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professional research • professional results
EASTERN METIS:
A LITERATURE REVIEW
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FOR CIRNA - METIS AND NON-STATUS INDIAN RELATIONS
2019
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Eastern Metis: A Literature Review
Executive Summary
A heated debate currently divides those who study Eastern Metis identities, and those who
oppose the very concept of Eastern Metis. 1 The debate wages in academia, and social media;
among Metis and First Nations organizations; and in political and judicial contexts. On one
hand, there is a wide range of scholarship about Eastern Metis history and communities. On the
other hand, the Metis Nation are strong critics against recognition of Eastern Metis, as they
define Metis identity as unique to themselves. This report reviews the existing literature in
order to better understand the various authors who address-or deny-Eastern Metis
identities.
To delve into the issues, this executive summary considers the Eastern Metis debate as recently
expressed by two strongly-opposed academics: Darryl Leroux, Department of Social Justice and
Community Studies, St. Mary's University, who refutes the legitimacy of Eastern Metis; and
Sebastien Malette, Department of Law and Legal Studies, Carleton University, who criticizes
Leroux's denial of Eastern Metis identities.
Leroux's views are the subject of his forthcoming book, Distorted Descent: White Claims to
Indigenous Identity (2019). 2 On September 27, 2017, he spoke at the Universite de Montreal to
give a paper entitled, "Le revisionnisme historique et l'autochtonisation: la creation des 'Metis
de l'Est.}}} 3 He reviewed the recent increase in the number of people and organizations who
identify as Metis in Eastern Canada. Describing these through examples, Leroux concluded that
most of the organizations' members did not formerly identify themselves as Indigenous; the
majority have only a single Indigenous ancestor from the 1600s; and others have no Indigenous
ancestry at all. In Leroux's analysis, the members have constructed a narrative by which FrenchCanadians with ancestral longevity in North America "self-indigenize," by redefining the term
"Metis" in the colonial period, and connecting themselves to this history through documented
and presumed lines of ancestry. Leroux considers the organizations' use of the term "Metis" to
be politically expedient, and tactical as a means for blocking First Nations rights. Leroux has
often made the same points on Twitter, to both supportive and critical reactions. 4 In a recent
magazine publication, Leroux concludes: "To be clear, there is widespread consensus among
Metis political organizations and intellectuals that the Metis constitute a distinct Indigenous
peoples-and, further, that these Quebec-based organizations are not Metis at all." 5
1 In this report, "Eastern Metis" refers to individuals in the Maritimes and Gaspesie who identify as Metis.
2 This book is promoted by Leroux on Twitter, https://twittcr.com/Darryllcroux (accessed March 26, 2019).
3 Darryl Leroux, "Le revisionnisme historique et l'autochtonisation: la creation des 'Metis de l'Est'" (Paper
presented at Universite de Montreal, September 27, 2017). https://soundcloud.com/darryHeroux/lerevisionnisme-historique-ct-lautochtonisation-la-creation-des-metis-de-lest (accessed February 11, 2019).
4 See Darryl Leroux on Twitter, https://twitter,com/Darrylleroux (accessed March 26, 2019).
5 Darryl Leroux, "Self-Made Metis." Maisonneuve: A Quarterly of Arts, Opinion & Ideas Issue 69 (Fall 2018), 34.
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Sebastien Malette denounces Leroux's position as "negationism" of Eastern Metis identities,
and characterizes the Metis Nation's exclusivity as self-interested "neo-nationalism." Malette
refutes Leroux's conclusion that "other Metis"-outside of the Metis Nation-lack histories that
developed into collective consciousness and distinctly Metis identities. He points to specific
historical references to Metis people in Quebec and the Maritimes, and also argues that Louis
Riel-the most "credible" source about the Metis Nation's conception-recognized Metis
people in "the Eastern provinces of Canada." 6 Ultimately, Malette critiques Leroux for judging
all Eastern Metis on the basis of selective examples, and states that to understand Eastern
Metis, each case must be examined separately. 7
Leroux and Malette's debate is no simple "ivory tower" discussion between two disagreeing
academics. Following the conference, the interim president of the Metis Federation of Canada,
Robert Pilon, called Leroux's work "un cas flagrant de negationnisme historique et d'incitation
a
la haine envers une population autochtone en raison de son histoire particuliere et de sa
location geographique." 8 At the same time, Metis Nation President Clement Chartier has
upheld Leroux's work in addressing "the issue of the proliferation of groups emerging in eastern
Canada and claiming Metis identity and rights," as '"self-made Metis."' 9 Leroux and Maletteand other scholars in the current debate-engage with foundational disagreements that are
not only academic, but intensely political, and central to many peoples' identities.
This report provides a literature review to contextualize these arguments, by examining:
•
the background literature since 1859 relevant to mixed ancestry in Acadian history;
•
the nature of Metis organizations in the Maritimes, which have existed since the 1970s;
•
the Metis identity debate-i.e. Metis Nation versus "other Metis" identities-as found in
scholarship and political developments since the late 1970s;
•
the consideration of Eastern Canada's potential historic Metis communities in terms of
the Powley test, arising from the 2003 Powley decision; and
•
the breadth of positions in the current debate.
6 This phrase is quoted as a translation on page 11 of Malette's text. The "Eastern provinces of Canada" are not
defined by Riel; he likely referred to the provinces east of Manitoba generally, not necessarily the Maritimes.
7 Sebastien Malette, "The Eastern Metis and the 'Negationism' of Professor Leroux: 'Aiabitawisidjik wi mikakik,"'
trans. Remy Biggs, 1-21. The original French article was published in Trahir (October 21, 2017) as "Les Metis de
l'Est et le 'negationnisme' du professeur Leroux: 'Aiabitawisidjik wi mikakik'."
https://trahiurvordpress.com/2017 /10/21/malette metis/ (accessed February 11, 2019).
8 Radio Canada, "Les Metis du Quebec accusent un conferencier invite
l'UdeM de negationnisme historique,"
September 26, 2017.
https://ici.radio<anada.ca/nouvelle/1058058/metis-quebec-accusation-darrvHeroux-universite-montrealnegationnisme-historique (accessed February 27, 2019).
9 Metis Nation, "Metis Nation Rights and Corporate-Indigenous Relations in Canada," November 8, 2018.
http://www.metisnation.ca/index.pho/news/metis-nation-rights-and-corporate-indigenous-relations-in-canada
(accessed February 27, 2019).
a
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The current debate is then organized by grouping its scholars by position. This report describes
six discrete positions on Eastern Metis identities:
•
Exclusivity of the Metis Nation
This position defends Metis identity as exclusive to the Metis Nation. These authors
identify Metis as a distinct Indigenous nation, and reject that the term "Metis" simply
means "mixed" and can refer to any person of mixed-Indigenous ancestry who so
identifies. They also deny that other Metis identities developed in Eastern Canada or
elsewhere. The scholars describe, as a unique experience, the Metis collective in the
historic Northwest and its political mobilization through the Battle of Seven Oaks, Red
River and Northwest Rebellions. They hold that no other communities were part of this
historical group; and moreover, that no other group had a comparable experience that
crystallized a similar identity. This position is held in relative consensus amongst a group
of scholars, including: Jennifer Adese, Chris Andersen, Adam Gaudry, Darryl Leroux,
Darren O'Toole, Jacqueline Peterson, and Chelsea Vowel. This section also acknowledges
that Eastern Metis scholars take the opposite position on almost every point.
•
Exclusivity of the Metis Nation and other historic communities
This position argues that the Metis Nation is not unique in its Metis identity; but neither
does the term "Metis" apply to historic Acadia. Using similar logic to the Powley decision,
these authors define Metis communities as descendants from mixed-ancestry groups that
historically developed as distinctive cultures and collective identities, separate from
neighbouring First Nations and settlers. Eastern Metis are either not mentioned at all, or
explicitly excluded from the scholars' conclusions. This position is exemplified by the
editors' introduction to the book, Contours of a People: Metis Family, Mobility, and
History, edited by Nicole St-Onge, Carolyn Podruchny, and Brenda Macdougall (2012).
•
Inclusion of Eastern Metis in a broader historic Metis network
Sebastien Malette conceives of Metis identities (including Eastern Metis) as a
rhizomatous network-that is, a network without any unique centre or established
hierarchy, and with multiple and indefinite points of origin and genesis. Malette also
argues against the exclusivity of the Metis Nation, on the basis that historic Metis Nation
leaders Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont conceived of Metis identity in racialized terms, and
Riel held an inclusive concept of Metis that embraced Eastern Canada. This position is
contrary to Metis Nation scholars such as Chris Andersen, who perceive that broad-based
racialized constructions of "Metis-as-mixed" are recently evoked, for example, through a
combination of scholarly misinterpretation and juridical precedents.
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•
Inclusion of Eastern Metis in unrecognized Powley communities
This position contends that there remain unrecognized Eastern Metis Powley
communities, although Powley cases to date have not recognized any Metis communities
in Eastern Canada. This position is exemplified by a recent report by Christian Boudreau
(2018), with second authors Jo-Anne Muise Lawless and Sebastien Malette, proposing
new evidence on the continuity of a historic Metis community in southwest Nova Scotia.
•
Inclusion among Eastern Metis of Indigenous people who identify as Metis
This position acknowledges a very common conception of Metis in Eastern Canada: that
the term "Metis" includes all Indigenous people who so identify, that have mixedIndigenous ancestry, and are neither status Indians nor members of particular First
Nations. On the contrary, Metis Nation scholars critique that if Metis is employed as a
"catch-all" for otherwise undefined Indigenous people, it occurs at the expense of the
Metis Nation's control of their membership.
•
Inclusion among Eastern Metis of Metis-Acadian people, whose ancestors identified as
Acadian, and who now identify as Metis
This final position pertains to individuals who identify as Metis, whose ancestors (or
themselves) previously identified as Acadian, but who have rediscovered or recently
expressed their Metis identities. This historical narrative generally describes a person or
communities' genealogical connection to colonial ancestors with mixed ancestry; then a
period during which Metis identities were suppressed or hidden due to colonial
pressures; followed by a renewed security or resurgence in acknowledging Metis
heritage. A body of anthropological scholarship also studies present-day Eastern Metis
communities, documenting long-standing practices-such as intergenerational hunting
traditions-attributed to Metis heritage. Critics of Eastern Metis, including Leroux,
address their strongest critiques to this position, as described within this section. While
some in this group seek Powley recognition, others who identify as Metis-Acadian reject
the idea that the Powley decision defines who is Metis.
The issues of this debate are pressing. The Metis Nation identifies protection from Eastern
°
Metis claimants as one of its current top priorities. 1 Conversely, the matter of recognition is of
utmost importance to Eastern Metis. Considering the potency of the issues, the purpose of this
report is to provide a review of the literature in order to contextualize this complex debate.
10 The Metis Nation describes this as an "important discussion" in their December 2018 newsletter-that is, "the
rise and proliferation of groups in eastern Canada who are falsely claiming Metis rights." For this purpose, the
Metis Nation and Mi'kmaq of Nova Scotia recently concluded an MOU "which recognizes each other's Nationhood
within their respective traditional and current territories and commits them to work collaboratively on the issue of
individuals misrepresenting themselves as Metis in Nova Scotia." http://www.metisnation.ca/wpcontent/uploads/2018/12/NewsletterDecember 20181.odf (accessed March 26, 2019).
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Eastern Metis: A Literature Review
Introduction
1
Purpose
1
Terminology
1
"Eastern M etis"
1
"Met is"
2
"Eastern Metis scholars" and "Metis Nation scholars"
4
Background
The Metis question and Acadian history, 1859 to 1982
4
4
Fran~ois-Edme de Rameau de Saint-Pere, 1859 to 1890
4
Rejection of Rameau and emphasis on Acadian "purity"
10
Further academic scholarship, 1963 to 1982
11
Metis organizations in the Maritimes by 1982
14
The Metis identity debate, through the Constitution Act, 1982 and RCAP
15
Metis organizations in the Maritimes by the time of the 2003 Powley decision
21
Following the Powley Decision
22
The Powley test
22
Local studies
23
Department of Justice studies
25
Northeastern New Brunswick
25
Southern Nova Scotia
26
Lack of evidence for the Powley test
27
Powley test cases
27
The Current Debate
31
Exclusivity of the Metis Nation
31
Exclusivity of the Metis Nation and other historic communities
36
Inclusion of Eastern Metis in a broader historic Metis network
38
Inclusion of Eastern Metis in unrecognized Powley communities
42
Inclusion among Eastern Metis of Indigenous people who identify as Metis
45
Inclusion among Eastern Metis of Metis-Acadian people, whose ancestors identified as
Acadian, and who now identify as Metis
46
Summary
53
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Eastern Metis: A Literature Review
Introduction
Purpose
This report provides an overview of the literature about Eastern Metis identities, where
"Eastern Metis" refers to individuals in the Maritimes and Gaspesie who identify as Metis. The
subject area is within the traditional territory of Mi'kmaq and Maliseet Nations, historically
settled as the colony of Acadia. 1
A heated debate currently divides those who study Eastern Metis identities, and those who
oppose the very concept of Eastern Metis. The debate wages in academia, and social media;
among Metis and First Nations organizations; and in political and judicial contexts. On one
hand, there is a wide range of scholarship about Eastern Metis history and communities. On the
other hand, the "Met is Nation" -that is, Met is with nineteenth-century roots at Red River and
the Canadian Northwest-are strong critics against recognition of Eastern Metis, as they define
Metis identity as unique to themselves. In addition to reviewing the scholarship on Eastern
Metis, this report addresses the position that the Metis Nation's membership is exclusive (not
only of Eastern Metis, but other claimants as well). The report reviews the existing literature in
order to better understand the various authors who address-or deny-Eastern Metis
identities. Its purpose is to identify not only the evidence put forward, but how it is used, and
by whom, to shape divergent arguments about recognition of Eastern Metis.
Terminology
"Eastern Metis"
In addition to using the term "Eastern Metis," this report adopts other identifying
terminology-for example, Metis-Acadian-employed by each author of the literature being
discussed. Some will disagree with this choice of terminology. In particular, Metis Nation
scholar Chris Andersen has spoken strongly against the government's tendency to affirm selfidentification, by using self-identified terms, at the expense of the Metis Nation's control of
their membership. 2 While acknowledging this critique, this report intends to describe, but not
affirm, varying articulations of Metis identities.
1 This report does not include Newfoundland and Labrador, which is less often associated with the term "Eastern
Metis." It also excludes other regions of Quebec. Some scholars and literature include all of Quebec within the
term "Eastern Metis," and for that reason Quebec is more broadly included in the scope of particular pieces of
literature.
2 Chris Andersen, '"I'm Metis, What's your excuse?': On the optics and the Ethics of the Misrecognition of Metis in
Canada." Aboriginal Policy Studies Vol. 1, No. 2 (2011), 165; Chris Andersen, "Metis": race, recognition, and the
struggle for Indigenous peoplehood (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2014), 24.
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"Metis"
The term "Metis" is complicated, since in addition to its (debated) historical usages, its meaning
is layered with constitutional significance, and juridical precedents. Furthermore, the "sides" in
this issue-those who study Eastern Metis; and those who deny the existence of Eastern
Metis-each use the term "Metis" differently.
Eastern Metis equate "Metis" with European-Indigenous mixed ancestry that began with the
earliest contact. On this basis, many do not accept that the Powley decision-a Supreme Court
decision that defined s. 35 Metis rights-holders in 2003-is sufficiently broad to discern who is
Metis. Eastern Metis consider that they were the first Metis, and the term predated the Metis
Nation's development. Today in Eastern Canada, the term "Metis" is often employed to mean
anyone with mixed-Indigenous heritage who so identifies. 3 Likewise, "Metis" is understood as a
broad political category (like "Indian") rather than a unique Indigenous nation (like Mi'kmaq).
To a certain extent, Eastern Metis scholars are correct that the term was used in this sense
historically-for example, in 1755, Anne Mius, youngest daughter of Philippe Mius d'Entremont
of La Heve (La Have), was described as a "metisse-Sauvagesse femme" by French officials at Tie
Royale (Cape Breton). 4 However, advocates for Eastern Metis tend to overstate the use of this
word in colonial Acadia. 5 In fact, beyond sparse examples, historians simply don't know how
widely the term was used in Acadia, since surviving records of the period are minimal.
Another complicating factor is that the term "Metis" can be ambiguous: a phrase such as
"Normandes et metisses"-as seventeen founding Caraquet families were described in the
1760 census 6 -can be interpreted with "metisses" as a descriptor (literally, "mixed") or an
3 In this report I use the term "mixed-Indigenous" to mean partially-ancestrally-Indigenous or of mixed
Indigenous/non-Indigenous descent. While it is correct to say European-Indigenous mixed ancestry in describing
the time of contact, the European assumption does not hold for modern times. The term "mixed-ancestry" is also
used to stand in for the same concept.
4 William C. Wicken, "The Metis in Southwestern Nova Scotia" (Prepared for the Provincial Court of Nova Scotia, in
reference to R. v. Babin, October 2004), 21-22.
5 Many Eastern Metis scholars and organizations cite historian Cornelius Jaenen on the longevity and extent of
metissage in Acadia. Indeed, Jaenen uses the terms "Metis" and metissage to examine mixed marriages and their
offspring, and he names particular families. However, for example, Karole Dumont misquotes Jaenen's conclusions
about the longevity of the term "Metis" in Acadia. In a letter to the editor written in 2018, Dumont cites Jaenen to
state: "In the east, the use of the term Metis is traced back to the mid 1700, before white men went west." On the
cited page, Jaenen wrote that in 1770 the term "Metis" appeared "in a metropolitan publication." Jaenen cited
Cornelius de Pauw, where de Pauw described "Les Metifs" as the offspring of Spanish and Indians in Peru, Guyana,
Quito and other locations in South America. Thus, Jaenen's source referred to the term's use in South America.
References: Karole Dumont, "Letter to the Editor, July 4th 2018. RE: Article: Federal officials met with controversial
N.S. Metis group 'to advance reconciliation', by Elizabeth Chiu · CBC News· Posted: Jun 29, 2018 3:16 PM AT";
Cornelius J. Jaenen, "The French Relationship with Native Peoples of New France and Acadia" (Prepared for the
Research Branch, INAC, 1984), 72; Cornelius de Pauw, Recherches Philosophiques sur Les Americains or Memoires
interessants pour servir a l'Histoire de l'Espece humaine, 2 vols (Berlin, 1768, 1769).
~=LU:===-'-'-'-'-'--""-'-=..!.-==-=-..:.:~========= (accessed February 4, 2019 ).
6 Amanda Marlin et al, for Chignecto Research, "Historical Profile of the Northeastern New Brunswick Area's Mixed
European-Indian Ancestry Community" (Prepared for Department of Justice Canada, April 2005), 64-69.
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ethnonym (parallel to "Normandes"). The difference is significant, for instance, if a priest wrote
a marriage record identifying someone as "metis" (a descriptor meaning "mixed"), this reveals
less about the person and their community than if he intentionally called them "metis" (an
ethnonym meaning Metis). The problem is that it is impossible to tell which meaning was
intended. In this report, I have quoted, rather than paraphrased, such uses so that the
ambiguity remains intact.
Met is Nation scholars often point to the absence or sparseness of the term "Metis" in colonial
Acadia, particularly in a self-identifying fashion. 7 Conversely, they note that the term gained
wide acceptance and developed a collective significance among the Metis of the nineteenthcentury Northwest. Contrary to today's Eastern Canadian usage, the Metis Nation defines
"Metis" as a uniquely western term, an identifier for themselves as a distinct Indigenous nation.
They reject "Metis" as a broad political category (like "Indian"). The Metis Nation therefore
denies that Metis membership is more broadly applicable to those of mixed-Indigenous
heritage, as they limit the identity to themselves. In some cases, the Metis Nation has accepted
the lower-case usage of "metis" as an identifier for people of mixed-Indigenous ancestry, as
differentiated from the capital-M "Metis" for the Metis Nation. 8
However, Metis Nation scholars also tend-in critiquing Eastern Metis-to overstate the
homogeneous use of the term in the historic Northwest. For example, Andersen describes the
Metis Nation as: "the Aboriginal people whose ancestors historically self-identified as Metis and
who resided in the Historic Metis Nation Homeland of western Canada," implying that all
ancestors of the Metis Nation self-identified as Metis. 9 However, historians agree that there
was wide heterogeneity amongst this group, who also identified as "Half-Breed," Native, and
other designations. 10 This is relevant to the Eastern Metis debate if the term "Metis" is upheld
7 Sebastien Malette, "The Eastern Metis and the 'Negationism' of Professor Leroux: 'Aiabitawisidjik wi mikakik,"'
trans. Remy Biggs, 12. The original French article was published in Trahir (October 21, 2017) as "Les Metis de l'Est
et le 'negationnisme' du professeur Leroux: 'Aiabitawisidjik wi mikakik'."
https://trahir.wordpress.corn/2017 /10/21/rnalette-rnetis/ (accessed February 11, 2019).
8 Jennifer S.H. Brown, "Cores and Boundaries: Metis Historiography Across a Generation" Native Studies Review
Vol. 17, No. 2 (2008), 12.
9 Chris Andersen, "From Nation to Population: The Racialization of 'Metis' in the Canadian Census," Nations and
Nationalism Vol. 14, No. 2 (2008), 362.
10 Darren O'Toole concludes that the Metis nation as a nineteenth century political collective included only the
French and Catholic Red River Metis; and excluded others within the same geography, such as the Scots HalfBreeds associated with the North West Company. O'Toole cites Frits Pannekoeck and others regarding the social
tensions at Red River. He is critical, for example, of Brenda Macdougall's recent decision to use "Metis" without an
accent to include these groups together, as he believes they were historically separate. See; Darren O'Toole, "From
Entity to Identity to Nation: The Ethnogenesis of the Wiisakodewininiwag (Bois-Brule) Reconsidered," in Metis in
Canada: History, Identity, Law and Politics, eds. Christopher Adams, Greg Dahl and Ian Peach (Edmonton:
University of Alberta Press, 2013), 143-203. Regarding this heterogeneity, see also Jennifer S.H. Brown, including:
Strangers in Blood (1980); "Cores and Boundaries" (2008); and An Ethnohistorian in Rupert's Land (2017).
