métis that has become Chippewa.

The Pembina Band of Ojibwe, which was the base population for the Turtle Mountain Band, eventually took in many Métis under Chief Little Shell (1830-1901), advised by my fourth-great-grandmother Marie-Émilie Bottineau’s half-brother, Charles jr., (c. 1815-1908) in the late 19th century. The Métis of Red River and the Pembina Band of Ojibwe were already intimately linked by kinship, culture, geography, and political alliances. According to Red Cliff Ojibwe historian Michael Witgen, many Anishinaabeg throughout Anishinaabewaki fought for their ‘Mixed blood relatives’–some Métis among them–to be included in the treaty process or at the very least receive some form of annuities. Simply put, the vast majority of Métis in the US are also Anishinaabeg, Chippewa-Cree (not to be confused with Oji-Cree), and Blackfoot, though there are likely some Dakotas, Nakodas, Gros Ventres, and members of other tribes who are also Métis or at the very least have Métis ancestry. 

So, why are Métis histories and current realities in the US significant? Because as American Métis, we offer our northern relatives the option to divest from rigid settler-colonial categorizations of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Over the last century, Métis in Canada have increasingly shaped their national identity based on the Canadian public’s perception of Métis people as ‘half way’ between French and Cree (or, God forbid, Anishinaabe), and therefore diluted and not ‘authentically’ Indigenous. This belief is constantly re-affirmed in everyday conversations about Indigenous peoples in Canada with the phrase “Indigenous, Métis and Inuit,” as if Métis and Inuit somehow do not qualify as ‘truly’ Indigenous. Various Native and non-Native organizations and institutions, including urban Native Friendship Centers and University Indigenous student centers have made this mistake.

The Holy Trinity of the Church of Truth & Reconciliation (to which I refuse to convert, despite years of proselytization from zealous Canadians) is indeed the ever-present FNMI. The First Nations, Métis, and Inuit trichotomy, even when used correctly, still poses some issues. The First Nations-Métis binary in particular acts as a wall trampling on the deep-rooted kinship networks and histories of anticolonial resistance shared by Métis, Anishinaabeg, Cree, Dakota, Lakota, Nakoda, Blackfeet, and Dene, among others–a wall that divides and fractures Indigenous community. The works of Chris Andersen, Robert Alexander Innes, Chantal Fiola, Molly Swain, Larry Nesper, Lucy Eldersveld Murphy, among other scholars, can help to flesh out or broaden our understandings of Métis people and histories. It is important to note, however, that Nesper and Eldersveld focus on the histories of ‘mixed-blood’ Native peoples in Minnesota and Wisconsin, some of whom just so happened to be Métis. 

If modern Canadian Métis and Anishinaabeg could go back in time and meet my great-grandpa Clarence McCann who speared fish, attended powwows, and spoke Ojibwe in Wisconsin, they might be surprised to learn he was also Métis and that his grandmother Margaret McCann (née LaPointe) was from Red River. This is because modern Indigenous ‘identities’ in both Canada and the US are increasingly attached to contemporary, eurocentric concepts of nationhood to which we have had to conform in order to survive. But to conform in the Métis Nation, for some Canadian Métis, means to let go of cultural practices or social relations deemed too ‘First Nations’. When I first moved to Winnipeg, I was in the middle of a tug-a-war. No one could figure me out, and many were surprised when I openly critiqued Métis hegemony. But of course I would eventually have to critique First Nations anti-Métis sentiment as well. After all, the Métis were known by the Plains Cree as those who own or govern themselves–and while I take my community relationships extremely seriously, I belong to no one, not even the Métis Nation. Needless to say, this was cause for confusion among some Canadians who had grown used to the First Nations - Métis binary.

