In his October 21, 1850, report to the Indian Affairs Commissioner regarding the half-breed Chippewa living in the region around Pembina, Minnesota Superintendent Alexander Ramsey made several interesting observations, including the population living in the Pembina region, their social situation, political organization, and the leadership of the community who were designated as “Chiefs” who would serve as the tantamount Metis government for the Pembina area. Ramsey wrote:

The Metis, or Half-Breeds of the Red River of the North, number eleven hundred souls, and are mostly of a mixed descent of Chippewa and Canadian French. Owing to their apparent seclusion from the world, the accounts given of them have been meagre and jejune, yet already have they laid a solid foundation for the fabric of social improvement; and, as a political community, present many interesting features for consideration. By the laws of Minnesota, they are admitted to the rights of citizenship; and, by means of annual caravans, carry on an extensive and profitable commerce with our citizens. Many of their traders during the past season have been robbed by the Pillagers, through whose territory they are compelled to pass in pursuing the trail to Saint Paul.

Chiefs of the Pembina Metis:

• Jean Baptiste Wilkie
  
• Jean Baptiste Dumont
  
• Baptiste Vallee
  
• Edward Harmon
  
• Joseph Laverdure
  
• Joseph Nolin
  
• Antoine Augure
  
• Robert Montour
  
• Baptiste Lafournaise

St. Joseph (Walhalla) is place located in northern North Dakota about 30 miles up the Pembina River. During the 1800s, St. Joe’s was a major settlement for Ojibwe and half-breed (Metis). In a way it served as a hub, with roads radiating in all directions towards various other Indian villages and half-breed settlements. One road lead direct to White Horse Plains; another road lead from St. Joe directly to a portage along the edge of the Pembina Mountains; and other less considerable roads diverge from these main roads towards Turtle Mountain, Devils Lake, and other points across the region. Early censuses showed the majority of the population as French Half-breeds, many of them originating from White Horse Plains, and all of them United States citizens once the border was established.

During the issuance of Manitoba scrip, officials from Canada visited St. Joe and St. John, North Dakota, for the purpose of making enquiry concerning a large number of persons who made applications. The officials determined that many of the people making scrip claims were generally regarded as Indians and were receiving treaty annuities as band members in Canada and the United States, but that these people were enticed to remove themselves from the bands with which they were associated, and instead make applications for grants of scrip. Many were swindled by greedy white land speculators who desired to purchase their scrip and enrich themselves at the expense of the Indians. At first the Indians sold their scrip at very low prices, having no idea of its value; and it was discovered that in many instances the white con men had executed false powers of attorney and stole the scrip, not telling the Indians what would happen to them once they had withdrawn from treaty.

The majority of these newly created “Metis” were, in fact, members of the Pembina Band or else were members of the “St. Peter's Band”, the name of the Peguis First Nation at the time.
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A good number of these people lost their status entirely after this con game and were excluded from future enrollment with the tribes, or else were forced to seek their fortunes elsewhere in Saskatchewan, Montana, and Alberta.

​One of the greatest mistakes that we see in the history of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa is the idea that there was a great division between the full-blood members of the band and those who were considered Metis, or half-breeds. History doesn’t uphold this belief. Rather, this concept seems to have arisen during the treaty-making times when government agents like Governor Ramsey sought to diminish the power of tribes like the Pembina/Turtle Mountain band by seeking to disregard anyone not full-blood from participation in government recognition of land and other rights as Indians – for the expressed purpose of weakening Indian claims and lessening the cost of purchasing land from tribes and issuing rations to those considered by the government as Indian.

The reality is that the Turtle Mountain/Pembina half-breeds (Metis) were Indians, judged by the manner in which they lived. That they were Indians is clear from the treatment they received from their fellow Indians. At essence, a half-breed was an Indian when he considers himself to be one and was accepted as an Indian by the band itself. The half-breeds involved in the life of the Tribe were considered to be and were accepted as Indians. 

​The idea that there was an appreciable difference between "half-breed" and "Indian" depended upon how a person might chose to be identified at any given time, and how he was regarded in general. In almost all ways, the half-breed (Metis) preferred the Indian way of life to that of the white man. They went to the plains to hunt buffalo rather than remain in the settlements and rely upon the civilized method of subsistence. As such, the half-breeds at Pembina were always considered by virtue of their Indian extraction as being in possession of Indian rights and as component parts of the band itself.

​Once the US/Canadian border was established, the government assertion shifted even more to negatively paint the Metis members of the band as “foreign”. Government documents began to complain about “Canadian half-breeds”. However, this distinction was a colonial concept that overlooks the reality that the Metis were the children of the Indians and they were loved by their parents.

