The Métis are a mixed-ancestry Indigenous people whose historical homelands include Canada's three Prairie Provinces extending into parts of Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and the northwest United States. They have a shared history and culture, deriving from specific mixed European (primarily French, Scottish, and English) and Indigenous ancestry (primarily Cree with strong kinship to Cree people and communities), which became distinct through ethnogenesis by the mid-18th century, during the early years of the North American fur trade.
In Canada, the Métis, with a population of 624,220 as of 2021,
The term Métis (uppercase 'M') typically refers to the specific community of people defined as the Métis Nation, which originated largely in the Red River Valley and organized politically in the 19th century, radiating outwards from the Red River Settlement (now Winnipeg). Descendants of this community are known as the Red River Métis. and the newer Metis lands near Fort McKay, purchased from the Government of Alberta in 2017.
Background
Etymology
The word itself is originally French for 'person of mixed percentage' and derives from the Latin word , from , 'mixed'. It is a cognate of the Spanish term .
Semantic definitions
The definitions and usage of the terms "Métis", "Metis", and "métis" (lowercase) have at times been controversial and contentious; however, there are also legal definitions.
Lowercase 'm'
Starting in the 17th century, the French word was initially used as a noun by those in the North American fur trade, and by settlers in general, to refer to people of mixed European and North-American Indigenous parentage in New France (which at that time extended from the Maritime provinces through southern Quebec and the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River, thence southward to Mississippi and Alabama). At the time, it applied generally to French-speaking people who were of partial Indigenous and partial ethnic French descent. It also came to be used for people of mixed European and Indigenous backgrounds in other French colonies, generally the children of unions between French men and non-French women from the colonized areas, Senegal in West Africa; Algeria in North Africa; and the former French Indochina in Southeast Asia.
The first documented "" child was a girl born about 1628 near Lake Nipissing, given the first name Marguerite, who was the daughter of a Nipissing woman and Jean Nicollet de Belleborne (born about 1598, likely in Cherbourg, France).
Today, the spelling métis with a lowercase 'm' typically functions as an adjective. The definition of the word has at times been disputed, as some people have attempted to use lower-case métis in the archaic sense of having a single, distant Indigenous ancestor or being in some other way "mixed".
Numerous spellings of Métis have been used interchangeably, including métif, michif; currently the most agreed-upon spelling is Métis; however, some prefer to use Metis as inclusive of persons of both English and French descent.
The majority of Indigenous groups and legal scholars define Métis as the people who originate from the historic homeland of the Métis Nation, which encompasses the Prairie Provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta and extends into contiguous parts of Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and the northern United States.<blockquote>Within non-Indigenous society, there are two competing ideas of what being Métis means. The first, when spelled with a lowercase "m" (métis), means individuals or people having mixed-Ancestry parents and ancestries, e.g., North American Indigenous and European/Euro-Canadian/Euro-American. It is a racial categorization. This is the oldest meaning of métis and is based on the French verb métisser [sic], to mix Ancestry or ethnicities. The related noun for the act of Ancestry-mixing is métissage. Some argue that the ethnogenesis of the Métis began when the Métis organized politically at the Battle of Seven Oaks in 1816.
Other groups and individuals
Scholars, Métis people, and First Nations elders and community leaders state that only the descendants of the Red River Métis should be constitutionally recognized as Métis people, as they developed a distinct culture as a people historically, and have continued to exist as a distinct culture and community over many generations. These individuals and unrecognized groups have recently emerged largely in the Maritime, Quebec, and Ontario regions, and are generally referred to as "Eastern Metis". Darryl R. Leroux and Adam Gaudry write: