read a passage from Remembrances: Interviews with Métis Veterans
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Reprinted from Resources for Métis Researchers by Lawrence J. Barkwell, Leah Dorion, and Warren R. Prefontaine:

Deconstructing Métis Historiography: Giving Voice to the Métis People
In this essay we will argue that the recorded history of the Métis people has been incomplete and as written has contained pejorative bias. We will demonstrate that this situation has begun to change as Métis people have moved into the role of historicla narrators who have their own views of their ancestors as historical participants.

Today, the Métis experience still remains a “hidden” history best expressed by the memories of Elders and other community people. In spite of these factors, there have been many exciting developments in the literature. This paper will critically analyze much of the expanding literature pertaining to the Métis experience in Canada. Certain resources will be recommended and others will be deconstructed of bias. This paper will not analyze all resources pertaining to the Métis people, but it will be demonstrated that Métis studies are becoming a more balanced discipline.

The Métis people of Canada and the United States have been called the “New Peoples” because they emerged through inter-marriage between two distinct populations, First Peoples and Europeans. Interestingly, the Métis almost always entered the traditional historiography in studies of the great continental fur trade, or when they interrupted the plans of fur trade officials of Canadian politicians, especially during the 1869-70 and 1885 Resistances. It should also be noted that Europeans largely wrote the historical record. The Métis and First Peoples histories came from oral traditions that were not given much valence by the colonizers. As a result, the historical record regarding the Métis people remains invariably negative.

In the past, Euro-Canadian historians generally wrote about political, economic and military matters. From the late 1800s until the early 1960s, the Great Man of History school was the dominant canon in Canadian historical writing. Rather than studying society as a whole, historians wrote biographies of politicians, soldiers, and diplomats. Regarding Métis history, historians only analyzed the life of Louis Riel and the political events leading to the two major Métis Resistances. Social and economic factors along with the concerns of ordinary Métis people were rarely assessed. History was largely written from an ethnocentric perspective since the experiences of women, ethnic, visible minorities, and Aboriginal people were either ignored or were inaccurately portrayed. Needless to say, an Euro-Canadian male perspective dominated traditional Canadian historical writing.

At a time when liberalism and the Protestant work ethic were in vogue, historical biographies of political, military and economic leaders focussed on how one individual, through hard work and sheer determination, could rise up through the social ranks and could achieve greatness in his chosen field. These works served as models for socially mobile young men.

The great man of history theory still applies to Métis history. For instance, popular historians continue to work on projects that concentrate exclusively on Louis Riel rather than having a more thorough analysis of the Prairie Métis people’s historic grievances.

The liberating climate of the 1960s led to the rise of socially conscious groups in society who resented the way traditional political history ignored their groups’ contribution to the Canadian mosaic. This led to an explosion of writing by regional, feminine, Aboriginal, and ethnic historians who wrote their own interpretations of the past — social, intellectual, women’s history, and ethnohistory. For the Métis, this has meant that the Métis experience as a whole was finally being analyzed. Recent historiographical works such as J.R. Miller’s, “From Riel to the Métis,” have articulated many, if not most of these much needed changes in Canadian historical writing. These essays and other historical works discuss all aspects of past Métis existence, not just Riels’ struggles.

There is now a plethora of writing by academics, popular writers, Elders, and other community people. Many of these authors are now writing about Métis communities outside the Red River area, the most widely known Métis homeand. Métis Studies has been greatly enriched by these developments. Métis Studies has now become an offshoot of many academic disciplines including Native Studies, History, Anthropology, Geopgraphy, Sociology, Political Science, Literature, Ethnology, Linguistics, Folk History, and Economics. Consequently, the process of collecting resources relating to the Métis experience in Canada involves an eclectic appreciation of all the Social Sciences and the Humanities.

Reprinted from Resources for Métis Researchers by Lawrence J. Barkwell, Leah Dorion, and Darren R. Prefontaine. Co-published by Gabriel Dumont Institute and the Louis Riel Institute, 1999.
Used by permission.

read a passage from Remembrances: Interviews with Métis Veterans
return to Gabriel Dumont Institute