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to an ahistorical standard; that is, if the significance or evidentiary requirement for the term
"Metis" in historical records is overemphasized. 11
"Eastern Metis scholars" and "Metis Nation scholars"
In a final note on terminology, this report employs the terms "Eastern Metis scholars" and
"Metis Nation scholars" as a shorthand to refer to authors taking two respective positions:
those who study Eastern Metis identities; and those who conceive "Metis" as unique to the
Metis Nation, therefore refuting the concept of Eastern Metis. These terms do not necessarily
mean that the scholars are Indigenous people who identify as Eastern Metis, or members of the
Metis Nation, respectively. For example, the "Metis Nation scholars" include both Chris
Andersen, Dean of the Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta who identifies as a
member of the Metis Nation; 12 and Darryl Leroux, Department of Social Justice and Community
Studies, St. Mary's University, who identifies as a non-Indigenous person. 13 In fact, each "side"
includes authors who do and do not associate with the particular groups they are studying. 14
The terms "Eastern Metis scholars" and "Metis Nation scholars" refer to the positions of these
authors within the debate, not to their identities as Indigenous or non-Indigenous people.
Background
The Metis question and Acadian history, 1859 to 1982
Franr;ois-Edme de Rameau de Saint-Pere, 1859 to 1890
The earliest historian to write about "Metis" in Acadia was Franc;:ois-Edme de Rameau de SaintPere, a nineteenth-century French intellectual who published several works on Acadian history
from 1859 to 1890. Rameau is widely cited in Eastern Metis scholarship-in fact, considering
that many cite Rameau, and others cite those who cite Rameau, etc., his work may be the single
largest intellectual basis of Eastern Metis history. For example, the Daniels decision (2016) cited
Catherine Bell (1991), who cited R.E. Gaffney (1984), who wrote: "As early as 1650, a distinct
Metis community developed in LeHeve [sic], Nova Scotia, separate from Acadians and Micmac
lndians." 15 Although Gaffney's work provides no footnote for this statement, the commonlycited evidence of LaHave's distinct Metis identity in the early seventeenth century is from
Rameau.
11 Malette, "The Eastern Metis" (2017), 10.
12 Andersen, "I'm Metis, What's your excuse?" (2011), 161.
13 Darryl Leroux, "Self-Made Metis." Maisonneuve: A Quarterly of Arts, Opinion & Ideas Issue 69 (Fall 2018), 37.
14 Among "Eastern Metis scholars," Christian Boudreau is a member of the Board of Directors of the Association
des Acadiens-Metis Souriquois-an Eastern Metis person-who studies the Acadian-Metis of his region; while
William Wicken and others are not Eastern Metis. Sebastien Malette, who identifies as having Metis heritage,
traces his roots to the fur trade network further west than the study area.
15 Daniels v. Canada (Indian Affairs and Northern Development), [2016] 1 SCR 99, 2016 SCC 12 (Can LIi),
~~~~~~w=~ (accessed February 4, 2019).
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The first book that Rameau wrote was La France aux colonies: etudes sur le developpement de
la race fram;aise hors de /'Europe; Les Fram;ais en Amerique, Acadiens et Canadiens (1859). In
this work, Rameau noted that marriage between French men and Indian women was common
in early Acadia, citing five mixed marriages in the Acadian censuses of 1671 and 1686. These
were: 16
•
1671: Pierre Martin of Port Royal
•
1686: Saint-Castin, seigneur of Pentagoet (now Penobscot, Maine)
•
1686: one of Saint-Castin's men (possibly Jean Renaud, also at Pentagoet 17 )
•
1686: Enaud, seigneur de Nepisiguy (now Bathurst, New Brunswick)
•
1686: "another Martin" of La Heve (possibly Martin LeJeune 18 )
Considering the small number of Acadian families and the extent of intermarriage amongst
them, Rameau reasoned that almost all Acadian families had some Indian blood. 19 In 1859,
Rameau did not use the term "metis" in the Acadian context, although he did so in describing
Red River where he stated that "beaucoup de bois-brules (metis d'lndiens and d'Europeens),
ont fini par fonder une colonie de 7
a 8,000 ames." 20 In his 1859 work, Rameau only used the
terms "metis" and "bois-brules" for people at Red River, Wisconsin and Minnesota. 21
In his next work, Une colonie feodale en Amerique: L'Acadie, 1604-1770 (Vol. 1, 1877), Rameau
changed his terminology and used the term "metis" in the Acadian context. In 1877, he
described unions between French men and Indian women that occurred in Acadia especially
between 1615 and 1630, resulting in "un certain nombre de metis, principalement
a La Heve et
autres cotes de l'Est." 22 He noted that the "families des metis" stayed behind in La Heve when
the colony's capital was moved to Port Royal in 1640. 23 Rameau also found that "tousles
habitants fran~ais et metis des rivieres de La Heve" were omitted from the 1671 census. 24
Regarding census records in general, Rameau observed that while these included the "families
16 Fran~ois-Edme de Rameau de Saint-Pere, La France aux colonies: etudes sur le developpement de la race
franr:aise hors de /'Europe; Les Franr:ais en Amerique, Acadiens et Canadiens (Paris, A. Jou by, 1859), 31, 124-146.
The five men are listed at page 123. Other details about the seigneurs is also at page 31, and the 1671 census
transcribed at pp. 124-126.
17 Saint-Castin and his "femme sauvage" and seven children; and Jean Renaud and his "femme sauvage" and four
children, were listed in the 1693 census of Pentagoet. Rameau, Acadiens et Canadiens (1859), Note 19, 146.
18 This name is provided by James Hannay as one of four "undoubted marriages of Acadians to Indian women
recorded in the official census returns." James Hannay, The History of Acadia, from its first discovery to its
surrender to England by the Treaty of Paris (Saint John: Printed by J.& A. McMillan, 1879), 293.
19 Rameau, Acadiens et Canadiens (1859), Note 19, 123-124.
20 Rameau, Acadiens et Canadiens (1859), 7. See also Part 2, page 338, which identifies the Red River colony as
"composee en majeure parties de metis issus des unions des Canadiens et des Ecossais avec des femmes
indiennes."
21 For example: Rameau, Acadiens et Canadiens (1859), 7, 9, and Part 2,174,338,346.
22 Fran~ois-Edme de Rameau de Saint-Pere, Une colonie feodale en Amerique: L'Acadie, 1604-1770 (Paris: Didier et
Cie., 1877), 141.
23 Rameau, Une colonie feodale (1877), 78.
24 Rameau, Une colonie feodale (1877), 129-130.
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de metis" who had adopted habits of Europeans and lived amongst them, they did not include
"beaucoup d'autres metis" who lived amongst the lndians. 25 Rameau included what appears to
be a transcript of a document that lists "4 garc;:ons -4 engages - 3 metis" associated with the
Thibodeau family at Chipody (Shepody) in 1702. 26 No citation or description of the document is
given; if truly represented, this is a primary source showing contemporary use of the term.
Regarding Maliseet territory, Rameau stated that in 1705 "des metis venant de fleuve SaintJean s'engageaient souvent pour l'annee or pour une portion de l'annee ... comme coureurs de
bois" in Canada and beyond. 27 In trying to estimate the population available to resist the British
in the 18th century, Rameau included "uncertain nombre de metis" at La Heve, Mirligouesh
and Petite Riviere; and others at Jemsek on the Saint John River. 28 Rameau cited the
involvement of "les metis de La Heve" alongside Maliseet and Mi'kmaq forces in resisting the
British siege of Port Royal in 1707. 29 Also, Rameau described that the trading families of SaintCastin, d'Entremont and Denys "etc., etc.," had by the late seventeenth century intermarried
with Indian women, lived amongst them, and held status as "capitaines de sauvages" or
intermediaries between Indian tribes and French posts. 30
It is not clear why Rameau adopted the use the term "metis" in the Acadian context in 1877, as
he had not done in 1859. Typical of his time, Rameau's books are not footnoted so it is difficult
to know where discrete pieces of information are derived. In 1859, Rameau's observations of
mixed marriages in Acadia were based entirely on the 1671 and 1686 censuses. By 1877, he
may have encountered the term "metis" in other historical records (for instance the apparent
primary record from Chipody in 1702). Also, Rameau had visited Acadia in 1860-61; travelled
extensively; stayed with local people; and observed their lifestyles. 31 During this trip, Rameau
also viewed local records. 32 In adopting the word "metis," Rameau may have been affected by
people he met in Acadia, or other influences. Christian Boudreau (2018) views Rameau as a
first-hand observer of the nineteenth century, emphasizing his personal observations about "un
grand nombre de familles metisses" (Rameau's words) that he met in Yarmouth County in 1860.
Rameau, Une colonie feodale (1877), 193.
Une colonie feodale (1877), 254.
27 Rameau, Une colonie feodale (1877), 263
28 Rameau, Une coloniefeodale (1877), 316-317.
29 Rameau, Une colonie feodale (1877), 328.
30 Rameau, Une colonie feodale (1877), 205-210.
31 Rameau arrived at Yarmouth, and travelled in that vicinity including Ste-Anne-du-Ruisseau, before going to Port
Royal, Saint Mary's Bay, and Halifax, then up the northeast coast to Canso and Cape Breton, and into New
Brunswick. Rameau, "Une voyage en Acadie," 1860 (newspaper clipping),
http://collcctions.bang.qcca/ark:/52327 /1987153 (accessed March 3, 2019).
32 L' Abbe H.-R. Casgrain, "Eclaircissements sur la question Acadienne," in Collection de Documents inedits sur le
Canada et l'Amerique, Tome Premieme, eds. T.-E. Hamel et al (Quebec: L.-J. Demers & Frere, 1888), 404-405.
Casgrain quotes Rameau's description that he arranged through a friend to visit the government archives at Halifax
and was permitted 8 to 10 hours to view "uncertain nombre de registres et de volumes" although not take any
notes, copies or extracts.
25
26 Rameau,
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Boudreau believes this explains the terminology of Rameau's publications. 33 Alternatively,
Public History researcher Kenneth Brown (2005) has observed in Rameau's personal papers that
by 1877 he was aware of the current events at Red River; therefore, Brown proposes that
Rameau might have "borrowed" or selected a term of which there was increasing awareness in
Canada by the 1870s. 34
In Volume 2 of Une colonie feodale (1889), Rameau addressed Acadian history up to 1881,
including a further section on the "Families metisses de I' Acadie." His longest description was of
the Lejeune family of Mirligouesh, and others among "L'agglomeration de ce groupe de metis
autour de La Heve." 35
Rameau's further study of Acadian families (1889, 1890) drew on records of 78 Acadian families
who landed at Belle-Tie-en-Mer, France in 1765, where each family received a land concession.
The parish records at Belle-Tie-en-Mer included the families' depositions, which traced their
origins to France. In 1889, Rameau transcribed each family's deposition (the terms "metis" or
"bois-brule" are not used by the families according to the transcribed depositions). 36 In 1890,
Rameau provided his own analysis, or "Remarques sur les Registres," in which he used the
terms "Metis," "metis," and "Bois-Brules" extensively. 37 To begin his "Remarques," Rameau laid
out the tenor of what he had found:
le. La distinction qui s'etablit de suite entre les families sedentaires et
agricoles, et les families dont les gouts etait plus aventureux et plus instables.
2e. Lebon sens et l'habilete veritable que montre D' Aul nay, en arrachant le
plus grand nombre des families au facheux sejour de La Heve, et
a !'influence
qu'exerc;aient dans ce pays les moeurs instables ...
38
33 Christian Boudreau, Jo-Anne Muise Lawless, and Sebastien Malette, "An Ethnographic Report on the Acadian-
Metis (Sang-Me/es) People of Southwest Nova Scotia" (Middle-West Pubnico, Nova Scotia, 2018), 50-51.
34 Kenneth Brown et al, for Public History, "Historical Profile of the Southern Nova Scotia Area's Mixed European-
Indian Ancestry Community" (Prepared for Department of Justice Canada, February 2005), 13-14.
35 Fran<;ois-Edme de Rameau de Saint-Pere, Une co/onie feoda/e en Amerique: L'Acadie, 1604-1881, Tome Second
(Paris: E. Pion, Nourrit et Cie., 1889), 348-350.
36 Fran<;ois-Edme de Rameau de Saint-Pere, "Registres des Acadiens," in Collection de Documents inedits sur le
Canada et l'Amerique, Tome Deuxieme, eds. T.-E. Hamel et al (Quebec: L.-J. Demers & Frere, 1889), 165-194; and
Fran<;ois-Edme de Rameau de Saint-Pere, "Registres des Acadiens de Belle-'ile-en-Mer (suite)," in Collection de
Documents inedits sur le Canada et l'Amerique, Tome Troisieme, eds. T.-E. Hamel et al (Quebec: L.-J. Demers &
Frere, 1890), 5-134.
37 Fran<;ois-Edme de Rameau de Saint-Pere, "Remarques sur les Registres de Belle-Isle-en-Mer," in Collection de
Documents inedits sur le Canada et l'Amerique, Tome Troisieme, eds. T.-E. Hamel et al (Quebec: L.-J. Demers &
Frere, 1890), 135-181.
38 The third point refers to Acadia's lack of support and communication with France, in comparison with Canada.
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4e. On voit d'autre part que, s'il y eut des metis en Acadie, le groupement et
la progression de leurs families se maintint cantonne, generalement d'une
maniere distincte de la population purement europeenne, et forma un
courant particulier distinct des groupes exclusivement agricoles, mais distinct
des peuplades Micmaques. 39
By emphasizing the purity of Acadian society through its containment of "metis" people at La
Heve, Rameau's work reveals his prejudice. Nonetheless, Rameau's work has become
foundational to Eastern Metis history.
Rameau's 1890 "Remarques" were his first use of "Metis" (capital-M), potentially as an
ethnonym in comparison to "metis" as a descriptor. For example, Rameau noted that one
branch of the Martin family at Port Royal was inconsistently represented on census documents
because they were "les families Metisses," and that a woman who married Pierre Martin was
"une squaw, Micmaque ou Metisse." As an example of lower-case usage, four subsequent boys
in this line were described as "doublement metis," as their ancestors on the other side were
also "d'extraction mixte." 40 (I have drawn this example of M/m-usage that seems to
differentiate between an ethnonym and an adjective meaning "mixed," however, it is not
certain that Rameau's language was always consistent.) This terminology appears to be
Rameau's choice, rather than quoted from historical documents. Rameau also referred in his
own words to the "Bois-Brulees, dont le district de La Heve eta it le quartier general." 41
In describing the Lejeune family of La Heve, Rameau summarized his conclusions about several
families:
Les premieres families amenees par Rasilly [sic] subirent elles-memes cette
facheuse influence [a s'allier avec les families des Micmacs]; etant peu
nombreuses et isolees, elles tendaient insensiblement
a former leurs
habitudes et leur vie sur le milieu qui les entourait. Un petit nombre d'entre
elles parvenaient seules
a se defendre serieusement contre cet entrainement;
et si D' Aul nay n'etait pas venu promptement et energiquement reagir contre
cette absorption, en multipliant le nombre des immigrants, en etablissant des
missionnaires, et en donnant lui-meme l'exemple d'un travail progressif et
bien ordonne, c'est
a peine s'il serait reste quelques germes de la tradition
civilisee que les immigrants apportaient avec eux.
C'est pourquoi l'on observe chez plusieurs des families qui datent de la
a 1640), une denaturation plus notable, un penchant
plus prononce, pendant les premieres generations, a s'allier avec les
premiere epoque (1630
39 Rameau, "Remarques sur les Registres" (1890), 135-136.
40 Rameau, "Remarques sur les Registres" (1890), 142.
41 Rameau, "Remarques sur les Registres" (1890), 150.
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sauvages, et
a vivre avec eux. L'histoire de la famille Lejeune nous offre
precisement un specimen bien caracterise de ces premiers immigrants de
I' Acadie et nous fournit ainsi l'occasion de nous rend re compte de la situation
des Fran~ais en ce pays au moment ou Razilly en prit possession ....
lls y rencontrerent parmi les indigenes quelques Fran~ais aventuriers; les uns
etaient d'anciens compagnons de Biencourt et de Latour, les autres des
deserteurs de navires qui de temps
a autre etaient venus se joindre aux
premiers. Ces aventuriers vivaient de chasse et de peche, ramassant des
pelleteries par eux-memes, et chez les Micmacs leurs voisins; ils troquaient
ces pelleteries avec les pecheurs de morue, contre de la poudre, du fer, des
armes et de l'eau-de-vie.
Beaucoup d'entre eux vagabondaient constamment dans les bois avec les
Sauvages, mais plusieurs, qui avaient contracte des unions plus ou mois
stables avec des squaws [italics in original], avaient construit des huttes aux
environs de La Heve, ou ils se retiraient une partie de l'annee avec leur
famille; ils vivaient du reste absolument
a l'indienne, et ce groupe bigarre
n'etait reellement qu'un rudiment de civilisation, plante tres grossierement
au milieu de la sauvagerie. 42
This description of La Heve-where older residents intermarried with Mi'kmaq, lived by hunting
and fishing, dressed in local pelts, and spent half the year in town and half the year "as Indians"
-is the recurrently-cited description of a distinct Metis community at LaHave before 1650.
Nonetheless, there is legitimate doubt whether Rameau's work is reliable. For example, the
Lejeune family history (quoted above) closes with the following remark:
Nous n'avons pas besoin d'avertir le lecteur que, dans cet expose, nous avons
du recourir, dans une assez large mesure, aux inductions, et aux hypotheses
rationelles qui peuvent decouler des faits connus, afin d'eclairer les notions
incompletes qui restent dans l'ombre; chacun, sur ce point, peut en accepter
ou en ecarter ce qui lui conviendra; mais nous avons cru devoir prendre ici
cette liberte, afin de pouvoir, par cette exposition, donner une idee un peu
plus claire de la maniere dont les choses ant du se passer, au moment de
l'etablissement des premieres families Acadiennes. 43
In other words, Rameau explicitly took liberty with the facts, and made inferences, in order to
"fill out" his history of Acadia.
42 Rameau, "Remarques sur les Registres" (1890), 145-147
43 Rameau, "Remarques sur les Registres" (1890), 151.
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Rejection of Rameau and emphasis on Acadian "purity"
Beyond Rameau, beginning in the late nineteenth century, the tendency in Acadian history was
to deny or minimize the presence of Indigenous ancestry in Acadian society. For example,
Pascale Poirier's Les Origines d'Acadiens (1874) documented Acadian bloodlines with the
intention to prove that there were no remaining descendants of mixed-ancestry marriages. 44
James Hannay's History of Acadia (1879) contradicted Poirier by pointing to four documented
mixed marriages (of which three were "fruitful" 45 ): Charles La Tour at Cape Sable; St. Castin at
Penobscot; Pierre Martin at Port Royal; and Martin Lejeune at LaHave. 46 Nonetheless, Hannay
concluded:
It is abundantly clear, however, that three marriages between Acadians and
Indian women two centuries ago could have no influence whatever, after
eight generations, on a race as numerous as the Acadians. These marriages,
therefore, become matters rather of antiquarian interest than as bearing on
the origin of the Acadian people. 47
French historian Emile Lauvriere's La Tragedie D'Un Peuple (1924) reiterated Rameau's
interpretation that Acadia's "purity" was made possible by D' Aulnay's decision to move the
capital from La Heve to Port Royal, and isolate it from older mixed-ancestry families. Lauvriere
wrote:
Confiant
a quelques anciennes familles metisses le garde de son entrepot de
Le Heve, it avait reunui le vieil etablissement du Port-Royal dont les terres
etaient meilleures cette quarantaine de familles purement fran<;:aises. 48
Another prominent Acadian historian, H. Leander D'Entremont (1862-1944), lamented that
Rameau had "accused many Acadian families of being half-breed." 49 He countered that in
Rameau's work "there is not a name that represents, on the male side, any of the Acadian
44 Pascale Poirier, Origines des Acadiens (Montreal, 1874), as cited in Brown, "Southern Nova Scotia" (2005), 14.
45 Hannay's "unfruitful" reference may be Charles La Tour. Olive P. Dickason points out that La Tour had three
daughters of whom two became nuns; the third, Jeanne, married a French husband as did their daughter. Olive P.
Dickason, "From 'One Nation' in the Northeast to 'New Nation' in the Northwest: A look at the emergence of the
metis," in The New Peoples: Being and Becoming Metis in North America, eds. Jacqueline Peterson and Jennifer
S.H. Brown (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1985), 26. See also the 1982 version of this paper, at 9.
Christian Boudreau (2018) provides similar information in more detail, and adds that La Tour "possibly had mixedblooded sons as well." Boudreau, "Acadian-Metis (Sang-Me/es) People of Southwest Nova Scotia" (2018), 81-83.
46 Hannay, The History of Acadia (1879), 293.
47 Hannay, The History of Acadia (1879), 295-296.
48 Emile Lauvriere, La Tragedie D'Un Peuple (Paris: 1924), 1:77, as cited in Brown, "Southern Nova Scotia" (2005),
16.
49 H. Leander D'Entremont Collection. LAC, MG 25, G 36, Reel M-271, 67, as cited in Brown, "Southern Nova Scotia"
(2005), 16.
