Our People: Mtis, First Nations and French Canadians

[Pages:6]Our People: The M?tis and French Canadians

The M?tis are a mixed people. The two groups that had the most recognizable impact upon the M?tis were the Algonquians (Cree and Saulteaux) and the French Canadians. From these disparate groups, the M?tis borrowed and adapted culture, language, religion/spiritualism, clothing and economies. The M?tis and the French Canadians have a parallel and intertwining history and often have the same family names. However, the M?tis and the French Canadians have an ambivalent relationship.

Throughout the fur trade period, the M?tis and the French Canadians constituted the same community, albeit with two distinct populations. French-Canadian voyageurs lived in M?tis communities and married Aboriginal women ? la fa?on du pays (according to the custom of the country). The French-Canadian voyageurs passed on a vibrant folk culture with a love of storytelling, recounting legends, singing and dancing on to the M?tis. They also provided the M?tis with the sash, the river lot farm system, Catholicism and a distrust of the English and English Canadians. In the Canadian West, French-Canadian voyageurs worked under the leadership of Cuthbert Grant during the Battle of Seven Oaks (June 16, 1816) and JeanLouis Riel during the 1849 Guillaume Sayer free trade trial in 1849.

In fact, the French-M?tis and French-Canadian voyageurs were so similar that English and American chroniclers could not distinguish between them. To contemporary Anglo-Saxons, they were usually called "Canadians," "Indian French" or "Canada French." However, among themselves the M?tis and French Canadians could distinguish between one another. For the French Canadians, the M?tis were "Bois-Br?l?s" or "burnt-wood men" because of the darker hue of their skin and the M?tis called the French Canadians "Canayens," a derivative of Canadien. The historical record has led some to assume that the voyageurs were M?tis or exclusively FrenchCanadian. In fact, most voyageurs prior to 1821 were French Canadian and after that date and with the amalgamation of the Hudson's Bay Company and the Northwest Company, the M?tis became the largest group of fur trade workers. In contemporary times, this idea of who the voyageurs were has caused tensions between French Canadians and M?tis. For instance, the M?tis often wonder how Franco-Manitobans, descendants of farmers and merchants who came out west in the late nineteenth century, could sponsor the "Festival du Voyageur" every February. Some Francophones may find it odd that there are M?tis voyageur games. In fact, the voyageurs were "Habitants," who went to work in the fur trade to supplement their meager incomes as peasant farmers. Thus both M?tis and local French Canadians can claim the heritage of voyageurs.

The second group of French Canadians to interact with the M?tis were priests. As early as the late 1810s, French-Canadian priests began conducting missionary work among the M?tis and First Nations of Rupert's Land. In fact, the M?tis were eager proselytizers for Catholicism, working

with the missionaries to bring the faith to the Cree, Dene and Saulteaux. French-Canadian missionaries such as P?res Georges-Antoine Belcourt and Lestanc were often well-loved among the M?tis because they treated the M?tis with admiration and respect, often administering the gospel and taking sacraments while on the bison hunt. Others such as Bishops Provencher or Tach? were overtly paternalistic since they wanted the M?tis to integrate into the newly emerging Euro-Canadian society at Red River. Paternalism was an aspect of French-Canadian Catholicism that the M?tis did not welcome. For instance, in 1896, P?re Albert Lacombe started a M?tis colony in north-west Alberta, known as St. Paul des M?tis, which was meant to instruct landless M?tis on how to become self-sufficient farmers. An inflexible paternalism led to the colony's demise in 1907, with the coup de grace coming in 1905 when mistreated M?tis children burned down the day school. The M?tis saw their dream shattered and their land, which they had cleared and toiled on for a decade, was given to French-Canadian farmers. Finally, a wound that deeply hurt the M?tis occurred in 1885 when the French and French-Canadian priests at Batoche, particularly P?re Andr?, assisted the government in putting down the resistance.

