I’ve been intrigued by the term métis for some time. At the root, the word is French for “mixed”, as in “mixed race”. About twenty years ago, I was in France and actually overhead the word used “in the wild” in this sense in a conversation on the bus; the reference was to an arab teenager who had a black girlfriend.
In the Canadian context though, the word (especially when capitalized) has acquired a tighter meaning: the families of European trappers and their Indian brides, typically French and Cree respectively, born in the fur trade era, and their decendants.
It is interesting to me that the Métis, thus defined, thus have a de facto end date to other joining them1, otherwise many of the indigenous I have personally met would more properly also be “métis” (i.e. mixed race).
Perhaps in that their origin was as a mixed race, there is no minimum bloodline requirement to be considered Métis, as has traditionally been required of “Status Indian” claims. I wonder what the implications of this are, and what are the implications of this pushed out another hundred or two hundred years? How big might the Métis grow as a group?
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Although it’s never been exactly clear to me when this end date is. Is it when Rupert’s Land was ceded to Canada (1870)? when the numbered treaties were signed (1871 to 1877, or later, depending on the area)? when the Red River Rebellion (1869)? When Manitobia become a province (1870)? when the transcontinental railway was completed (November 1885)? ↩
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