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family names in this section of the Province; all the others being mostly French adventurers
who have not left their family name in Nova Scotia." 50
Most influentially, Quebec historian and nationalist Lionel Groulx wrote in La naissance d'une
race (1938) that twentieth-century French-Canadian society had no Indigenous ancestry. As
summarized by historian Olive P. Dickason: "Groulx maintained that ninety-four marriages and
four 'alliances' were known to have occurred before 1665, but that none of these left
descendants who survived after the end of the eighteenth century." 51
Further academic scholarship, 1963 to 1982
Later twentieth-century scholars of Acadian and Mi'kmaq history were more likely to
acknowledge mixed-ancestry heritage, although sometimes only briefly. For example, historian
Marcel Trudel's ten-volume Histoire de la Nouvelle-France (1963) addressed "metissage" in a
few pages. (His index referred to "metissage" rather than "Metis" or "metis.") In Volume 2
(1604-1627), Trudel cited specific relationships between French men and Indian women, which
he grouped under the heading, "Les Franc;:ais deviennent sauvage," noting that young French
men were attracted to Souriquois (Mi'kmaq), Montagnais, Algonquin and Huron lifestyles and
their resulting freedom from French social and religious constraints. For example, Charles La
Tour had three "filles metisses" of whom the first, with a Souriquois woman in 1626, was "le
premier enfant metis dont l'histoire franc;:aise de I' Amerique fasse mention." 52 In 1973, Trudel
condensed his work for translation into an English version, The Beginnings of New France, 15241663, and included the same information: "About 1626, the young La Tour fathered his first
daughter (for he was to have two others) by a Souriquois woman; this is the first metis child
mentioned in the history of French America." 53
Also in 1973, Trudel published La Population du Canada in 1663. Using census and parish
records, Trudel included four "French-Amerindian" and one "French-metisse" family with nine
surviving children. Historian Olive P. Dickason later cited this as an example of the scarcity of
"direct records" of mixed-marriage families; although drawing on contemporary observations,
she suggested that New France and Acadia had more mixed marriages than records reveal. 54
Historian William Wicken, on the other hand, has contradicted Dickason in arguing that mixed
marriage occurred mainly within fur trade enclaves-like La Heve and southwest Nova Scotia-
50 H. Leander D'Entremont Collection. LAC, MG 25, G 36, Reel M-271, 68, as cited in Brown, "Southern Nova Scotia"
(2005), 16.
51 Dickason, "From 'One Nation' in the Northeast" in The New Peoples (1985), Note 3, 32. See also the 1982 version
of this paper, at Note 4, 16.
52 Marcel Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France (Montreal: Fides, 1963-), Vol. 2, 385-386.
53 Marcel Trudel, The Beginnings of New France, 1524-1663 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1973), 155.
54 Dickason, "From 'One Nation' in the Northeast" in The New Peoples (1985), 20, 23-24, Notes 5 and 6, 32. See
also the 1982 version of this paper, at 2, 6-7, Notes 6 and 7, 17.
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but was rare in agrarian Acadia. 55 Both Dickason and Wicken acknowledge their work as
extrapolations in absence of written records.
Indeed, the problem for historians was-and remains-lack of records. American historian
Andrew Hill Clark, in Acadia: the Geography of Early Nova Scotia to 1760 (1968), wrote: "Resort
to Indian women must have been common enough among the fur traders but it never became
an accepted or established practice in the organized settlements in good part because of the
influence of the priests." 56 Clark's use of the term "must have been" suggests assumption due
to lack of evidence. Clark implies (as have others) that lack of church sanction prevented record
of marriages and baptisms. Clark then added-also without citation: "dalliance with the Indian
maids was more likely to lead men to the forest than women to the cornfields." 57 It is
significant that he presented a binary choice that assumed families identified as either Acadian
or Indian. On one hand, historians such as Clark might preconceive these two outcomes
(blinding them to separate or more nuanced identities); on the other hand, scholars who have
spent a considerable amount of time studying Acadian and Mi'kmaq history, and have not
found any Metis groups or identities, are also notable.
As for other scholarly contributors of this time period:
•
Cornelius Jaenen, in Friend and Foe: Aspects of French-Amerindian Cultural Contact in
the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1976), noted the presence of "miscegenation"
from earliest contact with fishermen on the Atlantic Coast, until larger-scale arrival of
French women after 1666. 58 Jaenen also described the French policy of assimilation
(francisation), and its result: that if Amerindian wives lived with French husbands, their
children were raised in colonial society as French by paternity; otherwise, they were
raised "in a native way of life by their native mothers." 59
•
Olive Patricia Dickason wrote her Master's thesis under Jaenen's supervision in 1971.
Her work, "Louisbourg and the Indians: A Study in Imperial Race Relations, 1713-1760,"
was later published by the National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, Parks Canada in
1976. Citing Rameau, Dickason noted "frequent" mixed marriage in seventeenthcentury Acadia, but concluded this was "slackening off" by the end of her study period. 60
Dickason also provided a quote (often re-cited) of Abbe Maillard, Indian missionary oflle
Royale, who observed in 1753 that there was so much mixing that in fifty years the
55 Wicken, "The Metis in Southwestern Nova Scotia" (2004), 3-10.
56 Andrew Hill Clark, Acadia: The Geography of Early Nova Scotia to 1760 (Madison: 1968), 88-89, as cited in
Brown, "Southern Nova Scotia" (2005), 17.
57 Clark, Acadia (1968), 88-89, as cited in Brown, "Southern Nova Scotia" (2005), 17.
58 Cornelius Jaenen, Friend and Foe: Aspects of French-Amerindian Cultural Contact in the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1976), 161-162.
59 Jaenen, Friend and Foe (1976), 164.
60 Olive P. Dickason, "Louisbourg and the Indians: A Study in Imperial Race Relations, 1713-1760" (MA Thesis,
University of Ottawa, 1971), 165-166.
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French and Indians would be almost indiscernable. 61 On the other hand, Dickason
pointed to the scandalization of particular mixed marriages in the 1750s, to illustrate
changing attitudes among the French and their officials. 62 Ultimately, Dickason
concluded only that: "If intermarriages occurred, it was not because of official
encouragement." 63 As for specific individuals with mixed ancestry, Dickason did not use
the term "metis" in this work but referred to the influential Saint-Castin as a "young
half-Indian leader of the Abenaki of Pentagouet" 64 ; noted that Chief Denis oflle Roya le
claimed French nobility on the basis of his grandfather, who Dickason surmised was
Frenchman Simon Denys 65; and described Claude Petitpas and his "Acadian habitant
family of mixed-blood," whose sons Barthelemy and Louis-Benjamin were both
interpreters. 66
•
L.F.S. Upton's book Micmacs and Colonists (1979) devoted one page to this subject.
Presumably citing Rameau, he wrote: "Many of the first settlers took Indian wives, and
the community of La Have, for example, was a metis settlement." 67 Upton added that,
"Whether the children of mixed descent became hunters or farmers depended on which
parent had responsibility for their upbringing," and "the half-breed child who stayed on
the farm eventually assimilated into white society." 68 Explicitly citing Rameau, Upton
also described a few traders' families as exceptional in that they leveraged an inbetween position:
A few white traders planning permanent residence in Acadia also married
Indian women. These unions, regular and sanctioned by the Christian church,
made good sense to land-based traders because they provided them with
connections among the native people on whom they depended for business
success. Some of the leading families of Acadia, the Denys, d'Entremonts, and
Saint Castins, for example, consolidated their position in this way. They lived
in European-style trading posts behind wooden stockades, but they spent
much of their lives travelling with their Indian relatives. Their children grew
up to move freely in both worlds. The French called these men "capitaines
des sauvages" and preferred to deal with them rather than pure-blooded
native chiefs. The captains were ideally suited to act as interpreters and
intermediaries; and when French governors began the practice of giving the
61 Dickason, "Louisbourg and the Indians" (1971), 165-166.
62 Dickason, "Louisbourg and the Indians" (1971), 166-167.
63 Dickason, "Louisbourg and the Indians" (1971), 168.
64 Dickason, "Louisbourg and the Indians" (1971), 84.
65 Dickason, "Louisbourg and the Indians" (1971), 159-160.
66 Dickason, "Louisbourg and the Indians" (1971), 168.
67 L.F.S. Upton, Micmacs and Colonists: Indian-White Relations in the Maritimes, 1713-1867 (Vancouver: UBC Press,
1979), 26.
68 Upton, Micmacs and Colonists (1979), 26.
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Indians annual presents, the captains took care of the distribution, which they
made in their own names and in that of the king of French ... As the agents of
that power, the metis gained great status, for it was they who demonstrably
arranged for and distributed the gifts. 69
•
Naomi E.S. Griffiths' "The Acadians" {1979) emphasized the amicable relationship
between Mi'kmaq and Acadians. Griffiths-who focused on the development of Acadian
society-noted that some members of that society were in-marrying Mi'kmaq women
from both unsanctioned and church-registered unions. 70 In a later article, Griffiths
quantified that by 1671, Acadia's population was around 600 with some seventy
households, in which the legitimate wife was Mi'kmaq in at least five households. 71
In brief, the literature by 1982 had an increased acknowledgment that metissage was part of
the Maritimes' history; however, these observations were confined to the French colonial
period. Any literature that addressed a link to the present agreed that descendants of these
families had come to identity as either Acadian or First Nations people.
Metis organizations in the Maritimes by 1982
Historical scholarship up to 1982 thus provides little explanation for modern Eastern Metis
identities. Nonetheless, there were people in the Maritimes who identified as Metis, as evident
from organizations formed in the mid-1970s:
The New Brunswick Association for Metis and Non-Status Indians {NBAMNSI) was founded in
1972 to represent off-reserve and non-status people, who were not represented by the
reserve-based Union of New Brunswick lndians. 72 NBAMNSI was organized around several
locals, of which Local #17 was formed in PEI in 1973, and in 1975 incorporated as its own
society under the name of the Native Council of Prince Edward Island {NCPEl). 73 NBAMNSI
published a book in 1984 in which its authors described the two constituents: Non-Status
Indians ("who have been denied status by the legal provisions of the Indian Act") and Met is
("generally defined as persons of Indian and non-Indian ancestry"). 74
69 Upton, Micmacs and Colonists (1979), 26-27.
70 Naomi Griffiths, "The Acadians" in Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Toronto, 1979), 4: xviii, as cited in Brown,
"Southern Nova Scotia" (2005), 18.
71 Naomi Griffiths, "Mating and Marriage in Early Canada," in Renaissance and Modern Studies 35 (1992): 121, as
cited in Brown, "Southern Nova Scotia" (2005), 18.
72 David Milne, "The Case of New Brunswick-Aboriginal Relations" (Prepared for the Royal Commission on
Aboriginal Peoples, Canadian Governments and Aboriginal Peoples Project, 1994), 8-10,
http://publications.gcca/collections/collection 2017 /bcp pco/Zl 1991141180 eng.pdf (accessed February 4,
2019).
73 Native Council of Prince Edward Island, "History of the Native Council of PEI,"
http://www.ncpeLcom/about/about-us (accessed February 4, 2019).
74 R.E. Gaffney, G.P. Gould and A.J. Semple, Broken Promises: The Aboriginal Constitutional Conferences (New
Brunswick Association of Metis and Non-Status Indians, 1984), 3.
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The Non-Status and Metis Association of Nova Scotia (NSMANS) was also established in 1975,
to represent the following people not represented by the Union of Nova Scotia Indians:
•
Indian women who had been enfranchised by marriage to non-Indian men;
•
Indian men who had not been included in the 1951 register of the federal department of
Indian affairs;
•
Indian men who had become enfranchised;
•
Children of non-status Indian parents; and
•
Metis persons not eligible for registration under the Indian Act. 75
The Metis members of these organizations were not explicitly descendants of colonial mixedancestry families. If the organizations took their lead from the Native Council of Canada, with
which they were all affiliated, they likely had a more contemporary definition of Metis.
According to scholar Joe Sawchuk:
In the 1960s and 1970s, the early days of Native political organizations in
Canada, a political union existed between Metis and non-Status Indians, and
the definition of who was allowed to join a Metis organization was broadly
based. Most Metis organizations defined a Metis as someone of mixed white
and Indian ancestry (or of mixed non-Indian and Indian ancestry). 76
The Metis identity debate, through the Constitution Act, 1982 and RCAP
By the late 1970s, the limited narrative of Metis history in Eastern Canada stood in contrast to a
well-known Metis history of Red River and the Northwest. Within Canada, there was a broad
consensus that the buffalo hunt and other unique aspects of prairie culture gave rise to a selfconsciously identifying Metis Nation, which politically mobilized through events that culminated
in the Northwest Rebellion. In the literature reviewed for this report, the Metis Nation's
identity is never questioned; the issue is whether others are also entitled to identify as Metis.
An early and significant change to Red River's predominance in scholarly use of the term
"Metis" was Jacqueline Peterson's work on the Upper Great Lakes, published in Ethnohistory in
1978. Peterson's article, "Prelude to Red River: A Social Portrait of the Great Lakes Metis,"
included a map of "Great Lakes Metis Settlements, 1763-1830" and concluded:
By the 1790s' trading hamlets housing from single extended family to several
hundred persons had been established at Peoria, Cahokia, Chicago, Fort
Wayne, Ouatanon, Pare aux Vaches, Riviere Raisin, Sault Ste. Marie, Petit
75 Peter Aucoin and Violet Paul, "Relations between the Province of Nova Scotia and Aboriginal Peoples in Nova
Scotia" (Prepared for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Canadian Governments and Aboriginal Peoples
Project, 1994), u npaginated. http://pu blications.gcca/collections/ collection 2016/bcp-pco/21-1991-1-41-7 4=== (accessed February 4, 2019).
76 Joe Sawchuk, "Negotiating an Identity: Metis Political Organizations, the Canadian Government, and Competing
Concepts of Aboriginality" American Indian Quarterly Vol. 24, No. 3 (2001), 77.
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Kaukalin, Portage, La Pointe and elsewhere (Map 1). Perceived but dimly by
the seaboard world, and largely ignored between 1763-1816, the inhabitants
of these towns, like those of La Baye, were, as it happens, of primarily mixed
race-Metis. 77
In 1981, Peterson directed a conference at the Newberry Library in Chicago called, "The Metis
in North America: A First Conference." In addition to scholars of Metis history of the Canadian
Northwest-for instance, Jennifer S.H. Brown, one of Peterson's assistant conference directors,
who had just published Strangers in Blood (1980)-the Newberry Conference included Dickason
as a scholar of eastern Canada; and others from Ontario, Montana and other locations. The
Newberry Conference cast a wider temporal and geographical scope than was usual for Metis
history. (However, although this was a thread of change to the scholarly narrative, the
predominant gaze of Metis history remained at Red River. Scholars like George F.G. Stanley,
Desmond Morton, Thomas Flanagan, D. Bruce Sealey, Antoine S. Lussier and George Woodcock
were prolific in their research and study of Louis Riel, Gabriel Dumont, and the Metis history of
the Canadian Northwest throughout the 1970s and 1980s.)
Scholarly developments interplayed with political developments during this period. In 1982,
section 35 of the Constitution Act entrenched "existing aboriginal and treaty rights" of
Aboriginal peoples, including "Indian, Inuit and Metis," which constitutionally acknowledged
Metis for the first time. What was meant by the term "Metis" was undefined. On one hand, the
group that successfully lobbied for constitutional inclusion was the Native Council of Canada
(NCC), which broadly represented Metis and Non-Status Indians (including in Eastern Canada,
with member organizations NBAMNSI, NCPEI and NSMANS). Harry Daniels, then president of
the NCC, later wrote in support of the Labrador Metis Association:
With specific reference to the term "Metis" it was understood at the time [of
constitutional negotiations] that it (Metis) included the member organizations
and their constituents who self-identified as a Metis person. The notion being
that self-identity is a right that cannot be usurped by any means. It was also
understood that the term Metis was not tied to any particular geographic
area, keeping in mind that Aboriginal people from coast to coast identified
with the term Metis as their way of relating to the world. 78
Although this implies Daniels' geographically-inclusive use of the term "Metis," 79 the NCC was
deeply split on the issue: for example, Clement Chartier, the current president of the Met is
77 Jacqueline Peterson, "Prelude to Red River: A Social Portrait of the Great Lakes Metis," Ethnohistory Vol. 25, No.
1 (Winter 1978), pp. 41-67.
78 Malette "The Eastern Metis" (2017), Note 12, 15-16; Jennifer Adese, "A Tale of Two Constitutions: Metis
Nationhood and Section 35(2)'s Impact on Interpretations of Daniels." Topia Vol. 36 (2016), 13-14.
79 While at face value this quote seems transparent in its meaning, Adese argues that the quotation it is not
representative of "the contradictory manner in which Daniels characterized Metisness." Adese "Tale of Two
Constitutions" (2016)," 14.
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National Council (MNC) was a Metis leader within the NCC in 1982 and resented that Metis
people were subsumed within Non-Status concerns in the constitutional negotiations. 80 Tony
Belcourt, a contemporary of these negotiations, later commented that Daniels "was less
interested in drawn-out discussions about the boundaries and contours of Metis identity than
he was in the more practical and hard-nosed game of how to get the term into the Constitution
and worry about what it meant later." 81 With no consensus on the term "Metis," the NCC soon
fractured, with the MNC establishing itself as a separate group in 1983. The two organizations
represented the deep-seated question of whether the term "Metis" was unique to the Metis
Nation or more inclusive. Moving forward, the MNC achieved (through legal challenge, and an
out-of-court settlement) its own seat at the constitutional conference table. 82 Both
organizations were present at the 1983 and 1984 First Ministers Conferences. 83
In 1982, the American Indian Culture and Research Journal published Olive P. Dickason's article,
"From 'One Nation' in the Northeast to 'New Nation' in the Northwest: A Look at the
Emergence of the Metis." In this article, Dickason concluded that although there was as muchmaybe more-interracial mixing in New France and Acadia than in the Northwest, there was no
emergence of a "New Nation" as had occurred with the Metis at Red River. 84 Dickason reviewed
evidence of mixed families including the La Tour, Saint-Castin, Mius d'Entremont, Denys, and
Petitpas families in Acadia. 85 She concluded that by the eighteenth century, with the decline of
the fur trade, and given the importance of religious and security concerns, mixed families opted
to identify as French rather than maintain a "biracial" or intermediary position. 86
Dickason's former academic supervisor Cornelius Jaenen also continued to study this matter.
For example, in a report that Jaenen wrote for INAC, "The French Relationship with Native
Peoples of New France and Acadia" (1984), he referred to "Metis children" as the offspring of
mixed French and Indian relationships.87 Jaenen did not necessarily mean to refer to an
emergent Metis nation or society, since he continued to portray metissage in the context of
francisation, and in other cases found that the children remained with their Indian families. 88
80 Adese "Tale of Two Constitutions" (2016)," 14-15.
81 Adam Gaudry and Chris Andersen, "Daniels v. Canada: Racialized Legacies, Settler Self-lndigenization and the
Denial or Indigenous Peoplehood," Topia Vol. 36 (2016), 20-21.
82 Adese "Tale of Two Constitutions" (2016)," 15.
83 Gaffney et al, Broken Promises (1984), 35-74.
84 Olive P. Dickason, "From 'One Nation' in the Northeast to 'New Nation' in the Northwest: A Look at the
Emergence of the Metis," American Indian Culture and Research Journal Vol. 6, No. 2 (1982), 1. See also the 1985
version of this paper, 19.
85 Dickason, "From 'One Nation' in the Northeast," AICRJ (1982), 9-10. See also the 1985 version of this paper, 2526.
86 Dickason, "From 'One Nation' in the Northeast," AICRJ (1982), 13-14. See also the 1985 version of this paper, 2930.
87 Cornelius Jaenen, "The French Relationship with Native Peoples of New France and Acadia" (Prepared for the
Research Branch, INAC, 1984), 74.
88 Jaenen, "The French Relationship with Native Peoples" (1984), 68-77.
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Nonetheless, Jaenen profiled mixed marriages and used the term "Metis" for mixed-ancestry
people in New France and Acadia, and his work is widely-cited by Eastern Metis scholars.
The 1984 text most explicit that Eastern Metis communities existed-through colonial history
to present-was Broken Promises: the Aboriginal Constitutional Conferences by R.E. Gaffney et
al (NBAMNSI, 1984), which stated as evidence of Metis in the Maritimes:
•
"As early as 1650, a distinct Metis community developed in LeHeve, Nova Scotia,
separate from Acadians and Micmac lndians," 89 and
•
"In New Brunswick, the census returns of 1901 enumerated Metis as a distinct group
from Indians and whites." 90
In 1985, the publication from the Newberry Conference was completed-The New Peoples:
Being and Becoming Metis in North America-which culminated the broad scope of Metis
studies at that conference, including a version of Dickason's '"One Nation' to 'New Nation'"
paper. Peterson and Brown, the collection's editors, accepted the copy editor's choice to spell
"metis" in lower case throughout the book. 91 However, in 2008, Brown expressed her regret in
not following the lead of the Metis National Council-as presented at the 1984 United Nations
Working Group on Indigenous Peoples-which differentiated between "Metis" and "metis,"
with capital-M referring to the Metis Nation, and small-m referring to other people of mixed
descent. 92
Peterson also later felt that the term "metis" was a poor choice, especially for her chapter on
Great Lakes fur trade communities. She had found in her research that the term "metis" was
not historically used in the Great Lakes context, and she had used it as a "stand-in" to describe
a group of mixed-ancestry people whose self-ascription was undocumented. After Peterson's
work was cited in the 2003 Powley decision in support of a historical Metis community at Sault
Ste. Marie, she regretted the choice, which she felt had wrongly conflated "metis" with Metis
Nation identity. 93
89 Gaffney et al, Broken Promises (1984), 62.
90 Gaffney et al, Broken Promises (1984), 3. This inclusion in the census is a product of enumerators' instructions
rather than grassroots self-identification, although it does show that there were individuals that identified to fit
this category. In 1901 (and only 1901), the Dominion census instructed enumerators to record "persons of mixed
white and red blood-commonly known as 'breeds"' in the "racial origin" column, with complex instructions for
denoting both the individuals' "Tribe" and European (French, English, Scottish, Irish or other) origin. The
Instructions to Enumerators provided the example of "'Cree f.b.' to indicate a person of mixed Cree and French
origin (Department of Agriculture, "Fourth Census of Canada. Instructions to Chief Officials, Commissioners and
Enumerators," Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1901). Similar instructions have not occurred for the census either before
or since. The number and identity of people so identifying in New Brunswick in 1901- their location, and whether
or not they were Indian band members, etc.-could be a subject for further research.