It is also commonly assumed that the M?tis and French Canadians had a great deal of solidarity during the 1869-70 and 1885 Resistances. In fact, real divisions were evident between the two groups at this time despite Louis Riel's claim that his "M?tis-Canadiens" or French-Canadian-M?tis had a great deal of cultural, linguistic and religious solidarity with French Canadians. Qu?bec's response from the Red River Resistance was muted, although local French-Canadians supported the resistance. After the M?tis lost their political power in Manitoba, French Canadians began taking over the judicial, political and economic infrastructure built up by the M?tis. Some FrenchCanadian scrip speculators made small fortunes in Manitoba. In 1885, French Canadians in the Batoche area such as shopkeepers Philippe Garnot and Philippe Chamberlain were "conscripted" by the M?tis; Garnot actually became one of Riel's secretaries. Other local French-Canadians such as Willow Bunch's Jean-Louis L?gar? opposed the resistance and compelled local M?tis to stay neutral. In Qu?bec, French Canadians reacted as if the assault on the M?tis and the execution of Louis Riel was an attack on themselves and not upon an Aboriginal people living in Western Canada. Moreover, contemporary French Canadians' reaction to the 1885 Resistance and the execution of Riel was a mixture of legitimate sympathy and paternalism. In the eyes of the French-Canadian elite, an apostate (heretic) and mad Riel led an uneducated body of people into rebellion, which was precipitated by the federal government's (read English Canada) callous treatment of the M?tis' legitimate claims. With Riel's execution on November 16, 1885, the response from French Canada was nonetheless visceral. Tens of thousands of French Canadians, led by Wilfrid Laurier and Honor? Mercier, descended upon Montr?al's Champs de Mars and protested Riel's execution and provided a searing indictment of the Macdonald government's lack luster M?tis policy.

Following 1885, French-Canadian, French and Walloon (French Belgian) immigrants came to the Prairie West, and settled in such M?tis communities as Batoche, St. Louis, Willow Bunch, Val Marie in Saskatchewan, St. Paul des M?tis and St. Albert, Alberta and in the former French M?tis parishes in Manitoba. Intermarriage was common because of linguistic and religious similarities. In addition, having a sufficiently large body of Francophones present also allowed some M?tis to escape racism and the stigma of being "Half-Breed rebels" by stating that they were "French." This angered some French Canadians.

French Canadians were not overly sensitive to the M?tis' plight in the Pioneer Period (1896-1921). There are historical reasons for this. For instance, in the tit-for-tat between English and French Canada, much has been made about Samuel de Champlain's cliched dictum that "Our children will marry and become one people." In fact, historians, genealogists and geneticists all concur that French Canadians have a significant amount of First Nations ancestry. English Canadians used this and other documented and circumstantial historical evidence to argue that the French Canadians were a "bastardized" branch of the French "race." French Canadians recoiled at such tribalism by being equally racist towards Indians and the M?tis both in historical writing and in society. For instance, Canon Lionel Groulx, a xenophobic priest and the first professional historian of French Canada, consistently reiterated that French Canadians did not have any Indian ancestry. This is the cultural legacy which French-Canadian farmers brought out West when they encountered their M?tis cousins. Many French-Canadian settlers, imbued with such racist thinking, often derisively called the M?tis "les michifs." In places such as Willow Bunch, Saskatchewan, the M?tis were even dispossessed and disenfranchised by French Canadians.

The relationship between the M?tis and the French Canadians was not always hostile. According to M?tis Elders James Lavalley and Clementine Longworth, the French Canadians and M?tis got on amicably near the M?tis settlement at Crooked Lake, Saskatchewan. Mr. Lavalley said that the French Canadians enjoyed M?tis stories:

Grandpa (Xavier Lavall?e) used to talk French. But ah, the French people used to come down there and give him tobacco, and he knew what tobacco was. He knew that he had to tell them stories. They'd sit around.

Similarly, Louis Schmidt, Louis Riel's former secretary, is fondly remembered by the Fransaskois for fighting for Francophone rights in Saskatchewan in the early 20th century. During the early half of the 20th century, the two groups had similar positions on national political issues. For instance, like French Canadians and Treaty Indians, French M?tis also opposed the threatened imposition of conscription in the 1917 federal election and during the 1942 federal plebiscite. They also voted Liberal and shunned the Conservatives, when they were allowed to vote, like French Canadians. Like French Canadians they supported cooperatives and credit unions. However, by

World War II, both M?tis and French Canadians in Western Canada began to raise their children in English-speaking environments. Any commonality that existed between the two groups disappeared as assimilated French Canadians integrated into the larger English speaking environment, while the M?tis continued to encounter racism and poverty. This divide still largely continues as both groups seek to define their place in Prairie and Canadian society.

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