Born of encounters between Indigenous women and Euro-American men in the first decades of the nineteenth century, the Plains Metis people occupied contentious geographic and cultural spaces. Living in a disputed area of the northern Plains inhabited by various Indigenous nations and claimed by both the United States and Great Britain, the Metis emerged as a people with distinctive styles of speech, dress, and religious practice, and occupational identities forged in the intense rivalries of the fur and provisions trade. Michel Hogue explores how, as fur trade societies waned and as state officials looked to establish clear lines separating the United States from Canada and Indians from non-Indians, these communities of mixed Indigenous and European ancestry were profoundly affected by the efforts of nation-states to divide and absorb the North American West. Grounded in extensive research in U.S. and Canadian archives, Hogue's account recenters historical discussions that have typically been confined within national boundaries and illuminates how Plains Indigenous peoples like the Metis were at the center of both the unexpected accommodations and the hidden history of violence that made the "world's longest undefended border."

Ask any Canadian what "Métis" means, and they will likely say "mixed race." Canadians consider Métis mixed in ways that other Indigenous people are not, and the census and courts have premised their recognition of Métis status on this race-based understanding. Andersen argues that Canada got it wrong. From its roots deep in the colonial past, the idea of Métis as mixed has slowly pervaded the Canadian consciousness until it settled in the realm of common sense. In the process, "Métis" has become a racial category rather than the identity of an Indigenous people with a shared sense of history and culture.

Examines the politics and society of an influential group of mixed-race people who settled in coastal Africa under French colonialism, becoming middleman traders for European merchants and ultimately power brokers against French rule.

A collection of essays on the Metis Native americans by various authors.

They know who they are. Of predominantly Chippewa, Cree, French, and Scottish descent, the Métis people have flourished as a distinct ethnic group in Canada and the northwestern United States for nearly two hundred years. Yet their Métis identity is often ignored or misunderstood in the United States. Unlike their counterparts in Canada, the U.S. Métis have never received federal recognition. In fact, their very identity has been questioned. In this rich examination of a Métis community—the first book-length work to focus on the Montana Métis—Martha Harroun Foster combines social, political, and economic analysis to show how its people have adapted to changing conditions while retaining a strong sense of their own unique culture and traditions. Despite overwhelming obstacles, the Métis have used the bonds of kinship and common history to strengthen and build their community. As Foster carefully traces the lineage of Métis families from the Spring Creek area, she shows how the people retained their sense of communal identity. She traces the common threads linking diverse Métis communities throughout Montana and lends insight into the nature of Métis identity in general. And in raising basic questions about the nature of ethnicity, this pathbreaking work speaks to the difficulties of ethnic identification encountered by all peoples of mixed descent.

We think of Métis as having exclusively Prairie roots. Quebec doesn’t recognize a historical Métis community, and the Métis National Council contests the existence of any Métis east of Ontario. Quebec residents who seek recognition as Métis under the Canadian Constitution therefore face an uphill legal and political battle. Who is right? Bois-Brûlés examines archival and ethnographic evidence to piece together a riveting history of Métis in the Outaouais region. Scottish and French-Canadian fur traders and Indigenous women established themselves with their Bois-Brûlé children in the unsurveyed lands of western Quebec in the early nineteenth century. As the fur trade declined, these communities remained. This controversial work, previously available only in French, challenges head-on two powerful nationalisms – Métis and Québécois – that see Quebec Métis as “race-shifting” individuals. The authors provide a nuanced analysis of the historical basis for a distinctly Métis identity that can be traced all the way to today.

Focuses on the Métis in Canada but also includes some articles and annotated references on the Métis in the United States.

There is a missing chapter in the narrative of Canada’s Indigenous peoples—the story of the Métis Nation, a new Indigenous people descended from both First Nations and Europeans Their story begins in the last decade of the eighteenth century in the Canadian North-West. Within twenty years the Métis proclaimed themselves a nation and won their first battle. Within forty years they were famous throughout North America for their military skills, their nomadic life and their buffalo hunts. The Métis Nation didn’t just drift slowly into the Canadian consciousness in the early 1800s; it burst onto the scene fully formed. The Métis were flamboyant, defiant, loud and definitely not noble savages. They were nomads with a very different way of being in the world—always on the move, very much in the moment, passionate and fierce. They were romantics and visionaries with big dreams. They battled continuously—for recognition, for their lands and for their rights and freedoms. In 1870 and 1885, led by the iconic Louis Riel, they fought back when Canada took their lands. These acts of resistance became defining moments in Canadian history, with implications that reverberate to this day: Western alienation, Indigenous rights and the French/English divide. After being defeated at the Battle of Batoche in 1885, the Métis lived in hiding for twenty years. But early in the twentieth century, they determined to hide no more and began a long, successful fight back into the Canadian consciousness. The Métis people are now recognized in Canada as a distinct Indigenous nation. Written by the great-grandniece of Louis Riel, this popular and engaging history of “forgotten people” tells the story up to the present era of national reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. 2019 marks the 175th anniversary of Louis Riel’s birthday (October 22, 1844)

Since their arrival in Red River in 1845, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate have played an integral role in the history of Canada's North West. The Oblates followed the Hudson's Bay Company trade routes into western Canada. They believed ardently in the importance of bringing the word of Christ to natives of what - to the Oblates - was a new land. Competition with Protestant missionaries added pressure to the missionary work of the Oblates. In recent years, the Oblates have acknowledged that their converts - radically torn from traditional native worship and spirituality - made a sometimes troubled embrace of Christianity. Guided by their vision of Christian society and norms, the Oblates went on to work with the Government of Canada to provide health care and education to treaty Indians on the prairies. Their strong identity as both French and Catholic helped shape both native and non-native communities throughout Canada's North West.