91 Brown, "Cores and Boundaries" (2008), 13.
92 Brown, "Cores and Boundaries" (2008), 12.
93 Jacqueline Peterson, "Red River Redux: Metis Ethnogenesis and the Great Lakes Region," in Contours of a People.
Metis Family, Mobility, and History, eds. Nicole St-Onge, Carolyn Podruchny, and Brenda Macdougall (Norman:
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Catherine Bell's 1991 article in the Alberta Law Review-"Who are the Metis people in Section
35(2)?"-portrayed the question as still-very-open at that time. Bell proposed that the term
"Metis," as referenced ins. 35 of the Constitution Act, could be approached in two ways: either
as a 'catch-all' for Aboriginal people within the meaning of s. 35 who did not fall within the
definition of Indian or Inuit, who self-defined as Metis; or with the narrower definition of the
Metis National Council. 94 In Bell's assessment, the debate was whether non-status Indians were
included as "Indians," as "Metis," or excluded from the constitution altogether. While
acknowledging that the "Indian" category could be broadened, Bell supported broadening the
"Metis" category, citing that the constitution's drafting was responsive to lobbying by three
national Aboriginal organizations: the Assembly of First Nations, Native Council of Canada, and
Inuit Tapirisat and Inuit Committee on National Issues. By implication, if each term was
responsive to one of these national organizations, "Metis" referred broadly to the Metis and
Non-Status Indian membership of the NCC. 95 However, Bell also acknowledged that even
though the term "Metis" was inserted "to satisfy the claims of the NCC," it was done "without
determining who the Metis are" as evident from the organization's subsequent fracture and
lack of resolution at the First Ministers Conferences. 96
The following years saw divergent developments in Metis identity politics. For instance,
Aboriginal self-government was key to the proposed 1992 Charlottetown Accord-and if the
Accord had been approved, Metis inclusion would have been distinguished by the Metis
National Council. 97 However, four years later the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples
(RCAP) recommended a broader inclusiveness.
Among the reports commissioned by RCAP was one from Martin F. Dunn-a former researcher
of the NCC-entitled "All My Relations: The Other Metis" (1994). In addressing Metis identity in
different parts of the country, Dunn cited as proof of Eastern Metis history the topographical
names at lie de Mettise (as mapped on the Saint John River in 1778), and Riviere Mitis near
Mont-Joli, Quebec. 98 Dunn also advised the RCAP Commissioners that, like the legal term
"Indian," "Metis" was a blanket term that included many historical ascriptions (i.e. Half-Breed,
Country-Born, Native, Mixed Blood) including "Acadian." 99 As for determining identity, Dunn
University of Oklahoma Press, 2012), 22-58. Peterson's position is further explored in this report under "The
Current Debate," in the section entitled "Exclusivity of the Metis Nation."
94 Catherine Bell, "Who are the Metis people in Section 35(2)?" Alberta Law Review Vol. 29, No. 2 (1991), 370.
95 Bell, "Who are the Metis people in Section 35(2)?" (1991), 373.
96 Bell, "Who are the Metis people in Section 35(2)?" (1991), 374.
97 One appendix of the failed 1992 Charlottetown Accord was the Metis Nation Accord amongst the Crown in right
of Canada; the Provinces of BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario; and the Metis Nation of Canada.
While I state that this "would have been" implemented, there was a waiting period, and contingency for court
review, before proposed implementation of Aboriginal self-governance.
98 Martin F. Dunn, "All My Relations: The Other Metis" (Prepared for the Metis Circle Special Consultation of the
Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1994), 13.
99 Dunn, "All My Relations" (1994), 11-15.
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proposed that historic Metis communities be discerned as having most of the following
features:
•
mixed Indian and non-Indian ancestry (although with no fixed "amount" of either);
•
an Indigenous lifestyle based on local resources;
•
significant engagement with both Indian and non-Indian kinship networks;
•
self- and other-ascription marking the group as distinct from both Indian and non-Indian
societies;
•
existence before major white settlements; and
•
collective community action to resist dispossession. 100
Other than the topographical names cited above, Dunn implied but did not elaborate on his
opinion that Eastern Metis met these criteria.
The RCAP Final Report included separate sections pertaining to the "Metis Nation" and "Other
Metis." Distinguishing between these, the Commissioners wrote:
Several Metis communities came into existence, independently of the Metis
Nation, in the eastern part of what we now call Canada, some of them
predating the establishment of the Metis Nation. 101 The history of Metis
people who are not part of the Metis Nation is not easy to relate. For one
thing, their past has not been much studied by historians. If the Metis
Nation's story is unfamiliar to most Canadians, the story of the "other" Met is
is almost untold. 102
The Commissioners observed that Metis people except the Metis Nation and Labrador Metis
were still "emerging as nations" and "in the absence of full nationhood" at the time of the RCAP
Final Report. 103 The Final Report also stated: "Few would doubt the legitimacy of NCC's efforts
to have Metis people included in the Constitution Act, 1982; yet few would contend that those
affected by the provision, apart from the Metis Nation and the Labrador Metis, possessed full
nationhood at the time. That was a matter about which Metis opinion across Canada was all
but unanimous." 104 The Commissioners did not feel, however, that this necessarily precluded
100 Dunn, "All My Relations" (1994), 15-16.
101 At this point, the RCAP Commissioners cite Olive P. Dickason, "From 'One Nation' in the Northeast to 'New
Nation' in the Northwest: A Look at the Emergence of the Metis." As previously described, Dickason's conclusions
in this article do not support the cited view.
102 Canada, Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Vol. 4:
Perspectives and Realities {Ottawa: Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1996), 237.
103 Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Vol. 4 {1996), 193-194
104 Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Vol. 4 {1996), 193.
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Crown relationships with the "Other Metis." Although they generally recommended nation-tonation relationships, in this case they stated:
It may be that, for the purpose of negotiations concerning Metis collectivities
that are emerging as nations, the only relevant question is whether the
negotiating organization has a mandate to negotiate on behalf of those it
purports to represent...ln our view, satisfactory progress in the negotiation of
some Metis issues may require this pragmatic approach rather than an all-ornothing focus on nationhood. 105
Metis organizations in the Maritimes by the time of the 2003 Powley decision
By the end of the century, there was a degree of splintering among organizations that had
formerly represented Metis and Non-Status people. A good example is the broad-based Native
Council of Canada (NCC), from which the Metis National Council (MNC) had broken off in 1983.
Anthropologist Joe Sawchuk's article on this subject, in 2001, provides a "time stamp" prior to
the Powley decision:
In 2001, Sawchuk characterized an "accordian" effect where some organizations, like the MNC,
were trying to "narrow the definition" (i.e. uphold the Metis Nation delimitation), while others
were trying to broaden it. 106 Sawchuk noted that the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples (CAP,
formerly NCC) accepted that "Met is people are located in all of the provinces and territories of
Canada." Among the "Other Metis" -a term Sawchuk adopted from RCAP-there continued
"the notion prevalent in the 1970s that anyone with mixed aboriginal and non-aboriginal blood
could be perceived as Metis." 107
At this time, the New Brunswick Aboriginal Peoples Council (NBAPC, formerly NBAMNSI) and
NCPEI had this broader-based model. Meanwhile, the Native Council of Nova Scotia (NCNS,
formerly NSMANS) had encountered a split. The Nova Scotia Metis Confederacy was formed in
1999, with six local councils:
•
Yarmouth and District;
•
Kespu'kwitk (Yarmouth County);
•
Sou'west Nova (Shelburne County);
•
Annapolis Valley;
•
Eldawik (Halifax); and
•
We'kopekwitk (Truro). 108
105 Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples,
Vol. 4 (1996), 193.
106 Sawchuk, "Negotiating an Identity" (2001), 86.
107 Sawchuk, "Negotiating an Identity" (2001), 80.
108 Katie K. Macleod, "Displaced Mixed-Blood: An Ethnographic Exploration of Metis Identities in Nova Scotia"
(M.A. Thesis, Carleton University, 2013), 25.
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NBAPC, NCPEI and NCNS were affiliated with CAP, whereas the Nova Scotia Metis Confederacy
was affiliated-not with CAP-but with the Canadian Metis Council (CMC) by which local
members were issued membership cards. 109 Established in 1997, the CMC had an inclusive
vision of Metis identity. Their 2002 website had the question "Who is Metis?" and response
"Metis are persons of mixed blood - European/Aboriginal blood (Indian ancestry); Someone
who is distinct from Indian and Inuit, someone who has genealogical ties to Aboriginal ancestry.
Note: There is no specified blood quantum." 110 The 2002 application and verification process
required "Aboriginal ancestry" including genealogical documentation of an Aboriginal ("Metis,"
"Halfbreed," "Indian," etc.) ancestor; a photocopy of an ancestor's Indian status card; or proof
of loss of an ancestor's status through marriage, etc. 111 Their membership, therefore, included
people of mixed-Indigenous ancestry but not necessarily whose ancestors historically identified
as Metis.
Katie K. Macleod's research explains the fate of the Nova Scotia Metis Confederacy:
Due to disagreements between the councils and an incident of financial
corruption, individual councils began to separate from the Confederacy in
2003. The Nova Scotia Metis Confederacy was completely dissolved on
January 30, 2009. Currently [2013] there remains the Kespu'kwitk Metis
Council (KMC), Sou'west Nova Metis Council (SWNMC), of the original six, and
the Eastern Woodlands Metis Nation (EWMN), L'Association Acadien-Metis
Souriquois (AAMS). The Metis organizations are now concentrated in the
Southwestern region of Nova Scotia. 112
Following the Powley Decision
The Powley test
Metis identity politics shifted again in 2003, when the Supreme Court's Powley decision
recognized appellants Steve and Roddy Powley of Sault Ste. Marie, as Metis. The Powley
decision provided a "test" for s. 35 rights-bearing Metis, which states briefly as follows:
•
as. 35 rights-bearing Metis individual must be identified in relation to a historic Metis
community, which existed as a distinctive entity prior to the establishment of effective
European control, and continues to exist. A compliant historic Metis community, "in
109 Macleod, "Displaced Mixed-Blood" (2013), 25.
110 September 26, 2002 is the earliest capture of the Canadian Metis Council website on the Internet Archive
Wayback Machine. Canadian Metis Council, "Apply for Membership," as captured on September 26, 2002.
https://web,archive,org/web/20020912221150/http://www.canadianmetis,com/Qualifying,htm (accessed March
3, 2019).
111 September 26, 2002 is the earliest capture of the Canadian Metis Council website on the Internet Archive
Wayback Machine. Canadian Metis Council, "Apply for Membership," as captured on September 26, 2002.
https://web,archive,org/web/20020912221150/http://www.canadianmetis.com/Qualifying.htm (accessed March
3, 2019).
112 Macleod, "Displaced Mixed-Blood" (2013), 25.
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addition to their mixed ancestry, developed their own customs, and recognizable group
identity separate from their Indian or Inuit and European forbears ... living together in the
same geographical area and sharing a common way of life." 113
•
the individual must identify as Metis;
•
the individual must be verifiably connected to the historic Metis community; and
•
the individual must be accepted by the modern Metis community.
Following 2003, the scholarship on Eastern Metis became structured on whether communities
met the Powley test. Ultimately, no community in Quebec or the Maritimes has been so
recognized in court or by Canada, although several contend to do so. 114
Local studies
An early self-published local study that responded to the Powley decision was Metis/Acadian
Heritage, 1604 to 2004, by Roland F. Surette, Eastern Woodland Metis Nation (2004). Surette
was a key member of that association in 2004: Chief Captain of the Hunt, and Chief
Negotiator. 115 He explained the organization's recent history and mobilization:
We were assimilated into the Acadian Population or hidden in Indian
Communities until 1988 when some of our members looked to revive our
Nation. A registry had been opened and faithfully kept though in our region.
At one time, there were three Metis organizations: The Yarmouth District
Metis; the Kes'pequitik Metis; and our Eastern Woodland Metis. In the fall of
2003 [i.e. contemporary to the Powley decision of September 19, 2003],
Yarmouth District joined the Eastern Woodland Metis. All members of these
groups are out shoots of the same families. The community is the same; the
main difference is leadership, a difference that I hope may, at some point in
the near future, be resolved. 116
113 R. v. Powley, [2003] 2 SCR 207, 2003
sec 43 (Canlll), '-'=="-===~== (accessed February 18, 2019).
114 Following Powley, scholars also began to debate the test itself. Some authors have questioned whether the
Powley test is relevant or appropriate for recognizing Metis identities. Some oppose the Powley decision on the
basis that its cast is too broad. Others-certainly, Eastern Metis communities-find its distinction too narrow. It
has been critiqued that the Powley test requires an inappropriately high burden of evidence for Eastern Canada,
considering its centuries-earlier (and more records-scarce) date of effective European control. Metis Nation
scholars have also been strongly critical that Powley or any juridical test that leaves identity in control of the
courts, unjustly infringes on the Metis Nation's right to control its membership. These issues are addressed in this
report under "The Current Debate." (Beyond the scope of this report is the legal breadth of the Powley test, such
as how it pertains to Metis identity beyonds. 35 rights, including recognition of Metis people as "Indians" for s.
91(24) as per Daniels.)
115 Roland Surette, Metis/Acadian Heritage, 1604 to 2004 (Yarmouth, Nova Scotia: Roland F. Surette, 2004), 101.
116 Surette, Metis/Acadian Heritage (2004), 100.
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Prior to Powley (and in the wake of the Marshall decision) in September 2001, Surette-as
Captain of the Hunt, Metis Nation of Nova Scotia-submitted the "Metis Nation of Nova Scotia
2001 Harvesting Policy" to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO). DFO referred Surette
to the Native Council of Nova Scotia (NCNS); however, the NCNS did not recognize them, which
Surette considered as denying Metis "inclusion" to protect the Mi'kmaq's "cash cow." 117 After
Powley, Surette attended a Metis Rights Forum in Toronto, which he called a "direct result" of
the Powley decision. 118 The Eastern Woodland Metis Nation then developed a revised 2004
Harvesting Policy, which declared their Metis rights and procedures by which they would issue
Metis Harvester's Permits. 119 They also passed a resolution in May 2004 demanding provincial
recognition of the Eastern Woodlands Metis Nation. 120
For the evidentiary basis of their Met is identity, Surette reviewed the early history of particular
families-La Tour, Saint-Castin, Denys, Doucet, Mius-d'Entremont, LeJeune, Dugast (Dugas) and
Petitpas-culminating in the 1671 census. From the time of British arrival at Acadia in 1713,
Surette discussed Acadians and Met is/Acadians (i.e. the descendants of these families)
together, in terms of their mutual needs for security and joint mistreatment by British
authorities. In particular, both Acadians and Metis/Acadians were subjected to Deportation,
while other Metis/Acadians associated themselves with the Mi'kmaq. Surette cites "Metis
ancestor Francois d' Azy Muis" as such an example, where Mi us-as Chief of the La Heve
Indians-signed a Treaty of Peace and Friendship with the Nova Scotia Governor in 1761. 121
Surette's implication is that for security reasons, the Metis/Acadians chose to ally with either
Acadians or Mi'kmaq during this period.
In a chapter entitled "The Silent Years," Surette then explained that after 1766 a "portion of the
community ... maintained Mi'kmag families" and others lived among Acadians. Surette maintains
that there was a distinction-by family descent-but not a geographical divide. That is:
Met is/Acadians live in these [Acadian] villages but do not possess one
particular village that we can call our own. No distinction being made at the
time of Expulsion and, those who came back knew they were bad enough
being trench speaking Roman Catholics in an area where the English speaking
majority held the purse strings and the political power. 122
Surette identified the "heart" of his community as Quinan "where you can still find the largest
concentration of Metis/Acadians who do so many things in the old way." 123 In a chapter
entitled "Keeping the Old Ways Going in Modern Times," he described their lifestyle, which he
117
Surette, Metis/Acadian Heritage (2004), 106.
118 Surette, Metis/Acadian Heritage (2004), 4.
119 Surette, Metis/Acadian Heritage (2004), 101-105.
120 Surette, Metis/Acadian Heritage (2004), 109.
121 Surette, Metis/Acadian Heritage (2004), 70.
122 Surette, Metis/Acadian Heritage (2004), 82.
123 Surette, Metis/Acadian Heritage (2004), 81.
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considered distinctive: a long-time reliance on the barter system; woodlot management;
hunting, fishing and trapping practices, including intergenerational knowledge of favoured
locales, species and particular techniques; domestic practices, including large families and
women's care of a household pig; food gathering, including underpaid labour in berry picking;
and the economy of guiding. 124 On this basis, and citing Powley, Surette stated: "We are Metis
of Acadia and we will be counted." 125
Department of Justice studies
After the Powley decision, Canada's Department of Justice also commissioned a number of
regional examinations to aid in informing Canada's position on the existence Powley
communities. Two of the studies are relevant to Eastern Metis: Northeastern New Brunswick,
by Chignecto Research (2005); and Southern Nova Scotia, by Public History (2005).
Northeastern New Brunswick
The report by Chignecto Research (Amanda Marlin et al) first summarized the literature to date,
that is: that Rameau described marriages between Acadian and Indian people; that James
Hannay agreed there were three such mixed marriages with children: Saint-Castin at
Penobscot, Pierre Martin at Port Royal, and Martin Lejeune at La Heve; and that historian
Harald Prins had "argued that there were many more." Among these, in the context of
northeastern New Brunswick, Prins included the families of Richard Denys at Miramichi; Denys'
employee Philippe Enault at Nepisiguit (Bathurst); and two other Frenchmen at Nepisiguit. 126
According to Prins, Enault's several descendants appear "to have scattered among the
Mi'kmaqs." 127 Marlin cited Dickason to conclude that mixed marriages were not uncommon
during this colonial period; but also that Dickason found that a lack of distinct Metis identity
resulted. 128 At this point, Marlin also noted that "Metis activist" Martin F. Dunn disagreed and
stated that "Acadians of mixed-ancestry were 'distinct,"' but Marlin found Dunn's work did not
include any primary sources for this conclusion, although she acknowledged it as an
"interesting and potentially significant claim." 129
Having reviewed this background, Marlin addressed what she considered the most significant
finding: that the "Grande Grant" to 34 families for the town plot of Caraquet in 1784-although
it referred to the grantees as Acadian-included 17 families who were enumerated as
"Normandes et metisses" in the 1760 census. 130 Marlin described these families' history by
citing early New Brunswick Historian William Ganong: the group had come from a long-time
124 Surette, Metis/Acadian Heritage (2004), 83-91.
125 Surette, Metis/Acadian Heritage (2004), 106.
126 Marlin, "Northeastern New Brunswick" {2005), 32.
127 Marlin, "Northeastern New Brunswick" {2005), 33.
128 Marlin, "Northeastern New Brunswick" {2005), 33-36.
129 Marlin, "Northeastern New Brunswick" {2005), 36.
130 Marlin, "Northeastern New Brunswick" (2005), 64-69.
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Norman fishing establishment on the Gaspe coast, where by 1672 there were 200-250 fishing
vessels per year. An observer in 1727 recorded only one French family settled, but sometime
later, the Norman fishermen began to permanently settle along the coast, "with names such as
Chapadeau, Dugue, La Rocque, Mallet, Denis, Canivet, Morret, Le Breton, Huart, Roussy and
probably Le Vicaire, Albert and Lantaigne." 131 Marlin continued:
The Norman families who came to Caraquet from across the Baie de Chaleur
intermarried Indian and mixed-ancestry women ... According to Ganong,
"The names of the wives of these settlers show how closely intermarried
were these Norman families, and how homogeneous in origin is this part of
the population of Caraquet. The statement often made, that these wives were
Indian, is not strictly true, though they were for the most part of quarter, or
half, Indian origin. Their descendants are very numerous, not only in
Caraquet, but in all the surrounding districts to which Caraquet has expanded,
and this peculiar Norman-Indian strain is an important and distinctive
element in the population of New Brunswick." 132
Marlin considered whether this group, after its settlement at Caraquet, was seen as distinct
from other Acadians. She concluded that other than a comment by the Bishop that "the
residents of Lower Caraquet (the mixed Indian-Norman group) attended church more
infrequently than their Acadian neighbours in Upper Caraquet," there was no evidence of
distinct cultural practices, a unique dialect, different jobs or economic roles, or a social "niche"
that made this group distinct. 133 However, she also noted that this could be attributable to
sparse records. From the limited historical records available, the group "identified themselves
simply as the inhabitants of Caraquet." 134
Chignecto Research concluded that the "Norman-Indian" families who comprised a portion of
the 1784 settlers of Caraquet were the only "mixed-ancestry people living together" identified
in northeastern New Brunswick. Among these, it "was not possible to ascertain how unique, if
unique at all, the culture of mixed-ancestry people in Caraquet was, or how different they were
from the Acadians and Canadians with whom they shared the 'Grande Grant."1135
Southern Nova Scotia
The report by Public History (Ken Brown et al) also concluded a lack of evidence of a historical
Metis community in southern Nova Scotia. Brown reiterated the previous literature, and
131 Marlin, "Northeastern New Brunswick" (2005), 69.
132 Marlin, "Northeastern New Brunswick" {2005), 69-70. For the quote, Marlin cited: "William F. Ganong, "The
History of Caraquet," Acadiensis 7, no. 2 {April, 1907), 105-106."
