The Metis People

Who are the Metis People?

What have we already learned about the Metis People???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVDzbEnX5Aw





Almost 400,000 people self-identify as Métis in Canada

Geneticists estimate that 50 percent of today's population in Western Canada have Aboriginal blood, and therefore would be classified as Métis by any genetic measure

Red River Settlement

*   Metis moved their in the 1700s for the fur trade

* great opportunity for Metis people to establish their own sense of identity- do not associate themselves with the British when they take over New France and rest of what would be Canada in 1763

* Moving to Red River they were able to establish a similar lifestyle to that of farming along the St. Lawrence River, yet create their own identity and embrace their mixed heritage of being European and Aboriginal.

* Great opportunities for farming, abundance of land, and connection to the fur trade

The First Numbered Treaties 1871-1875

The purpose of these treaties was to secure land from the Aboriginals for European settlement and agricultural and industrial development. In the wording of these treaty documents, the Aboriginals were to give up their rights to the land "forever."

Typically, the government would provide farm supplies and new clothes to help transform Aboriginal society from what Europeans viewed as a simple hunting and gathering basis, into independent pioneer farmers like their European counterparts. Government saw this as a way to assimilate he First Nations and help them advance. Te government would start building roads, the railway, and other infrastructure in the west.

In return for giving up their land rights, the Aboriginals would receive:

• Reserve lands to live on.
• Cash, the amount of which differed between each treaty.
• An allowance for blankets and hunting/fishing tools.
• Farming assistance.
• Schools on reserve land, whenever desired by the Aboriginals.
• A census to keep track of how many Aboriginals there were in each band, mainly for financial compensation purposes.
• The right to hunt and fish on all ceded land not used for settlement, lumbering or mining.

In return, the Aboriginals had to promise they would keep the peace and maintain law and order.

The Indian Act 1876

Key points from the Indian Act:

* Law put in place by the Canadian government to organize and deal with land in western Canada which was occupied by First Nations which the government wanted European farmers to settle.

* Act gave control of First Nation land and resources to the Canadian government and defined who was considered "Indian" and could live on this tax free land.

* The act allowed the government to determine where First Nations would and could live - the idea of reserves are put in place (seen as way to please aboriginal people at the time)

* Give First Nations land which would not be taxed, their own private land to protect culture and heritage ect. but what they had claimed as their own land is taken...

The Canadian Government starts to send surveyors and early settlers to start claiming and settling land in the Prairies

Conflict is created....

As a result of the Numbered Treaties (one to five) 1871-1875, and the Indian Act 1876, officials from the Canadian government such as surveyors and early European settlers sent to farm the land interfered with First Nation people's way of life and their land... The Metis in the Red River Valley were very opposed to this and upset, which would lead to conflict against the Canadian government led by this man, Louis Riel