Métis people have become enmeshed, sometimes willingly so, in the story of Canadian ‘identity’. Many white Canadians have laid claim to the Métis Nation as an intrinsic and ‘unique‘ part of Canadian heritage, history, and the multicultural mosaic. And many Canadian Métis have happily embraced this claim. “We are a big part of Canadian history,” or some variant of this statement, gets tossed around all the time. I would counter that we are not simply a “part of Canadian history” by saying that Canada (and the United States) is instead part of our history. The settler state will come and go, but we will remain. The notion that we should aspire to be acknowledged or recognized within the Canadian historical canon should be further complicated. Dane Allard, a Métis PhD candidate in the Department of History at the University of British Columbia has argued that in the 1990s, “[…] Métis organizations, in pursuit of long overdue state recognition, centred Canadian expectations of authenticity which produced a dissonance with the everyday experiences of individuals,” (Allard, 3). The increased emphasis on a singular ‘authentic Métis identity’ attached to Canadian identity and statehood places thousands of Métis who have not forsaken our places within the Anishinaabe social world in a somewhat precarious position. We are sometimes made to defend who we are to our own peoples, especially in the Canadian context.

But even Canadian Métis themselves will wax poetically about the ‘struggle’ of being “part colonized, and part colonizer.” This assertion leads me to ask where this idea that all Métis are descended from ‘Natives and colonizers’ comes from. Could a white French-Canadian voyageur who in the 18th century traveled to Anishinaabe territory, learned Ojibwe and became fully integrated into the community be considered a “colonizer“? By the standards of the day, this man (a hypothetical ancestor whose story nonetheless reflects those of many paternal ancestors of the Métis) would have been considered Anishinaabe, at least by his wife’s specific community. So, why “colonizer“? Canadian Métis biographies for events, speaking engagements, university faculty profiles, museum plaques or artwork labels often read, “Métis and [European] settler”, when what they really mean to say is “Métis and white” or “white Métis”–but naming and critiquing whiteness is seemingly not allowed in much of Canada. I have to wonder, though, while I understand how one can be ‘Métis and [insert European ethnic group]’, how can one be “Métis and settler” while living on their own Métis homeland? Rarely do First Nations individuals identify themselves as “[insert First Nation] and [European] settler”–So then why must Métis take up this mantle of the “settler” when many First Nations peoples who do have European ancestry do not?  I believe the reason why Métis in Canada are far more likely to ‘identify’ as ‘part settler’ much more often than even white First Nations individuals because they are expected to do so.

Many Canadian Métis clearly feel a need to openly acknowledge their ‘(European) settler’ ancestry, because the mere concept of mixedness has become the dominant narrative of Métis history. Many Métis themselves have become consumed by this narrative. We are overwhelmed by it. Métis histories are so incredibly vast, diverse, astounding, horrific, hilarious, and sexy yet we are only ever force-fed the same story of ethnogenesis, and a version so simplistic that it fails to educate the public about what ethnogenesis actually means for Métis people. So, while Canadians may have heard of Métis, that alone does not mean they know anything about us, nor does it mean they would respect us even if they did. 

Bibliography

Allard, Dane. “Weaving and Baking Nation: The Recognition Politics of the Métis Sash and Bannock in the 1990s” (Masters thesis). University of British Columbia, 2019.

Andersen, Chris. “Métis”: Race, Recognition, and the Struggle for Indigenous Peoplehood. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2014. 

Innes, Robert Alexander. “Multicultural Bands on the Northern Plains and the Notion of ‘Tribal’ Histories,” in Finding a Way to the Heart: Feminist Writings on Aboriginal and Women’s History in Canada. Eds. Jarvis Brownlie and Valerie Korinek. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2012. 

Fiola, Chantal. Rekindling the Sacred Fire: Métis Ancestry and Anishinaabe Spirituality. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2021. 

Murphy, Lucy E. Great Lakes Créoles: A French-Indian Community on the Northern Borderlands, Prairie du Chien, 1750-1860. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2014. 

Nesper, Larry. “Our Relations…the Mixed Bloods”: Indigenous Transformation and Dispossession in the Western Great Lakes. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2021.

Witgen, Michael. Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder. Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press, 2021.