133 Marlin, "Northeastern New Brunswick" {2005), 109-110.
134 Marlin, "Northeastern New Brunswick" {2005), 109.
135 Marlin, "Northeastern New Brunswick" (2005), 109.
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summarized: "There is certainly evidence of individuals of mixed ancestry in Acadia/Nova
Scotia, but the degree to which intermarriage took place is not clear, and there is contradictory
evidence as to whether or not these individuals resided in distinct communities." 136
As for his own examination of primary sources, Brown scoured for early records describing
LaHave, in order to potentially corroborate Rameau. As the most significant example, he cited a
1686 description by New France's Intendant Jacques de Meulles, providing two paragraphs
about "La Haive": its situation, inhabitants, their love of fishing, and engagement in the Indian
fur trade. However, De Meulles said nothing about mixed ancestry-although he had made
such a comment about the Saint John River. 137 As a result, Brown found that De Meulles' lack of
comment was potentially significant. 138 He also concluded that "mixed-ancestry information
appears to be missing entirely from any documents concerning the return of the Acadians to
Nova Scotia [at Clare Township and Yarmouth County.]" 139 Ultimately, Brown did not find any
primary source evidence of a distinct mixed-ancestry community in southern Nova Scotia, but
he did not consider the matter "conclusively disproved" due to the sparsity of records
available. 140
Lack of evidence for the Powley test
In both of the Department of Justice studies, the authors-Marlin and Brown-conclude that
there is a lack of evidence to make definitive conclusions. This is a recurring finding of eastern
Powley studies. The Powley test requires a certain threshold of evidence at the time of effective
European control. From Ontario westward, this is generally in the nineteenth century, a period
when such records are more likely available. The court has found the date of effective control in
Acadia to be 1670, and the two-century difference is significant from a research perspective.
Seventeenth century records of Acadia are extremely sparse. Therefore, it is much more
difficult to do a proper Powley assessment in eastern Canada. The Deportation is also a factor in
eastern Powley studies: the expulsion of Acadians (1755-1764) caused records' destruction, as
buildings were burned, and papers lost; moreover, the upheaval of the Deportation resulted in
widespread community and identity disruption. 141
Powley test cases
Research on Eastern Metis has been produced within court cases that considered whether
individuals met the Powley test. For example, R. v. Babin was an already-active case of fishing
charges laid against John Paul Babin of Yarmouth County's Kespu'kwitk Metis Council in 2001,
which Babin appealed on the basis that he had an Aboriginal right to fish for food. In 2004, two
136 Brown, "Southern Nova Scotia" (2005), 23.
137 Brown, "Southern Nova Scotia" (2005), 68-70.
138 Brown, "Southern Nova Scotia" (2005), 70.
139 Brown, "Southern Nova Scotia" (2005), 110.
140 Brown, "Southern Nova Scotia" (2005), 111.
141 Macleod, "Displaced Mixed-Blood" (2013), 23.
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expert reports were presented by Babin's counsel: William Wicken, "The Metis of Southwestern
Nova Scotia" (2004) and Janet E. Chute, '" A Good Day on the Aboiteau': an Ethnographic and
Ethnohistorical Study of the Acadian-Metis of Eel Brook and Quin an Areas, Municipality of
Argyle, Nova Scotia" (2004). These supported Babin as as. 35 rights-bearing Metis and member
of a Powley historic Metis community in southwest Nova Scotia.
The Crown's defence included expert witnesses Stephen E. Patterson and Alexander van
Gernet, who reviewed the literature and concluded that there was "insufficient evidence of
sources to support the existence of a distinct historical Metis community extant before 1670" the date they identified for effective control, which was accepted by the court. 142
Of the two expert witnesses in support of Ba bin's appeal, the court afforded more weight to
the evidence of Wicken, who argued that effective control was achieved in 1775, and there was
a distinct Metis community by that time. 143 He noted that previous literature-including
Dickason-had created generalities that lumped all of Acadia together; however, in his
estimation, Acadian-Mi'kmaq intermarriage was uncommon in agrarian communities, while the
fur trade enclave of southwest Nova Scotia was uniquely fitted to intermarriage and the
development of a "metis" population and culture. 144 Wicken identified mixed-marriage families
in the census; marriage and baptismal records; and also cited secondary sources (Rameau, and
those including Upton who cited Rameau). Most uniquely from previous literature, Wicken
cited the denial of Marguerite Guedry's marriage at Tie Royale in 1755, in which her mother
Anne Mius, youngest daughter of Philippe Mius d'Entremont of LaHave, was described as a
"metisse-Sauvagesse femme." 145 Wicken also acknowledged the "problem of documentation,"
and explained that he made suppositions such as that fur trade societies by nature fostered
extensive intermarriage; and with shared security and economic interests "marriage between
young people from the two communities was bound to happen. How often? We don't
know." 146
In summary, the trial judge concluded that Wicken was "a knowledgeable and capable witness.
There were instances where it was unclear how he interpreted some of the sources. But his
testimony overall supports his opinion. This opinion it would appear is not one that is shared by
a number of historians referred to in the evidence before me ... l must consider the lack of
primary source support for this opinion in assessing his testimony." The court's decision in 2011
stated that there was insufficient evidence of a historic Metis community to meet the Powley
142 This quote is a summary, within the decision, of Patterson and von Gernet's evidence. R. v. Babin, 2013 NSSC
434, ~='-===ct,,,;:L== (accessed February 18, 2019).
143 The trial judge found Chute's report to be less relevant to the matters at hand, and-although noting Chute as
"vastly knowledgeable"-found her work less well supported by sources. R. v. Babin, 2013 NSSC 434,
~"'--'L'--"-"-'-'-'-"=1-:o.L== (accessed February 18, 2019).
144 Wicken, "The Metis in Southwestern Nova Scotia" (2004), 3-10.
145 Wicken, "The Metis in Southwestern Nova Scotia" (2004), 21-22.
146 Wicken, "The Metis in Southwestern Nova Scotia" (2004), 20.
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test in southwest Nova Scotia, thus the charge against Babin was upheld. In 2013, the Nova
Scotia Supreme Court agreed, and dismissed the appeal. 147
In a similar case, R. v. Hatfield, Jack Leonard Hatfield of Cape Sable Island was charged under
the Nova Scotia Wildlife Act for hunting without a license, and appealed on the basis of Metis
rights pursuant to Powley. The court considered expert evidence from the same two crown
witnesses, Patterson and von Gernet; upheld the date of effective control of 1670; and
regarding the Powley test, found lack of "proof of an historic Metis community that existed with
some degree of continuity and stability." The decision was upheld on appeal in 2015. 148
Meanwhile, in Restigouche County, New Brunswick, defendants Castonguay and Faucher had
appealed against charges in 2001 that they were guilty of possession of Crown timber. Both
men-Roger Castonguay and Franc;ois Faucher-traced mixed-Indigenous ancestry through the
Castonguay family to Edmee LeJeune, born 1623, son of Pierre Lejeune Biard and an unknown
Mi'kmaq woman. Considering this matter in reference to Powley, the trial judge in 2005 was
satisfied that the ancestry was done correctly; however, he did not find sufficient evidence of a
rights-bearing Metis community. Furthermore, he stated:
The defendants established a so-called "Metis" association [the Rising Sun
Aboriginal Community of Restigouche West] for the purpose of claiming their
rights as Metis. In my opinion, such a claim cannot be made out merely by
creating an association and relying on an ancestral connection that is ten or
more generations old. The aboriginal right in issue is protected and
recognized by the Constitution of Canada. Such rights are not acquired so
easily. 149
He thus dismissed Castonguay and Faucher's appeal. In 2006, Castonguay and Faucher was
upheld at the Court of Appeal of New Brunswick. 150
R. v. Vautour also involved an appeal in reference to Powley, in this case by Jackie Vautour and
his son Roy Vautour who were charged for unauthorized fishing in Kouchibouguac National
Park. The Crown experts again were Patterson and von Gernet, who provided opinions on the
date of effective control (1670) and literature to date. The appellants' expert was Stephen
Augustine, a hereditary Chief of the Mi'kmaq Grand Council; curator at the Canadian Museum
of Civilization; ethnologist; and ethnohistorian. According to the court's summary of
Augustine's report and testimony, he focused on the Vautours' genealogy to prove that they
had mixed Acadian and Mi'kmaq ancestry, which reflected his understanding of the term
"Metis"-in Chief Augustine's words, "I'm referring to those people that were the offspring of
147 R.
v. Babin, 2013 NSSC 434, http://canlii.ca/t/g2s88 (accessed February 18, 2019).
148 R. v. Hatfield, 2015 NSSC 77, http://canlii.ca/t/ggmz5 (accessed February 18, 2019).
149 Castonguay and Faucher v. R., 2006 NBCA 43, http://canlii.ca/t/1n5pp (accessed February 19, 2019).
°Castonguay and Faucher v. R., 2006 NBCA 43, htt~ ://canlii.ca/t/1n5pp (accessed February 19, 2019).
15
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Mi'kmaq and Acadian people as Metis people." 151 In addition, Chief Augustine pointed to the
Vautours' and their ancestors' intergenerational practices of hunting, fishing, trapping and
gathering. As for whether they were outwardly-recognized as distinct from Acadians and
Mi'kmaq, Chief Augustine identified the largest factor as "'fear" that resulted from our
collective history culminating in the 'Grand Derangement' and the expulsion of the Acadians in
1755," which kept the Metis in "hiding." He described that there was, all along, "a shadow
community of Metis people living among the Acadian and Mi'kmaq peoples." 152
In 2010, the trial judge ruled against the Vautours' appeal, determining that there was no
historic Metis community. In regard to the concept of a "shadow community," he stated that to
meet the Powley criteria, "the commuity must of necessity have had some visibility at some
point in time. It cannot always have remained invisible, and I can find no solid historical
indicators in Chief Augustine's report or in his testimony that point to its existence." 153
Furthermore, the trial judge stated: "The facts of this case provide an example where an overreliance on genealogy coupled with a period of recent self-identification as 'Metis' have largely
served to obscure the true legal issue this court must determine," that is, whether a distinct
historic Metis community existed in compliance with the Powley test. 154
In summary, the test cases of Powley rights in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have not
recognized any historic Eastern Metis communities.
151 R.
v. Vautour, 2010 NBPC 39, http:11canlii.ca/t/2dzpb (accessed February 18, 2019).
152 R. v. Vautour, 2010 NBPC 39, http://canlii.ca/t/2dzpb (accessed February 18, 2019).
153 R. v. Vautour, 2010 NBPC 39, http://canlii.ca/t/2dzpb (accessed February 18, 2019).
154 R. v. Vautour, 2010 NBPC 39, httr ://canlii.ca/t/2dzpb (accessed February 18, 2019).
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The Current Debate
With the foregoing as background, this report now turns its attention to recent literaturefrom 2006 to 2018-and its currently heated discussion of Eastern Metis identities. To make
best sense of this debate, the literature is grouped by "position" and arranged in a conceptual
spectrum from exclusiveness to inclusiveness:
•
Exclusiveness refers to the position that the Metis Nation developed historically into a
unique Indigenous nation. Proponents of exclusiveness believe that only descendants of
the historic Metis Nation are entitled to be Metis.
•
Inclusiveness refers to the position that Metis identities take a wide variety of forms. At
the furthest end of this spectrum, proponents of inclusiveness believe that all people
with both Indigenous and non-Indigenous ancestry who so identify, are entitled to be
Metis.
Between these two positions are a range of perceptions of Metis identities. Using best
judgment to group the literature by its content, this report describes each position from its own
proponents' perspective; names its major scholars; and summarizes their arguments and
evidence, as well as others' critiques. The groups perceive Metis identities in the following
terms:
•
Exclusivity of the Metis Nation (i.e. exclusive of Eastern Metis).
•
Exclusivity of the Metis Nation and other historic and/or Powley communities (i.e.
exclusive of Eastern Metis).
•
Inclusion of Eastern Metis in a broader historic Metis network.
•
Inclusion of Eastern Metis in unrecognized Powley communities.
•
Inclusion of Eastern Metis as Indigenous people who identify as Metis.
•
Inclusion of Eastern Metis as Metis-Acadian people whose ancestors identified as
Acadian, and who now identify as Metis.
Exclusivity of the Metis Nation
This position conceives Metis identity as unique and exclusive to the Metis Nation. The authors
reject that Metis simply means "mixed," and can refer to any person of mixed-Indigenous
ancestry who so identifies. They also deny that other Metis identities developed in Eastern
Canada or elsewhere. Metis Nation scholars describe, as a unique experience, the selfidentified Metis collective in the historic Northwest and its political mobilization through the
Battle of Seven Oaks, Red River and Northwest Rebellions. They hold that no other
communities were part of this historical group; and moreover, that no other group had a
comparable experience that crystallized a similar identity.
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The scholars include: Jennifer Adese, Chris Andersen, Adam Gaudry, Darryl Leroux, Darren
O'Toole, Jacqueline Peterson (2012) and Chelsea Vowel. In reference to the Eastern Metis, their
main points are:
•
Metis is a distinct Indigenous nation (like Mi'kmaq, Mohawk or Plains Cree), rather than
a political category (like "lndian"). 155 It refers to the Metis Nation exclusively. The Metis
Nation is not "less Indigenous" than other nations, since all Indigenous nations have
experienced mixing and intermarriage, and cultural change, since the time of contact. 156
•
The 2003 Powley decision misrecognized the Sault Ste. Marie community as Metis, and
wrongfully gave credence to a racialized logic of Metis identity (i.e. Metis-as-mixed). 157
Chris Andersen attributes this, in part, to long-term scholarly misuse of the term
employing the racialized logic of "mixedness." Although the terminology is now
purportedly corroborated by juridical logic in Powley, Andersen poses that scholarly
misterminology created-and is not corroborated by-the judicial outcomes. 158
For example, Jacqueline Peterson, whose work was heavily cited in the Powley decision,
clarified in 2012 that her earlier work had differentiated between "Metis" (Metis
Nation) and "metis" (others with mixed ancestry). She regrets the result that the two
terms were conflated. In the 1970s and 1980s, she and other scholars chose the term
"metis"-although it was not present in the historical record-to stand in for the
absence of identifying terminology, or diverse and sometimes pejorative historical
terminology (e.g. "half-breed"). However, Peterson identifies "circular reasoning" in
Powley: scholars inserted the term "metis" into the historical record; then the court
identified communities as Metis because the language was there. 159 Of her thirty years'
research, Peterson concludes that the Great Lakes had "a network of multicultural fur
trade communities," of which there is little evidence of their self-ascription during the
155 Andersen, "I'm Metis, What's your excuse?" (2011), 164; O'Toole, "From Entity to Identity to Nation" (2013),
145; Andersen, Metis (2014), 21-24; Chelsea Vowel, Indigenous Writes: a guide to First Nations, Metis, and Inuit
issues in Canada (Winnipeg: HighWater Press, 2016), 43; Adam Gaudry and Darryl Leroux, "White Settler
Revisionism and Making Metis Everywhere: The Evocation of Metissage in Quebec and Nova Scotia," Critical Ethnic
Studies Vol. 3, No. 1 (Spring 2017), 118-119.
156 Andersen, Metis (2014), 22; Apihtawikosisan (Vowel, Chelsea), "Settlers claiming Metis heritage because they
just feel more Indigenous," Blog published on wwwxabblexa on March 11, 2015.
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/ap1htawlkoslsan/2015/03/settlers-claiming-m%C3%A9tls-herltage-because-theyiust-feel-more- (accessed February 5, 2019); Vowel, Indigenous Writes (2016), 43; Adese, "Tale of Two
Constitutions" (2016), 9; Gaudry and Leroux, "White Settler Revisionism" (2017), 118.
157 Andersen, Chris Andersen, "Moya 'Tipimsook ('The People Who Aren't Their Own Bosses'): Racialization and the
Misrecognition of 'Metis' in Upper Great Lakes Ethnohistory," Ethnohistory Vol. 58, No. 1 (Winter 2011), 37-63;
Peterson "Red River Redux" (2012), 22-58; Chris Andersen, "Settling for Community? Juridical Visions of Historical
Metis Collectivity in and after R. v. Powley," in Contours of a People. Metis Family, Mobility, and History, eds.
Nicole St-Onge, Carolyn Podruchny, and Brenda Macdougall (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2012), 392421; O'Toole, "From Entity to Identity to Nation" (2013), 174-179; Adese, "Tale ofTwo Constitutions" (2016), 9.
158 Andersen, "Moya 'Tipimsook" (2011), 37-63.
159 Peterson "Red River Redux" (2012), 28.
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early period, who eventually identified with settler society. Her research did not find
that they had a documented "ethnic self-consciousness," but a connective identity that
was "occupational and mediative" as people of the fur trade that were "in between."
Peterson concludes that the Great Lake fur trade society "did not become Metis in the
nineteenth century ... That history belongs to the northeastern plains." 160
•
Recent public discourse has popularized "Metis-as-mixed" logic. For example, Andersen
cites the Globe and Mail and other media; 161 and Chelsea Vowel cites John Ralston
Saul's depiction of Canada in 2009 as a "Metis Nation" whose culture was drawn from
both European and Indigenous antecedents. 162 Metis Nation scholars believe that
popular misuse of the term "Metis" has compounded the problem of misrecognition.
•
In 2016, the Daniels decision wrongly articulated a "Metis-as-mixed" identity in its
paragraph 17, which stated: "Cultural and ethnic labels do not lend themselves to neat
boundaries. 'Metis' can refer to the historic Metis community in Manitoba's Red River
Settlement or it can be used as a general term for anyone with mixed European and
Aboriginal heritage." 163 In reference to this part of the Daniels decision, Metis Nation
scholars reply: (1) that every "substantive" example in Daniels pertained to the Metis
Nation; (2) that the Daniels decision specifically did not determine who was Metis, but
identified this as "a fact-driven question to be decided on a case-by-case basis in the
future"; and (3) therefore, that paragraph 17 was obiter dictum, a comment incidental
to the decision. 164
•
Modern liberal thinking wrongly promotes self-identification as the means to determine
Metis identity. Due to society's growing preoccupation with racial identity; inclusion;
and the idea that each individual has the right to identify themselves as they wish,
individuals with any amount of Indigenous ancestry are enabled or encouraged to
identify as Metis. 165
•
A growing number of people do self-identify as Metis. This is evident in the Canadian
census, particularly in Quebec and the Maritimes through 2001, 2006 and 2011. 166
Andersen describes that the census-a "privileged forum of contemporary meaningmaking" -transforms self-identification into fiscal and program realities. For example,
160 Peterson "Red River Redux" (2012), 43.
161 Andersen, "I'm Metis, What's your excuse?" (2011), 162.
162 Vowel, "Settlers claiming Metis heritage" (2015); Vowel, Indigenous Writes (2016), 43.
163 Adese, "Tale of Two Constitutions" (2016), 9
164 Gaudry and Andersen "Daniels v. Canada" (2016), 24; Chelsea Vowel and Darryl Leroux, "White Settler
Antipathy and the Daniels Decision," Topia Vol. 36 (2016), 32-33.
165 Andersen, "I'm Metis, What's your excuse?" (2011), 164; Chris Andersen, "Who is Indigenous? Indigenous
ancestry, white possessiveness and the tyranny of self-identification," Conference at Western University on
November 7, 2016. www.youtubexom/watch?v=CSc4YfYEfSU (accessed December 19, 2019).
166 Andersen, "From Nation to Population" (2008), 347-368; Peterson "Red River Redux" (2012), 23; Gaudry and
Leroux, "White Settler Revisionism" (2017), 123.
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funds for Metis programming in the National Aboriginal Resource Allocation Model are
divided by geography on the basis of census data. 167
•
Where racialized logic and self-identification are recognized as the basis for Metis
identity, this does a fundamental injustice to the Metis Nation's right to control its
membership. 168 A similar injustice is done if the court has the power to define Metis
identity and membership. 169
•
There is a "johnny-come-lately" 170 trend to self-identify as Metis, particularly in Quebec
and the Maritimes, which the authors attribute to a number of factors:
•
Increased prominence of the "Metis-as-mixed" logic. 171
•
Increased acceptance and "hipness" in claiming Indigenous heritage. 172
•
The effect of historical dislocation of Indigenous people, including loss of Indian
status and separation from home communities, following which dispossessed
individuals and their descendants assume "Metis-as-mixed" identities. Vowel
describes that Metis identity has become "'a catch-all' for those who otherwise
find themselves without a clear Indigenous label." 173
•
Powley (2003) and Daniels (2016) as well-publicized court decisions that create a
perceived opportunity to claim Metis status. The authors depict a spectrum,
ranging from those who truly feel (although fallaciously) that they have a
legitimate claim to Metis identity, to those who seek self-interested rights or
benefits.
Gaudry and Andersen (2016) and Vowel and Leroux (2016) cite the Mikinak de
Monteregie in Quebec as an example of the latter, noting that this association
has been negatively reported by APTN (2016) and the National Post (2016). The
association's membership requires a single Indigenous root ancestor, and
members seek breaks on the cost of university education, and point-of-sale tax
exemptions. The association's membership card touts that it entitles the bearer
to "harvesting rights, transborder trade and treaty rights." 174 Vowel and Leroux
also critique the Metis Federation of Canada as a "post-Powley" (the implication
167 Andersen, "From Nation to Population" (2008), 347.
168 Andersen, "I'm Metis, What's your excuse?" (2011), 164; Vowel, "Settlers claiming Metis heritage" (2015).
169 Gaudry and Andersen "Daniels v. Canada" (2016), 26.
170 I have inserted this phrase because it characterizes the tone of some of this body of literature, in its dismissal of
Eastern Metis claimants. The phrase is used in: Andersen, "From Nation to Population" (2008), 358.
171 For example, Gaudry and Leroux specifically link "Metis-as-mixed" identity to increased census numbers.
Gaudry and Leroux, "White Settler Revisionism" (2017), 123.
172 Vowel, Indigenous Writes (2016), 44.
173 Vowel, "Settlers claiming Metis heritage" (2015).
174 Gaudry and Andersen "Daniels v. Canada" (2016), 26; Vowel and Leroux "White Settler Antipathy (2016), 35-36.
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is, "johnny-come-lately") organization. The MFC's Daniels factum described its
members as eligible: "If a person has an indigenous ancestor, self-identifies as an
indigenous person, and is accepted by the indigenous community with which the
person identifies." 175 Vowel and Leroux consider this typical of recent "artificial
communities" whose primary purpose is "to recognize their own members." 176
•
The compounding effect of Eastern Metis associations, which in part are a result
of increased Metis self-identification, but are also a factor in increased
identification since they promote themselves and their membership. Metis
Nation scholars critique associations that publicize a "Metis-as-mixed"
conception and require a single Indigenous root ancestor for membership. 177
•
Particularly amongst French descendants with ancestral longevity in Canada, the
incidence of claiming Metis heritage to assert equal rights with First Nations or
other Indigenous people. Gaudry and Andersen refer to "white possessiveness"
as the sense of being entitled to make the same claims as Indigenous people. 178
Gaudry and Leroux (2017) provide the Unama'ki Voyageur Metis Nation (UVMN)
in Cape Breton, and the Nation Metisse Autochtone de la Gaspesie, Bas-SaintLaurent and iles-de-la-Madeleine (NMAG), as "representative" examples of
groups that have "discovered" Metis heritage, while having "unwavering
investment in the white settler-colonial project." 179 For instance, the authors
describe that the UVMN website highlights the group's self-described origin as
voyageur fur traders "exploring uncharted land," and their current entitlement
as "taxpayers" to be recognized as Metis people. 180 Leroux (2018) describes the
Gaspesie organization's leader, Marc LeBlanc, who in opposing a QuebecMi'kmaq agreement for Atlantic fishing and moose hunting in the Cascapedia
Valley, told the local press: "By following the right approach, there might be a
way to obtain an injunction against this project. We're going to tell the federal
government that we have Metis people in Gaspesie and that our territory is
currently being stolen." 181
•
The phenomenon of "imagined lndigeneity" or "settler nativism." Metis Nation
scholars cite Tuck and Yang, "Decolonization is Not a Metaphor" (2012), to
describe that "settlers locate or invent a long-lost ancestor who is rumored to
175 Vowel and Leroux "White Settler Antipathy (2016), 37.
176 Vowel and Leroux "White Settler Antipathy (2016), 38.
177 For example, they cite the Metis Federation of Canada and Mikinak de Monteregie as organizations whose
membership requires a single Indigenous root ancestor. Gaudry and Andersen "Daniels v. Canada" (2016), 25, 26.
178 Gaudry and Andersen, "Daniels v. Canada" (2016), p. 27.
179 Gaudry and Leroux, "White Settler Revisionism" (2017), 117, 126.
180 Gaudry and Leroux, "White Settler Revisionism" (2017), 130.
181 Leroux, "Self-Made Metis" (2018), 32.
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have had 'Indian blood,' and they use this claim to mark themselves as blameless
in the attempted eradications of Indigenous peoples." 182 Vowel and others
describe settlers' evocation of Metis heritage in order to rewrite colonialism into
a narrative of "peacefulness" and "sharing" (for example, the Quebecois film
L'Empreinte). 183 As another example, Andersen tells an anecdote of his
acquaintance in academia who, while claiming to be Metis (of mixed descent),
admitted she "just did not want to be white." 184
Eastern Metis scholars take the opposite position on almost every point: They understand
"Metis" as a broad category that includes diversity-and is not unique to the western Metis
Nation; and find Powley too narrow in its non-recognition of Eastern Metis. Eastern Metis
scholars consider the identity of "Metis-as-mixed" to be long-standing; rather than recentlyconstructed. They also believe this view is corroborated by RCAP, Powley, and Daniels'
paragraph 17. As strongly as the Metis Nation resents the incursion of claims to Metis identity
by Eastern Canadians, Eastern Metis oppose these identities being characterized as selfinterested or fanciful.
As for particular examples of organizations that Metis Nation scholars cite as opportunistic or
abusive in claiming Indigenous rights, Eastern Metis scholars have a range of opinions-in some
cases, that Metis Nation scholars are unjustly critical of those entitled to recognition as Metis;
and in other cases, that the critics uphold the worst of examples, in order to collectively dismiss
the Eastern Metis. 185
Exclusivity of the Metis Nation and other historic communities
The next position is that Metis people are from both the Metis Nation and other historical
mixed-ancestry communities in the upper Great Lakes and elsewhere-but not historic Acadia.
This is exemplified by the editors' introduction to the book, Contours of a People: Metis Family,
Mobility, and History, edited by Nicole St-Onge, Carolyn Podruchny, and Brenda Macdougall
(2012).
Although these authors' conception of Metis may not precisely graft to the contour of
recognized Powley communities, there is similar logic: the Metis Nation is not unique in its
Metis identity; but neither does the term apply simply to those with mixed ancestry. Metis
communities descend from historic groups of mixed-ancestry and dual-heritage people that
developed "a distinctive culture based on novel practices-such as a new language, artistic
182 Vowel, 11 Settlers claiming Metis heritage" (2015); Andersen 11 Who is Indigenous" (2016); Vowel and Leroux,
White Settler Antipathy" (2016), 32.
183 Vowel, 11 Settlers claiming Metis heritage" (2015); Vowel, Indigenous Writes (2016), 43-44; Gaudry and Leroux,
11
White Settler Revisionism" (2017), 122.
184 Andersen 11 Who is Indigenous" (2016).
185 Malette and Marcotte caution against 11 hasty generalizations" based on a few cases of Eastern Metis claims,
including the Mikinak de Monteregie. Sebastien Malette and Guillaume Marcotte, 11 Marie-Louise: Protector of
Louis Riel in Quebec," Media Tropes Vol. 7, No. 1 (2017), Note 16, 36-37.
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production, or economic activity-and especially when a shared sense of collectivity is
expressed." 186 According to these authors, this phenomenon occurred "on the Great Plains, in
the boreal forests, and in the subarctic scrublands." 187 They cite Acadians, in particular, as an
example of those who intermarried but did not develop a Metis identity. 188
This position excludes Eastern Metis, but the authors are not actively critics of Eastern Metis. Its
content is therefore "thin" on Eastern Metis subject matter, so it is not profiled extensively in
this report. If more thoroughly examined, this might be revealed as a position of larger
consensus. This particular book was chosen to exemplify the position because it represents
multiple editors and is of scholarly weight. The work is the product of a SSH RC Aboriginal
Research Grant awarded in 2007 to St-Onge, Podruchny, Macdougall and Heather Devine in
order "to study the concepts of Metis identity and individual and collective consciousness in
historic communities." 189 As a part of their grant, the SSH RC recipients hosted two conferences,
in 2007 and 2009, from which the collection arises. Even before the SSH RC grant, the scholars
were all broadly-published in Metis and Northwest fur trade history.
The editors-St-Onge, Podruchny and Macdougall-selected to use the term "Metis" without
any accent, with the rationale that "this spelling best reflects the lives and experiences of
individuals and communities of people who descended from European fathers and Indian
mothers during the fur trade." The removal of the accent denotes the inclusion of non-French
descendants: Orcadian, Scottish, English, etc. The choice was also an intentional statement that
Metis identity is "not tied solely to the political expressions of nationhood reflected in the
resistance to Canadian annexation in the Red River settlement in present-day Manitoba and
Batoche in present-day Saskatchewan." 190 In sum, this position neither accepts the exclusivity
of the Metis Nation, nor supports the inclusion of Eastern Metis.
186 Brenda Macdougall, Carolyn Podruchny and Nicole St-Onge. "Introduction: Cultural Mobility and the Contours
of Difference," 3-21. In Contours of a People. Metis Family, Mobility, and History, eds. St-Onge, Podruchny, and
Macdougall (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2012), 3.
187 Macdougall, Podruchny and St-Onge, "Introduction," 3.
188 Macdougall, Podruchny and St-Onge, "Introduction," 12. They provide no particular evidence or explanation,
nor further discussion of the Acadian example.
189 Macdougall, Podruchny and St-Onge, "Introduction," 4.
190 Macdougall, Podruchny and St-Onge, "Introduction," 6-7. The book's editors comprise only three of the four
SSH RC recipients, exclusive of Heather Devine. The reason for this is not explained. It is possible that Devin e's
views would have diverged on this matter, as in 2010 Devine wrote an autobiographical essay about herself as a
Metis person from Alberta, specifying of her use of the term: "The spelling of 'Metis' that I use in this essay is the
standard version used by the Metis National Council." Heather Devine, "Being and Becoming Metis: A Personal
Reflection," in Gathering Places: Aboriginal and Fur Trade Histories, eds. Carolyn Podruchny and Laura Peers
(Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010), 206. Note that the contributors to the book also have varying views, for example,
one of the articles is the already-profiled piece by Jacqueline Peterson, "Red River Redux" (2012), 22-58, and
another is Chris Andersen's "Settling for Community?" in which he argues that the Powley misrecognizes the term
"Metis."
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Inclusion of Eastern Metis in a broader historic Metis network
Sebastien Malette is a particular critic of Metis Nation exclusivity. He conceives of Metis
identities as a rhizomatous network-that is, a network without any unique centre or
established hierarchy, and with multiple and indefinite points of origin and genesis. 191 One of
Malette's repeated arguments against exclusivity of the Metis Nation is that historic Metis
Nation leaders Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont conceived of Metis identity in racialized terms,
and Riel held an inclusive concept of Metis that embraced "the Eastern provinces of Canada." 192
In this position, Malette responds directly to Metis Nation scholars who perceive racialized
constructions of "Metis-as-mixed" as recently evoked, and inconsistent with true Metis (Nation)
identity based on nineteenth-century historical and political self-determination. For example,
Andersen describes that the Canadian census, especially since 1996, has "naturalise[d] a
racialized construction of Metis" at the expense of the Met is Nation; 193 as have the Powley and
Daniels decisions. 194 He also argues that society's current "obsession" with racialized identity-
upholding as near-sacred the privilege of each individual to self-identify on their own termsthreatens to displace historic Metis Nation membership in favour of a broader racialized
category. 195 In brief, Metis Nation scholars consider "Metis-as-mixed" to be ahistorical, and
destructive of historical delimitations of Metis nationhood. In contrast, Malette considers the
Metis Nation's exclusivity to be ahistorical-a protective strategy that Malette calls "neonationalist."196
Malette believes that the following quotes prove that Riel and Dumont conceived of Metis
identity racially, and inclusive of Eastern Canada. For example, Malette and his 2017 co-author
Guillaume Marcotte consider the quote of Riel at his 1885 trial as: "Confirmation that Louis Riel
opposed a Western-only Metis identity." 197 The following five citations appear throughout
Malette's publications:
Riel wrote to his contemporary Paul Proulx on May 10, 1877:
C'est un nom [metis] qui signifie melange. Jusqu'ici ii a servi
a designer la race
issue du sang mele des Europeens et des Sauvages, mais ii est egalement
propre
a denommer une race d'homme, qui se recruterait du melange de
taus les sangs, entr'eux; et qui, tout en passant par le moule canadienfrani;ais, conserverait le souvenir de son origine, en s'appelant metisse.
191 Carleton University, Profile of Sebastien Malette, https://carleton.ca/law/people/malette-sebastien/ (accessed
February 12, 2019).
192 This phrase appears in Riel's quote (as translated, see below). The 11 Eastern provinces of Canada" are not
defined by Riel; he likely referred to the provinces east of Manitoba generally, not necessarily the Maritimes.
193 Andersen, Chris, "From Nation to Population"(2008), pp. 347.
194 Gaudry and Andersen 11 Daniels v. Canada" (2016), 19-30.
195 Andersen, 11 l'm Metis, What's your excuse?" (2011), 164-165. Andersen, "Who is Indigenous"
196 Malette and Marcotte, "Marie-Louise" (2017), 40.
197 Malette and Marcotte, 11 Marie-Louise" (2017), 43.
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Le nom metis serait agreable
atout le monde, parce qu'il n'est pas exclusif et
qu'il a l'avantage de mentionner d'une maniere convenable, le contingent par
lequel chaque nation contribuerait
a fonder le peuple nouveau. 198
[It's a name that means mixed. 199 Until now it [the name metis] has served to
designate the race emerging from the mixed blood of the Europeans and the
Savages, but it is also proper to identify a race of men who would be recruited
from the mixing of all bloods, between them, and, while shaped by the French
Canadian mold, would keep the remembrance of its origins, by calling itself
Metis.
The name Metis would be agreeable to all, because it is not exclusive and
have the advantage of mentioning in suitable ways, the contingent by which
each nation would contribute to generate the new people.]2°0
Riel also stated, according to a translation of the transcript of his 1885 trial:
... if the principle of giving one seventh of the lands to the Half-breeds in the
North West is good, it ought to be good in the East also ... l will say if you ever
have an opportunity of crossing the line in the East do it and help the Indians
and Half-breeds of the East to have a revenue equivalent to about one
seventh. 201
On July 6, 1885, Riel wrote from his Regina prison to Captain R.B. Dean, Hon. Edgar Dewdney
and Sir John A. Macdonald:
Quant aux provinces canadiennes de l'Est, beaucoup de Metis y vivent
meprises sous le costume indien. Leu rs villages sont des villages d'indigence.
Leur titre indien au sol est pourtant aussi bon que le titre indien des Metis du
Manitoba. 202
[When it comes to the Eastern provinces of Canada, many Metis live there
persecuted under the attires of the Indian costume. Their villages are villages
198 Quoted in original French in Malette, "Le Metis de l'Est" (2017), n.p; Boudreau, "Acadian-Metis (Sang-Me/es)
People of Southwest Nova Scotia" (2018), 102.
199 This sentence is quoted as translated into English in Malette, "The Eastern Metis" (2017), 9 (Remy Biggs
translation).
200 Quoted as translated into English at Malette, "Metis Identity," https://sebastienmalette.ca/metis/ (accessed
February 12, 2019). Slightly different translations into English are quoted in Malette, "The Eastern Metis" (2017),
10 (Remy Biggs translation); and Boudreau, "Acadian-Metis (Sang-Me/es) People of Southwest Nova Scotia" (2018),
102.
201 Quoted as translated into English in Malette and Marcotte, "Marie-Louise" (2017), 43.
202 Quoted in original French in Malette, "Le Metis de l'Est" (2017), n.p; Boudreau, "Acadian-Metis (Sang-Me/es)
People of Southwest Nova Scotia" (2018), 105.
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of indigence. Their Indian title to the soil is, however, as good as the Indian
title of the Metis of Manitoba.]2°3
In his final memoir, from his jail cell before his 1885 execution, Riel wrote:
Les metis ont pour ancetres paternels les anciens employes des compagnies
de la Baie d'Hudson et du Nord-Quest; et pour ancetres maternels des
femmes sauvages appartenant aux diverses tribus. Le mot fran~ais, Metis, est
derive du latin, Mixtus, qui signifie Mele : ii rend bien l'idee dont ii est charge.
Tout appropriee que !'expression anglaise correspondante, Half-breed, fut
a la
premiere generation du melange des sangs, maintenant que le sang europeen
et le sang sauvage sont meles
atousles degres elle n'est plus assez
generale. 204
[The Met is have as paternal ancestors, the former employees of the Hudson's
Bay and Northwest Companies, and as maternal ancestors, Indian women
belonging to various tribes. The French word Metis is derived from the Latin
participle mixtus which means "mixed"; it expresses well the idea it
represents. 205
It is only appropriate that the English variation, Half-breed, was derived from
the first generation of mixed-bloods; now, blood of European and Native is
mixed in us in varying degrees and the term is more general. 206 ...
Very polite and amiable people may sometimes say to a Metis, "You don't
look at all like a Metis. You surely can't have much Indian blood. You could
pass anywhere for pure White." ... It is true that our Indian origin is humble,
but it is indeed just that we honour our mothers as well as our fathers. Why
should we be so preoccupied with what degree of mingling we have of
European and Indian blood? No matter how little we have of one or the
203 Quoted as translated into English in Malette and Marcotte, "Marie-Louise" (2017), 43, and Malette, "Metis
Identity," https://sebastienmalette.ca/metis/ (accessed February 12, 2019). Slightly different translations into
English are quoted in Malette, "The Eastern Metis" (2017), 11 (Remy Biggs translation); and Boudreau, "AcadianMetis (Sang-Me/es) People of Southwest Nova Scotia" (2018), 105.
204 Quoted in original French in Malette, "Le Metis de l'Est" (2017), n.p.
205 Quoted as translated into English in Malette and Marcotte, "Marie-Louise" (2017), 38, and Malette, "Metis
Identity," https://sebastienmalette.ca/metis/ (accessed February 12, 2019). A different translation into English is
quoted in Malette, "The Eastern Metis" (2017), 9 (Remy Biggs translation).
206 This paragraph is quoted as translated into English in Malette, "The Eastern Metis" (2017), 9 (Remy Biggs
translation).
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other, do not both gratitude and filial love require us to make a point of
saying, "We are Metis"?]2° 7
Furthermore, Dumont reportedly stated:
Ce n'etait pas la premiere fois, en 1885, que les Metis franc;ais ont fait
trembler, et tant que nous aurons une goutte de sang franc;ais et indien dans
les veines, nous revendiquerons les droits pour lesquels nous avons combattu
et pour lesquels ils ont assassine juridiquement feu Louis David Riel. 208
[ ... as long as we have a drop of French and Indian blood in our veins, we will
claim the rights for which we fought and for which they have judicially
assassinated feu Louis David Riel.]2° 9
Malette acknowledges that a critique of his work on Eastern Metis is that it is "anecdotal"which in this context, might imply that the quotes are selective rather than representative of
Riel's and Dumont's expressions of Metis identity. 210 However, Malette believes that the
collective evidence is sufficient to prove his point.
Malette considers Acadia to be within the rhizomatous network of Metis identities. In his
earliest work, Songs Upon the Rivers (2016), Malette and his co-authors address Acadia only
briefly and through secondary sources as "the first case of metissage, [which] gave rise to a
distinct group-identity." 211 His later works add a more original contribution to the historical
evidence: newspaper coverage of events at Paspebiac in Gaspesie in February 1886, where
fishermen staged several days' riots. The Quebec newspaper Le Canadien reported:
... les emeutiers sont des metis de l'union de race entre les premiers acadiens
et les sauvages Micmacs, et peuvent etre facilement reconnus. Les pauvres
anglais et de race franc;aise ne prendront tres probablement part aces
troubles. 212
207 Quoted as translated into English in Malette and Marcotte, "Marie-Louise" (2017), 40, and Malette, "Metis
Identity," https://sebastienmalette.ca/metis/ (accessed February 12, 2019).
208 Quoted in original French in Malette, "Le Metis de l'Est" (2017), n.p.
209 Quoted as translated into English in Malette and Marcotte, "Marie-Louise" (2017), 42, and Malette, "Metis
Identity," https://sebastienmalette.ca/metis/ (accessed February 12, 2019). A different translation into English is
quoted in Malette, "The Eastern Metis" (2017), 9 (Remy Biggs translation).
210 That is, Malette writes, "The reply we usually hear at this point is this: the history of Eastern Metis is based
solely on anecdotes." Malette, "The Eastern Metis" (2017), 12.
211 Robert Foxcurran, Michel Bouchard, and Sebastien Malette. Songs Upon the Rivers: the buried history of the
French-speaking Canadiens and Metis from the Great Lakes and the Mississippi across to the Pacific (Montreal:
Baraka Books, 2016), 51.
212 "La situation a Paspebiac," Le Canadien, on the website: "Metis de la Gaspesie: Les emeutes de fevrier 1886."
JJJ;I~WJ:1£I~22.12.£ftl~L££QlY.:.£.Qilll (accessed February 12, 2019).
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The same newspaper also wrote: "Les emeutiers sont presque taus des metis qu'il est tres
difficile de conduire." 213 This information apparently came from Paspebiac by wire, as it was
reported in other newspapers in almost the same words, and several papers acknowledged the
telegraphed source. 214 The Quebec newspaper La Justice interpreted: "Ce sont des metis
(Acadiens micmacs) qui font le trouble," while the Quebec Morning Chronicle provided in
English:
The rioters are nearly all half-breeds and are difficult to manage ... The people
of the two counties are orderly and on the whole industrious, but there is
here as elsewhere an idle rowdy element that is hard to manage. This is
particularly the case with the Metis of Paspebiac. 215
Malette also cites a contemporary New York Times article, which on February 17, 1886
expressed sympathy for the position of the "Paspebiac half breeds" and likened their situation
to the pressures leading to the Northwest Rebellion. 216 In interpreting these sources, Malette
summarizes that in news coverage of the Paspebiac uprising the "Metis-Acadians are described
collectively and distinctly from the Mi'kmaq, French Canadians and English," and that "the
repression endured by the Acadian Metis, [was] compared in the New York Times to the Red
River Metis." 217
Malette believes the evidence he presents cannot be discounted by the "usual" critiques: that
"the history of Eastern Metis is based solely on anecdotes. And that the documentary sources
we provide prove nothing about how these Metis people were self-identifying." 218 None of the
literature finds Malette's evidence to be in error-that is, his quotes are not contradictedhowever, Metis Nation scholars disagree with the weight that he places on them, and certainly
disagree with Malette's conception of a rhizomatous network of Metis peoples beyond the
Metis Nation.
Inclusion of Eastern Metis in unrecognized Powley communities
Many Eastern Metis believe their communities should be recognized by the Powley test.
Christian Boudreau exemplifies this position. Boudreau is a member of the Board of Directors of
"Nouvelles de Pespebiac," Le Canadien, on the website: "Metis de la Gaspesie: Les emeutes de fevrier 1886."
https://metisgasr esie.weebly.com/ (accessed February 12, 2019).
214 La Minerve of Montreal, La Justice of Quebec, Le Quotidien of Levis, and the Morning Chronicle of Quebec on
the website: "Metis de la Gaspesie: Les emeutes de fevrier 1886." https://metisgaspesie.weebly.com/ (accessed
February 12, 2019).
215 "The Paspebiac Rioters," Morning Chronicle, on the website: "Metis de la Gaspesie: Les emeutes de fevrier
1886." httr s:,, metisE,aspesie.weebly.com/ (accessed February 12, 2019).
216 Malette, "The Eastern Metis" (2017), Note 59, 20. Malette cites "The destitute fishermen: more trouble
anticipated projects to relieve the poor families," New York Times, February 17, 1886, p. 5." See
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1886/02/17 /103096708.pdf (accessed February 12, 2019).
217 Malette, "The Eastern Metis" (2017), 13.
218 Malette, "The Eastern Metis" (2017), 12.
213
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Association des Acadiens-Metis Souriquois (AAMS). 219 In what is effectively an academic appeal
of the failure of the test cases for his region-Babin (2013) and Hatfield (2015)-Boudreau,
with second authors Jo-Anne Muise Lawless and Sebastien Malette, argues in favour of Powley
recognition for southwest Nova Scotia.
The report, entitled "An Ethnographic Report on the Acadian-Metis (Sang-Me/es) People of
Southwest Nova Scotia" (2018), builds on the familiar story of early seventeenth-century
Acadian-Metis in the district of La Heve as described by Rameau; then reconstructs the families'
descendants through southwest Nova Scotia as dominated by the Mius and Doucet families.
This colonial-genealogical narrative has been considered inadequate in the Powley test cases;
therefore, Boudreau's next contribution is potentially important: he adds information about the
Mius and Doucet families' ascription and treatment as Sang-Me/es (mixed-bloods) during the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
•
On April 26, 1713, Joseph Mius d' Azy received land for himself and his heirs at the
Passage of Cape Sable (Port La Tour). Captain Southack described his visit to that
location in 1715, referencing Tourangeau "a Frenchman & Jo. Muse part Indian who
dwelt at Port Le Tore," who agreed to "head one hundred Indians to Destroy all the
English Fishery on that Coast." Boudreau emphasizes the three-way distinction made
between the "Frenchmen" "part Indian" and "lndians." 220
•
The records of Father Sigogne, a Catholic priest in southwest Nova Scotia, who shortly
after his arrival in 1800 described an unchristian prejudice by the "purs" against
intermarriage with the "sang-meles." 221 Sigogne reiterated this complaint on several
occasions from 1800 to 1826, and asked the Bishop of Quebec for special dispensation
to marry individuals-for example, close cousins-from the distinctive "caste detestee
des gens meles" (Sigogne's words) due to their segregation from the "purs." 222 In
examining a list of four couples proposed for such dispensation in 1809, Boudreau
concludes that all of them were descended from Joseph Mius d' Azy and Germain
Doucet. 223
•
Captain William Morsoom, who visited Clare in the 1820s, observed that a "few families
of semi-Indian extraction are to be found in this settlement: their origin must be
referred to the commencement of the eighteenth century," and "these families are
looked upon as rather without the pale of social brotherhood." 224
219 AAMS, "The Board of Directors of Association des Acadiens-Metis Souriquois (AAMS)." http://acadiens-metis-
souriquois.ca/aams leadershipJ1tml (accessed February 22, 2019).
220 Boudreau, "Acadian-Metis (Sang-Me/es) People of Southwest Nova Scotia" (2018), 22.
221 Boudreau, "Acadian-Metis (Sang-Me/es) People of Southwest Nova Scotia" (2018), 37-38.
222 Boudreau, "Acadian-Metis (Sang-Me/es) People of Southwest Nova Scotia" (2018), 26.
223 Boudreau, "Acadian-Metis (Sang-Me/es) People of Southwest Nova Scotia" (2018), 26-28.
224 Boudreau, "Acadian-Metis (Sang-Me/es) People of Southwest Nova Scotia" (2018), 14.
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•
Fran~ois-Edme de Rameau de Saint-Pere visited the area of Tusket Forks (Quinan),
Yarmouth County in 1860. Boudreau gives the weight of personal observation to
Rameau's description of the area in 1890:
... Mius a laisse plusieurs enfants naturels metis, et ii se trouve aujourd'hui
[1890], fait assez bizarre, que l'on rencontre aux Forkes de Tousquet, comte
de Yarmouth, un grand nombre de familles metisses portent precisement les
noms de Doucet et de Mius, de sorte que les Bois Brules, issus de ces deux
chefs militaires de I' Acadie primitive, sont presentement reunis et agglomeres
dans la meme canton entre Pomkou (Pubnico) et Port-Royal. 225
In conclusion, Boudreau signs his report with the declaration that "the Acadian-Metis (the
Sang-Me/es people) of Southwest Nova Scotia, especially the descendants of Joseph Mius d' Azy
I and Germain Doucet (1641), are 'Metis' people in every historical sense of the word." 226
No particular critique of Boudreau's work has been found. However, Association des AcadiensMetis Souriquois (AAMS) includes elements that are critized by Metis Nation scholars. AAMS
currently describes on its "Join" page that its membership is defined by the Powley test, which
constitutes three key elements: (1) self-identification; (2) Aboriginal ancestry; and (3)
recognition by a Metis community. For individuals who self-identify, and who can provide proof
of "an Aboriginal ancestor," AAMS offers itself and its Acadien-Metis membership as the
community. 227 Metis Nation scholars are intensely critical of such membership criteria, which
although phrased by AAMS to emphasize community elements, in the critics' estimation
requires only a single root ancestor and paid membership. Although not naming AAMS
specifically-they do name the Metis Federation of Canada (MFC) with which AAMS is
affiliated-Gaudry and Andersen (2016) and Vowel and Leroux (2016) dismiss these
organizations as "communities in the loosest sense of the term," and "artificial communities"
whose primary purpose is "to recognize their own members." 228 AAMS-whose website
promotes their involvement in education and cultural events-would reject the idea that they
do not constitute a meaningful community.
225 Boudreau, "Acadian-Metis (Sang-Me/es) People of Southwest Nova Scotia" (2018), 50-51.
226 Boudreau, "Acadian-Metis (Sang-Me/es) People of Southwest Nova Scotia" (2018), 104.
227 AAMS advertises membership to any adult "whose families originated in mainland Nova Scotia, who self-
identifies as Acadien-Metis with an ancestral connection to a historical Acadien-Metis community, who provides
genealogical proof of an ancestral connection to Acadien-Metis heritage by birth or adoption, who is accepted by
the modern Acadien-Metis community and who upholds the objectives of the Association des Acadiens-Metis
Souriquois (AAMS)." See: http://acadiens-metis-souriquois.ca/ioin-aams.html. The detailed application guidelines
require proof of "an Aboriginal ancestor" see:~='--""-"'=="---'-'==souriquois,ca/uploads/3/4/.5/0/34506400/application guidelines 2017.pdf (accessed February 22, 2019).
228 Vowel and Leroux "White Settler Antipathy (2016), 38.
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Inclusion among Eastern Metis of Indigenous people who identify as Metis
The next position is a very common conception of "Metis" in Eastern Canada: that the term
applies to all Indigenous people who so identify, that have mixed-Indigenous ancestry and are
neither status Indians nor members of particular First Nations. For example, this use of the
term was articulated by R.E. Gaffney in 1984 for the New Brunswick Association for Metis and
Non-Status Indians: "The Metis people are generally defined as persons of Indian and nonIndian ancestry." 229
Metis Nation scholar Chelsea Vowel described in 2016 that in contrast to her experience as a
Metis person growing up in Alberta, when she moved to Quebec as an adult, she realized the
difference in the Eastern popular conception: when she identified herself as Metis, people
invariably asked her "which of your parents is an lndian?" 230 Vowel acknowledged that this
definition-she would say, misdefinition-existed during her Alberta childhood as well, where
"if people were misidentifying, it was usually as a way to assert their legitimate indigeneity in
one of the three ways 'familiar' to Canada: as First Nations, as Inuit, or (when those categories
were unavailable) as Metis." 231 However, in the period between her childhood and adulthood,
and more strikingly in her move from West to East, Vowel found that the prevalence of this use
of the term "Met is" was noticeably greater.
This is a "Metis-as-mixed" conception that Chris Andersen and others, including Vowel,
vehemently deny. Metis Nation scholars consider this an ahistorical error-a product of
society's modern racialization of the term "Metis." Indeed, Vowel and others lament that Metis
identity has become '"a catch-all' for those who otherwise find themselves without a clear
Indigenous label," or "a bin for all those who are not otherwise defined." 232 Andersen writes:
... I am sometimes asked, 'What of those Indigenous people who have, due to
their mixed ancestry and the discriminatory provisions of the Indian Act, been
dispossessed from their First Nations community? What happens to them if
we prevent the possibility of their declaring a Metis identity (some of whom,
due to complex historical kinship relations, might legitimately claim one)?'
Such disquiet is often buoyed by a broader question of fundamental justice:
what obligation, do any of us-Metis included-owe dispossessed Indigenous
individuals, and even communities, who forward claims using a Metis identity
based not on a connection to Metis national roots but because it seems like
the only possible option? Whatever we imagine a fair response to look like, it
must account for the fact that 'Metis' refers to a nation with membership
codes that deserve to be respected. We are not a soup kitchen for those
229 Gaffney et al, Broken Promises (1984), 3.
230 Vowel, Indigenous Writes, 36-37.
231 Vowel, Indigenous Writes (2016), 42.
232 Vowel, "Settlers claiming Metis heritage" (2015); Vowel, Indigenous Writes (2016), 44.
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disenfranchised by past and present Canadian Indian policy and, as such,
although we should sympathize with those who bear the brunt of this
particular form of dispossession, we cannot do so at expense of eviscerating
our identity. 233
Inclusion among Eastern Metis of Metis-Acadian people, whose ancestors identified as
Acadian, and who now identify as Metis
The final position involves the largest body of recent literature about Eastern Metis identitiesand is also the most strongly criticized. It pertains to individuals who identify as Metis, whose
ancestors (or themselves) previously identified as Acadian, but who have rediscovered or
recently expressed their Met is identities. Proponents of this position use the terms "Eastern
Metis" and "Metis-Acadian" (Metis/Acadian, Metis Acadian and Acadian-Metis)
interchangeably. I have adopted this word in the title of the position to discern its emphasis on
historical closeness with Acadians. The work is divided into two groups on the basis of content:
historical narratives, and anthropological studies of present communities.
Metis-Acadian historical narratives
An early and influential example of this historical position has already been examined:
Metis/Acadian Heritage, 1604 to 2004, by Roland F. Surette, Eastern Woodland Metis Nation
(2004). 234 As a typical Metis-Acadian historical narrative, it includes the following elements:
•
Identification of mixed marriages and names of colonial people with Metis ancestry (in
Surette's case, the La Tour, Saint-Castin, Denys, Doucet, Mius-d'Entremont, LeJeune,
Dugast (Dugas) and Petitpas families of southwest Nova Scotia);
•
Tracing of these genealogical lines through to the present;
•
Acknowledgment of "silent" or "hidden" years during which Metis identity was
suppressed (in Surette's case, his chapter entitled "The Silent Years.");
•
Description of renewed security or resurgence in acknowledging Metis heritage (in
Surette's case, 1988); and
Andersen, "I'm Metis, What's your excuse?" (2011), 164-165.
I have used the word "influential" because Surette's work is cited by others, for example, see Macleod,
"Displaced Mixed-Blood" (2013), 20, 22, 23, 45, 46. Macleod's work in turn is cited for the same content by
Foxcurran, Bouchard and Malette, Songs Upon the Rivers (2016), 51. Also, a current oral history project at Mount
Allison University is 'inspired by and dedicated to' Surette, who the university news release memorializes as "a
well-loved and respected educator, historian and activist within the Acadian and Metis communities in the
Maritimes." Mount Allison University, "Metis of the Maritimes," https://www.mta.ca/n1etis/ (accessed February
27, 2019).
233
234
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•
Characterization of a modern community, with unique features of Metis culture or
intergenerational traditions (in Surette's case, his chapter entitled "Keeping the Old
Ways Going in Modern Times.") 235
A similar narrative is examined by Victorin N. Mallet, a Chemistry Professor at Universite de
Moncton, in two books about Metis Acadians at the Baie de Chaleurs (2010, 2016). The author
identifies the Mallets and related families as Metis Acadians by citing and surmising Indigenous
people in their colonial genealogies, supported by indicative DNA results. 236 Some of these are
the Norman-Indigenous families formerly described by Chignecto Research (2005). Mallet
emphasizes the families' frequent intermarriage as evidence of their closeness. 237 However,
after the Acadian Deportation and 1760 Battle of Restigouche-where he emphasizes these
families' involvement 238 - , Mallet asks the reader: what ever happened to the Metis
Acadians? 239 His answer is that the communities became less evident since they were not
recognized by the British. 240 However, the families remained together, some in Paspebiac and
others in Lower Caraquet. 241 His narrative is therefore genealogical, until the time of his
childhood when he learned by "rumour" that the Mallet family of Shippegan had Indigenous
origins. 242 Nonetheless, Mallet finds that traditional ways persisted through the group's
continued closeness and their practices of hunting and fishing. 243
This is similar to the Vautour families' history as told by ethnologist Chief Stephen Augustine as
an expert in R. v. Vautour (2010). As already noted, Chief Augustine traced the Vautours'
colonial Acadian-Mi'kmaq origins, then followed their genealogy through to present. He
testified that "fear" from the Deportation and other collective history drove the Vautours and
others into "a shadow community of Metis people living among the Acadian and Mi'kmaq
235 For a longer review of Surette's work, see the section "Following the Powley Decision: Local studies."
236 The word "surmising" is used since Mallet presumes undocumented individuals to be Indigenous, which he
considers to be corroborated by indicative DNA results. Victorin N. Mallet, Les Metis Acadiens de la Boie des
Chaleurs: Peuple issu d'un mixage d'Amerindiens and de pecheurs basques, bretons et normands: Qu'en est-ii
advenus? (Shediac Cape, New Brunswick: Victorin N. Mallet, 2010), 84-88.
237 Mallet, Les Metis Acadiens de la Boie des Chaleurs (2010), 25, 89-90.
238 Mallet describes the involvement of four groups in Battle of Restigouche: Acadians, "Metis de la baie des
Chaleurs," French troops and Mi'kmaq. Victorin N. Mallet, Evidences de communautes metisses autour de la baie
des Chaleurs: D'hier a aujourd'hui (Shediac Cape, New Brunswick: Victorin N. Mallet, 2016), 66-69. In the upcoming
footnote related to the work of Denis Jean, note that Jean also characterized the Battle of Restigouche as a Metis
uprising; although, this has been critiqued as also cited.
239 This is the question of Mallet's 2010 title, and also his Chapter 12: "Que sont devenus les Metis acadiens de la
baie des Chaleurs?" Mallet, Les Metis Acadiens de la Boie des Chaleurs (2010), 245.
240 Mallet, Evidences de communautes metisses (2016), 427.
241 Mallet, Les Metis Acadiens de la Boie des Chaleurs (2010), 246; Mallet, Evidences de communautes metisses
(2016), 246. In the 2016 publication, Mallet notes that these were the principal families of the nineteenth-century
parish in Lower Caraquet, and that the rioters in the 1875 "Affaire Louis Mailloux" -a Caraquet riot related to
Catholic education rights-were "taus de la communaute metisse de Bas-Caraquet." The latter point is potentially
significant; however, Mallet provides only one sentence with no further citation or detail.
242 Mallet, Les Metis Acadiens de la Boie des Chaleurs (2010), 13.
243 Mallet, Les Metis Acadiens de la Boie des Chaleurs (2010), 250-253.
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peoples." 244 However, the Vautours are now able to express their Metis identity, which Chief
Augustine describes through their intergenerational practices of hunting, fishing, trapping and
gathering. 245 These three examples-Surette, Malette and Augustine-show a recurring
understanding of Metis-Acadian history.
Metis Nation scholar Adam Gaudry {2018) identifies a similar narrative among five "new Metis"
associations. 246 His resulting critique, "Communing with the Dead," refers to these associations
as "necrocommunities" since Gaudry considers the members to have tenuous ("one drop") and
ancient connections to indigeneity. 247 He mentions-but does not take seriously-the claim
that indigeneity in Eastern Canada was "hidden by well meaning parents and grandparents." 248
He also insists that Metis identity should require a "living" connection to current Metis (i.e.
Metis Nation) communities. 249 As a whole, Metis Nation scholars refute the Metis-Acadian
historical narrative. They insist:
•
That Metis-Acadian claims are based on a flawed perception of "Metis-as-mixed";
•
That Metis-Acadian claimants have not experienced being Indigenous, and do not have
connections to Indigenous communities;
•
That Metis-Acadian claimants are co-opting Metis identity to claim Indigenous heritage;
•
That some individuals are seeking to exploit perceived opportunities and advantages of
"becoming" Metis; and
•
That some individuals-on the basis of long-standing French heritage in Canada-are
"using" Metis identity to assert their feeling of "indigenous" belonging, in order to claim
rights reserved for First Nations or other Indigenous people. 250
Critics of the Metis-Acadian historical narrative dismiss genealogy as the sole connection
between colonial "root ancestors" and modern Metis-Acadian claimants. (This is refuted by
Sebastien Malette and Christian Boudreau citing the Paspebiac uprisings, records of Father
Sigogne, and other nineteenth-century evidence; however, it is true that there is a strong
reliance on genealogy in Eastern Metis history.) Chris Andersen considers archival sources and
244 R. v. Vautour, 2010 NBPC 39, ="'-"-'--"'-"=="-='==(accessed February 18, 2019).
245 R. v. Vautour, 2010 NBPC 39, =""'-'--"""-'-'-"-'=L'.L==(accessed February 18, 2019).
246 Of these associations four include Eastern Metis: the M etis Federation of Canada, Bras d'Or Lake Metis Nation,
Canadian Metis Council and Metis Nation of Canada. Gau dry also comments on the Communities of the Voyageur
Metis, based in the Great Lakes/U.S. Midwest. Adam Gau dry, "Communing with the Dead: The 'New Metis,' Metis
Identity Appropriation and the Displacement of Living Metis Culture," American Indian Quarterly Vol. 42, No. 2
(Spring 2018), 165-166.
247 Gau dry, "Communing with the Dead" (2018), 164, 172.
248 Gaudry, "Communing with the Dead" (2018), 172.
249 Gaudry, "Communing with the Dead" (2018), 183-185.
250 These critiques, including that "new Metis" are co-opting Metis (i.e. Metis Nation) cultural markers, are
expanded by Gaudry, "Communing with the Dead" (2018), 162-190. See also the section in this report describing
the "Exclusivity of the Metis Nation."
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DNA as "two technologies of self-making," and "inert documentations" of identity. 251 In other
words, Eastern Metis are critiqued for making claims through "long-dead ancestors." 252
In response, Eastern Metis scholars Sebastien Malette and Guillaume Marcotte (2017) deny
that genealogical records equal a "dead" connection; instead, they hold that archival
documents can provide "living proof" of historical Eastern Metis. Malette and Marcotte offer
this rebuttal in the context of their research on Outaouais, where they combine historical
documents; genealogical understandings of families; and oral history to explain current
identities in western Quebec. The authors conclude that this is "a living and ongoing history
that justifies the usage of the term 'Met is' by the descendants of the Metis of the
Outaouais." 253
Studies of present Metis-Acadian communities
In addition to historical narratives, there is a body of anthropological studies of present MetisAcadian communities. A leader among this scholarship is Denis Gagnon, Department of
Anthropology, Universite de Saint-Boniface (USB), who was awarded ten-year SSH RC funding as
"Chaire de recherche du Canada sur l'identite metisse" in 2004. As a Canada Research Chair,
Gagnon had a large number of graduate students researching Metis identities. By 2007, Gagnon
had employed 28 undergraduate students, eight master's students, three doctoral students and
one post-doctoral researcher. Gagnon's methodological framework included literature reviews,
semi-structured interviews and anthropological fieldwork. 254 Substantial unpublished reports
were generated by this team: in reference to Quebec and Eastern Metis, these included
Emmanuel Michaux and Jessy Baron's literature review and synthesis of interviews on the
Metis du Domaine-du-Roy et de la Seigneurie de Mingan (2008, 2010); Denis Jean's historical
synthesis on Gaspesie (2009) 25 5; and Fabien Tremblay's synthesis of interviews at Gaspesie
(2010). 256
251 Andersen "Who is Indigenous" (2016), as cited in: Malette and Marcotte, "Marie-Louise" (2017), 36.
252 Gaudry, "Communing with the Dead" (2018), 175.
253 Malette and Marcotte, "Marie-Louise" (2017), 62.
254 Denis Gagnon, "Chaire du recherche du Canada sur l'identite metisse (CRCIM),"
Rabaska: revue d'ethnologie de
l'Amerique franraise Vol. 5 (2007), 256-259.
255 In 2011, Denis Jean completed his Master's thesis in History at Universite de Moncton, with Denis Gagnon as his
outside examiner. In his thesis, Jean reviewed the previous literature and concluded that Olive P. Dickason had
misinterpreted the sources, and he urged a re-examination of the Dickason "orthodoxy." He cited the "17
families ... normands and metifs" in the 1760 census on the north shore of the Baie de Chaleurs. He also stressed
involvement by "les Saint Castin, pere et fils" and interpreters from the Claude Petitpas family in the 1760 Battle of
Restigouche to conclude that resistance was not unique to the Metis Nation. For their part, critics Adam Gaudry
and Darryl Leroux oppose what is-in their opinion-a "resignification" of the Battle of Restigouche as a Metis
resistence. References: Denis Jean, "Ethnogenese des Premiers Metis Canadiens (1603-1763)" (M.A. Thesis,
Universite de Moncton, 2011), 45-46, 61-63, 68; Gaudry and Leroux, "White Settler Revisionism" (2017), 128-129.)
256 Denis Gagnon, "Les etudes metisses subventionnees et les travaux de la Chaire de recherche du Canada sur
l'identite metisse," in L'identite metisse en question: Strategies identitaires et dynamismes culturels, eds. Denis
Gagnon et Helene Giguere (Quebec: Laval University Press, 2012), 334-339.
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In 2012, Laval University Press published Denis Gagnon and Helene Giguere's edited volume,
L'ldentite Metisse en Question: Strategies identitaires et dynamismes culturels (2012), a
collection of works of which two are directly relevant to Eastern Metis: Fabien Tremblay on the
Metis of Gaspesie, and Emmanuel Michaux on the Metis of southwest Nova Scotia:
•
Tremblay's work was the result of interviews conducted among members of the
Communaute metisse de la Gaspesie (CMG), founded in 2006 by about a dozen hunters
who opposed negotiations between the provincial government and Mi'kmaq. By fall
2010, this organization had over 5,000 members. 257 In conducting interviews with CMG
members, Tremblay found that the majority of members were not previously aware of
having Indigenous roots, but were approached by members of the association to sign
up, pending research that they had an Indigenous ancestor. 258 Tremblay acknowledges
that the initial purpose of the organization was oppositional to First Nations' rights in
Gaspesie. 259 On the other hand, Tremblay profiled some of the interviewees who
identified partial Indigenous heritage as part of their culture. (The term "Metis," he
concluded, was an organizational artefact arising from the mounting use of the word in
Quebec, and the CMG organization itself. 260 ) Tremblay cites "Alexandre," one of the
CMG leaders, who had always known that he had Indian ancestry, but whose parents
had never used the term Metis. 261 Another informant, "Michel," said that his
grandmother "probably" had Indian blood, but in those days-unlike today-no one
talked about who was Indian and who was white. 262 Others, such as "Leo," stated that
confirming his Indian blood explained a long-felt identity, as someone raised in Gaspesie
with a particular lifestyle and practices-like hunting and fishing-that were a mix of
European and lndian. 263 Tremblay found it unanimous among interviewees that: "le
metissage entre les Autochtones and les Europeens a donne naissance a une culture
metisse dont, jusqu'a tout recemment, on ne revendiquait pas la reconnaissance." 264
While acknowledging that this raises "profound" questions about the limits and criteria
of recognizing Aboriginal rights, Tremblay concludes that to the Metis of Gaspesie, the
identity is seen as a form of emancipation and resistance. 265
•
In the same volume, Emmanuel Michaux wrote about the Metis of southwest Nova
Scotia on the basis of interviews with members of Association des Acadiens-Metis
257 Fabien Tremblay, "Politique de la memoire chez les Metis de la Gaspesie," in L'identite metisse en question:
Strategies identitaires et dynamismes culturels, eds. Denis Gagnon et Helene Giguere (Quebec: Laval University
Press, 2012), 131.
258 Tremblay, "Politique de la memoire chez les Metis de la Gaspesie" (2012), 137.
259 Tremblay, "Politique de la memoire chez les Metis de la Gaspesie" (2012), 131.
260 Tremblay, "Politique de la memoire chez les Metis de la Gaspesie" (2012), 136.
261 Tremblay, "Politique de la memoire chez les Metis de la Gaspesie" (2012), 136.
262 Tremblay, "Politique de la memoire chez les Metis de la Gaspesie" (2012), 138.
263 Tremblay, "Politique de la memoire chez les Metis de la Gaspesie" (2012), 139.
264 Tremblay, "Politique de la memoire chez les Metis de la Gaspesie" (2012), 141.
265 Tremblay, "Politique de la memoire chez les Metis de la Gaspesie" (2012), 146-147.
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Souriquois (AAMS); two members of Kespu'klwitk Metis Council; and two local people
who did not identify as Metis. 266 Michaux compares his findings to those of other Metis
groups in Quebec and Manitoba, concluding that in each case a unique language
developed. He cites the dialect of "akadjonne" -with French, English and Mi'kmaq
precedents-however, this dialect declined in the face of the region's anglicisation, and
intolerance by franco-acadien elites of regional dialects. Michaud quotes an
interviewee: "Le Metis, lui y parle 'akadjonne.' C'est sa langue." 267
Other fieldwork conducted separately from Gagnon and his students comes to similar
conclusions. Katie K. Macleod completed her Master's thesis in Anthropology at Carleton
University in 2013, with research involving fieldwork among Metis organizations in southwest
Nova Scotia. Macleod attended community events and interviewed members of the
Kespu'kwitk Metis Council, Association des Acadiens-Metis Souriquois (AAMS) and Sou'west
Nova Scotia Metis Council (Nova Scotia Wampanoag) in the summer of 2012. In her resulting
thesis, after briefly reviewing the historical background and genealogical connections from the
colonial era to present, Macleod recounted hunting, fishing and gathering activities that her
participants learned from previous generations, and attributed to their Metis heritage. 268 She
also reviewed the Acadian dialect - words she had learned from her interviewees - and
examined their French and Mi'kmaq origins. 269 As a result, she concludes: "The above themes
have demonstrated that the Metis in Nova Scotia have cultural links to the early metissage of
the province. These linkages to mixed ancestry can be seen through genealogy, language and
hunting, fishing and gathering practices that the Metis have preserved over time despite
centuries of colonial denial." 270 Macleod observes that the term "Metis" is one that many
Metis in Nova Scotia did not associate with, growing up. 271 Instead, according to one of her
interviewees, it is "just a new buzz word to describe what they have always seen themselves
as." 272 Moreover, Macleod describes that amongst her participants, the identity provides a
feeling of explanation and belonging: "When they came to know of their mixed-blood heritage,
they described it as explaining a lot in their lives or as fitting into how they had already
lived." 273
Emmanuel Michaux published a further monograph at Laval University Press in 2017, L'ldentite
metisse dans /'est du Canada: Enjeux culturels et defis politiques. With brief reference to
historical background, he focuses on the period after 1982. Michaux reviews the basis of
266 Emmanuel Michaux, "Les Acadiens metis, les Metis magouas et les Metis de Saint-Laurent: contexte et
construction des identites metisses," in L'identite metisse en question: Strategies identitaires et dynamismes
culturels, eds. Denis Gagnon et Helene Giguere (Quebec: Laval University Press, 2012), 157.
267 Michaux, "Les Acadiens metis" (2012), 162.
268 Macleod, "Displaced Mixed-Blood," 58-74.
269 Macleod, "Displaced Mixed-Blood," 75-82.
270 Macleod, "Displaced Mixed-Blood," 96.
271 Macleod, "Displaced Mixed-Blood," 49.
272 Macleod, "Displaced Mixed-Blood," 2-3.
273 Macleod, "Displaced Mixed-Blood," 49.
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Eastern Metis identities, as biologically mixed, culturally mixed-for instance, his example of
"akadjonne," and having a shared experience of discrimination. A large part of Michaux's
findings focus on the longevity of economic activities that he associates as distinctively Metis:
bartering practices, hunting, fishing, trapping, gathering, subsistence farming, and reliance on
the forest industry; and the experience of collective marginalization in the face of large-scale
resource development, and government restrictions on individual use of resources. Michaux's
book is not specific to Metis-Acadians, but includes the Acadian region within his examples. 274
Profound disagreement between the Metis Nation and Emmanuel Michaux was recently
evident in the Corneau case-which is outside of this report's subject area, but relevant to its
debate. In this case, Ghislain Corneau and nine others appealed charges of trespassing on
public land, on the basis that they had "the right to maintain a 'camp' as an accessory to their
traditional practice of hunting, fishing, trapping, and berry picking activities for food" as
members of the Communaute Metisse du Domaine-du-Roy et de la Seigneurie de Mingan
(CMDRSM). Michaux testified for Corneau as the expert anthropologist. The Metis Nation had
status as intervener. In 2015, the trial judge deemed that the CMDRSM was not a Powley Metis
community, as there was no identifiable distinction "either in their clothing, language, specific
cultural, religious or folkloric practices, in short, by a way of acting, thinking, an interest that
would be just that bit different and specific to a group that would be neither aboriginal nor
white." 275 Corneau appealed, and in 2018 the decision on appeal described that Corneau had
"self-identified as Metis later in life. It was, according to the [trial] judge, a phenomenon driven
by opportunism when his forestry activities were threatened or disrupted by the State." The
appellant judge found Corneau's Aboriginal ancestral connection-"five generations back"-to
be immaterial, and deemed that as "this organization has no cultural ties with any ancestral
Metis community, the fact that the DRMSMC [CMDRSM] has welcomed him into its ranks
carries little weight." The Corneau appeal was dismissed on July 18, 2018. 276 Whether Courneau
will appeal to the Supreme Court, remains to be seen.
Darryl Leroux characterizes the chasm between Gagnon and his students, and Leroux's own
community of scholars, in the following terms:
Notably, Gagnon also supervised the research that led to the interviews with
founding members of the CMDRSM, and many of his former students and
collaborators not only contribute to the sub-field but act as expert witnesses
for self-identified "metis" organizations in Quebec courts.
L'identite metisse dons /'est du Canada: Enjeux culturels de defis politiques (Quebec, Laval
University Press, 2017). See Michaux's very detailed table of contents, v-xii.
275 The trial judgment is cited in translation. Corneau c. Procureure generale du Quebec, 2018 QCCA 1172 (Canlll),
274 Emmanuel Michaux,
~~'---"--"'-==~=~ (accessed on February 25, 2019).
276 Corneau c. Procureure genera le du Quebec, 2018 QCCA 1172 (Canlll), ="'-'-'---'-=-===-=-'--'-='---'. (accessed on
February 25, 2019).
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Though its academic housing lends it official weight, the sub-field Gagnon
inaugurated remains mostly marginal and unknown to the burgeoning
discipline of Indigenous Studies. Its authors mimic the "Eastern metis"
movement in their failure to engage with Indigenous thinkers more broadly.
(Gagnon says it's a "difficult relationship," and his attempts to engage were
rebuffed, as the discipline "rejects all those who don't share their
opinion.") 277
Gagnon's Canada Research Chair and the publications of himself and his students by Laval
University Press and well-known academic journals make the terms "marginal" and "unknown"
unwarranted. 278 However, Leroux is correct that there is little engagement between the two
groups. 279 They are truly "marginalized" from each other, potentially in part as a divide
between disciplines and academic circles, plus English and French academic "solitudes." 280
However, intellectually the divide is even greater; in general, they take opposing approaches
and come to irreconcilable conclusions.
Summary
As a final summary, this report reviews the Eastern Metis debate as recently expressed by two
strongly-opposed academics: Darryl Leroux, Department of Social Justice and Community
Studies, St. Mary's University, who refutes the legitimacy of Eastern Metis; and Sebastien
Malette, Department of Law and Legal Studies, Carleton University, who criticizes Leroux's
denial of Eastern Metis identities.
Leroux's views are the subject of his forthcoming book, Distorted Descent: White Claims to
Indigenous Identity (2019). 281 On September 27, 2017, he spoke at the Universite de Montreal
to give a paper entitled, "Le revisionnisme historique et l'autochtonisation: la creation des
'Metis de l'Est."' 282 He reviewed the recent increase in the number of people and organizations
who identify as Metis in Eastern Canada. Describing these through examples, Leroux concluded
that most of the organizations' members did not formerly identify themselves as Indigenous;
the majority have only a single Indigenous ancestor from the 1600s; and others have no
277 Leroux, 11 Self-Made Metis" (2018), 36.
278 Referring to a criticism by Leroux of Denis Gagnon, Gagnon's USB colleague Geographer Etienne Rivard (who
also testified in Corneau), and Guillaume Marcotte, Sebastien Malette makes the point that 11 all these authors have
published in respected journals." Malette, "The Eastern Metis," 14. To further the note on venues of scholarly
publication, Emmanuel Michaux has also published at Laval University Press and in Recherches Amerindiennes au
Quebec.
279 For example, Darryl Leroux and Fabien Tremblay study the same community in Gaspesie and at times have
similar observations and results; however, they do not cite each other's work.
280 While 11 linguistic solitudes" may explain the isolation of work among some scholars, and vice versa, both Leroux
and Malette work in both English and French.
281 This book is promoted by Leroux on Twitter, https://twitter.cmn/Darrylleroux (accessed March 26, 2019).
282 Darryl Leroux, 11 Le revisionnisme historique et l'autochtonisation: la creation des 'Metis de l'Est"' (Paper
presented at Universite de Montreal, September 27, 2017). https://soundcloud.con1/darryHeroux/lerevisionnisme historigue ct lautochtonisation la creation des mctis de lest (accessed February 11, 2019).
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Indigenous ancestry at all. In Leroux's analysis, the members have constructed a narrative by
which French-Canadians with ancestral longevity in North America "self-indigenize," by
redefining the term "Metis" in the colonial period, and connecting themselves to this history
through documented and presumed lines of ancestry. Leroux considers the organizations' use
of the term "Metis" to be politically expedient, and tactical as a means for blocking First Nations
rights. Leroux has often made the same points on Twitter, to both supportive and critical
reactions. 283 In a recent magazine publication, Leroux concludes: "To be clear, there is
widespread consensus among Metis political organizations and intellectuals that the Metis
constitute a distinct Indigenous peoples-and, further, that these Quebec-based organizations
are not Metis at all." 284
Sebastien Malette denounces Leroux's position as "negationism" of Eastern Metis identities,
and characterizes the Metis Nation's exclusivity as self-interested "neo-nationalism." Malette
refutes Leroux's conclusion that "other Metis"-outside of the Metis Nation-lack histories that
developed into collective consciousness and distinctly Metis identities. He points to specific
historical references to Metis people in Quebec and the Maritimes, and also argues that Louis
Riel-the most "credible" source about the Metis Nation's conception-recognized Metis
people in "the Eastern provinces of Canada." 285 Ultimately, Malette critiques Leroux for judging
all Eastern Metis on the basis of selective examples, and states that to understand Eastern
Metis, each case must be examined separately. 286 Malette acknowledges that "certain
Quebecois Metis may express ideas we might disagree with," but rejects that this reflects on all
Eastern Metis. 287
Although this debate takes place in a university setting, it is no simple "ivory tower" discussion
between two disagreeing academics. Following the conference, the interim president of the
Metis Federation of Canada, Robert Pilon, called Leroux's work "un cas flagrant de
negationnisme historique et d'incitation
a la haine envers une population autochtone en raison
de son histoire particuliere et de sa location geographique." 288 Meanwhile, Metis Nation
President Clement Chartier has upheld Leroux's work in addressing "the issue of the
proliferation of groups emerging in eastern Canada and claiming Metis identity and rights," as
283 See Darryl Leroux on Twitter,
https://twitter.com/Darrvlleroux (accessed March 26, 2019).
284 Darryl Leroux, "Self-Made Metis." Maisonneuve: A Quarterly of Arts, Opinion & Ideas Issue 69 (Fall 2018), 34.
285 This phrase is quoted as a translation on page 11 of Malette's text. The "Eastern provinces of Canada" are not
defined by Riel; he likely referred to the provinces east of Manitoba generally, not necessarily the Maritimes.
286 Sebastien Malette, "The Eastern Metis and the 'Negationism' of Professor Leroux: 'Aiabitawisidjik wi mikakik,"'
trans. Remy Biggs, 1-21. The original French article was published in Trahir (October 21, 2017) as "Les Metis de
l'Est et le 'negationnisme' du professeur Leroux: 'Aiabitawisidjik wi mikakik'."
https://trahir.wordpress.com/2017 /10/21/malettc mctis/ (accessed February 11, 2019).
287 Malette, "The Eastern Metis," 1-21.
288 Radio Canada, "Les Metis du Quebec accusent un conferencier invite a l'UdeM de negationnisme historique,"
September 26, 2017.
htt ps: / /i ci. radio-can ad a. ca/no uve 11e/1053058/ m ct is-q ue bee-a ccu sat io n-d a rrvl-1 e ro ux-u nive rs ite-m o nt rea 1negati on n ism e historique (accessed February 27, 2019).
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'"self-made Metis."' 289 Leroux and Malette-and other scholars in the current debate-engage
with foundational disagreements that are not only academic, but intensely political, and central
to many peoples' identities.
The Metis Nation identifies protection from Eastern Metis claimants as one of its current top
°
priorities. 29 Conversely, the matter of recognition is of utmost importance to Eastern Metis.
Considering the potency of these issues, the purpose of this report has been to review the
literature in order to contextualize this complex debate.
289 Metis Nation, "Metis Nation Rights and Corporate-Indigenous Relations in Canada," November 8, 2018.
http://www.mctisnation.ca/indcx. php/ncws/metis nation rights and corporate indigenous··relations in canada
(accessed February 27, 2019).
290 The Metis Nation describes this as an "important discussion" in their December 2018 newsletter-that is, "the
rise and proliferation of groups in eastern Canada who are falsely claiming Metis rights." For this purpose, the
Metis Nation and Mi'kmaq of Nova Scotia recently concluded an MOU "which recognizes each other's Nationhood
within their respective traditional and current territories and commits them to work collaboratively on the issue of
individuals misrepresenting themselves as Metis in Nova Scotia." http://www.metisnation.ca/wpcontent/uploads/2018/12/NewsletterDccember 20181.odf (accessed March 26, 2019).
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UNCLASSIFIED - PSD637
ANNEX D: The Eastern Metis Debate
Arguments for and against the existence of culturally distinct historical or modern
Eastern Metis communities have played out in academic literature and among
Indigenous political advocacy organizations and individuals, including on social media.
Many of the main arguments both for and against can be summarized as follows:
For:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Many people and communities of mixed ancestry in Eastern Canada integrated
into Indigenous or non-Indigenous communities or otherwise went in to 'hiding'
out of fear of reserve creation, residential schools or other assimilative, empirical
or protectionist colonial policies, while maintaining core elements of their Metis
heritage.
Many Acadians who avoided being deported in the mid-eighteenth century
intermarried with Mi'kmaq, creating a unique ethnogenesis.
Communities endured a significantly longer history of colonialism and
assimilationist policies in the East than in the West, and the same historical
documentation (e.g. scrip) does not exist. Many records (e.g. church records)
that did exist have been destroyed or lost over time. Oral accounts likewise suffer
from a longer colonial history such that the evidentiary basis for the Powley test,
established in central Canada under different historical circumstances, simply
doesn't exist in the East.
The Powley test was highly influenced by the Metis National Council positions,
thereby undermining an acknowledgement of older more fluid Metis communities
in the East.
Louis Riel wrote that Eastern Metis have as legitimate land interests as Western
Metis and maintained strong relations with his Quebec Metis ancestors.
Metis culture(s) did not spring from a single geographical point of ethnogenesis
(e.g. Red River), but varied according to resource development over an extended
period of time (fur trade, lumber industry, fisheries etc.).
The eastern and French Regime mix-blood Voyageur culture is a foundation of
Metis cultures, including for the western Red River Metis, which has been
historically nomadic, moving from east to west, with more permanent settlements
established at various points in time and various geographies.
The Daniels decision specifically refers to mixed ancestry as a legitimate
definitional attribute, and posits that there is no one exclusive Metis people, just
as there is no one exclusive First Nation people. The decision further states that
one does not need to be accepted by a modern-day community to be considered
Metis outside of a s. 35 context, as some may have lost that connection due to
colonialist policies (e.g. 60s scoop).
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Against
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Use of Metis to describe mixed-ancestry is a misconception. Metis refers only to
a singular and unique nation or culture, more like the term Cree or Blackfoot. It is
not a catchall term like First Nation.
As shown by the unsuccessful application of the Powley test in the East to date,
people of mixed ancestry either integrated into Indigenous communities or
assimilated with European newcomers, without a single geographical point of
ethnogenesis, unlike the distinct Metis people of Louis Riel in Western Canada.
Historically, the conditions leading to the creation of the Metis Nation in the area
of the Red River are very specific and perfectly meet the test set in the Powley
decision. This is in stark contrast to the twenty-first century phenomena of
eastern descendants of White settlers self-identifying as Metis out of a sudden
sympathy for, or empathy with, Indigenous culture.
So called Eastern Metis communities have evolved out of a more recent
movement of Indigenous rights, and are made up of colonialist settlers who
opportunistically and falsely claim Indigenous ancestry in order to oppose and
compete with legitimate First Nations rights-bearing communities. There is
evidence of white supremacist antecedents to one such group in Quebec.
Individuals claiming Eastern Metis ancestry rely on a limited number of ancestors
centuries old with tenuous historical and genealogical evidence. New groups are
united through simple fact of ancestry, no matter where from, rather than any
single coherent historical community.
The timely recognition of Metis rights in Canada must not be reduced to an
opportunity for others who might have been dispossessed by past colonial
policies to claim unrelated compensations through imagined Indigenous
identities.
Those who newly identify as Metis exploit what it means to be Indigenous while
maintaining white privilege, and do not share a common history of subjugation or
dispossession. Determining lndigeneity is complex and goes beyond claiming a
distant ancestor which undermines the authority and self-determination of
Indigenous nations.
The Daniels decision has opened the floodgates for self-identifying Metis and
their representative organizations by supporting a racialized definition of
'mixidness' which runs counter to a true definition based solely on Metis
peoplehood.
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