Adapted From: Indian Claims Commission[Docket No, 113 Objections to Defendant's Requested Findings of Fact, Reply to Objections of Defendant; Objections to Docket Nos. 191-221 Proposed Findings of Fact; Objections to Docket No. 246 Proposed Findings of Fact, Reply to Docket No. 246 Objections to Docket No. 113 Proposed Findings of Fact

The relations between the Europeans and the half-breed Metis were generally amicable. Metis would serve as employees of fur posts, hired hunters, guides, and even protectors for the various explorers who ventured into the vast expanses of forests and prairies of the northern US and southern Canada.  During the 1870s, Windham Thomas Wyndham-Quin, 4th Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl (aka Lord Dunraven) spent much of his leisure time hunting wild game in various parts of the world.  After hearing of the fine hunting in the American West, he decided to visit. He first arrived in 1872, and met and befriended a frontiersman named Texas Jack Omohundro, who traveled with Earl's party on various buffalo and elk hunts. In 1874, the Earl reuniting with Texas Jack on his second visit to the American west. Guided by some Montana Metis, they explored Yellowstone area, including the area that would later become Yellowstone Nation Park. He wrote about his trip in his book “Hunting in the Yellowstone or On the Trail of the Wapiti with Texas Jack in the Land of Geysers”. 
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He made a few interesting observations about the region and about how vital the Metis were to acting as guides for explorers such as himself. In discussing his route and itinerary to the west, Lord Dunraven explained:

Even though the Metis were sociable with Europeans, Lord Dunraven made it clear that their feelings were not entirely wholehearted, as few felt any measure of affinity to the white man:

"…feelings of contempt for white men [are not] confined to the pure-blooded Indian. I have never seen a half-breed that did not cleave to the savage and despise the civilized [white] race. Many children of mixed marriages cannot speak a word of English; and the half-breed, whether Scotch, American, or French, invariably prefers the society of his relations on the mother's side. Many of them, too, have had ample opportunities of understanding all the benefits of our system. But the one sentiment is almost universal. They will admit that the benefits which our advanced state of society has poured upon the human race are numerous and great. They will allow that there is much to be admired in the order of our lives; but, all the same, give them the forest and the prairie, the mountain and the vale. Let the rushing of great rivers, the wailing of the wind be their music; let their homes be the birch wigwam or skin tent; let trees, and stones, and flowers, and birds, and the forests and the wild beasts therein, be the books for them to read. The two lives are different utterly; both are good they will say, but the wild life is the best."

REFERENCE
​Earl of Dunraven, Hunting in the Yellowstone or On the Trail of the Wapiti with Texas Jack in the Land of Geysers, The Macmillan Company, 1925

In 1840, US Indian Agent Amos J. Bruce, noted in his reports concerns over potential conflict between the Metis half-breeds and Pembina Ojibwe and the Yankton Sioux in the area around Devils Lake.  He wrote:
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It becomes my duty to lay before you, sir, the statement of a movement of the British Red river half-breeds, which would seem to call for the immediate interposition of the United States Government These people have been in the habit of making annual incursions into our territories for the purpose of hunting the buffalo, of which they destroy great numbers. Some evil-disposed person having reported that the Yancton Sioux intended to oppose by force the further hunting of these foreigners upon their lands, the half-breeds, joined by a number of Indians belonging to tribes within the British boundaries, and provided with three small cannons, left the Red River colony with the intention of attacking the Sioux if found upon the hunting-grounds. 

Bruce wrote later, in 1844, that the Metis were emboldened to make regular incursions deep into Dakota Sioux country. There, they would slaughter vast numbers of buffalo. This, of course, led to a fight between the Metis and the Yanktons. Bruce remarked:

I have advice of a fight which took place a few days since, between these people, at least 150 miles within our boundary. It appears that a half-breed Chippewa of Red river was killed by a party of Yanktons, of the Missouri, which was retaliated by a large party of half-breeds upon another band of Sioux, [belonging to Lake Traverse] who had no cognizance of the affair, and who were attacked by the half breeds without any warning, and eight Sioux were killed and two taken prisoners.

Parroting Bruce’s concerns, Iowa territorial Governor John Chambers also reported to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1844. Hoping for a military presence to deter the Metis, he wrote:

These people [the Metis] are represented as being numerous, warlike, and well-armed. Their intercourse with the wild bands of the Sioux, who hunt in the plains between their residence and the Missouri river, and with whom we have no treaties, has generally been of a friendly character, and such as would have made them auxiliaries of a formidable enemy in the event of a rupture of our friendly relations with Great Britain. Recently, it seems, the friendly intercourse between them has changed its character; and the suggestion made by Colonel Bruce, of showing a military force in that region of country about the time of the annual incursions of these half breeds, would have a good effect.

REFERENCE
Ethnological Report for Docket 113, et al., before the Indian Claims Commission.

In March of 1882, Mayor Edmond Hackett, of Bismarck, made a reconnaissance survey for the Bismarck, Mouse River, Turtle Mountain & Manitoba Railroad Company, with the designs of trying to find a way to take the land from the Indians of Turtle Mountain.

His survey and explorations led him to the international boundary line where it crosses the Turtle Mountains. During this trip through the Mouse River region, he encountered a Turtle Mountain half-breed settlement near what is present-day Sawyer, North Dakota.

While visiting the half-breeds he tried to determine who was the chief of the people, their desired claims, and to see if they would be willing to relocate to the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota.  

​Hackett wrote:

REFERENCE
​Kingsbury, G.W. (1915). History of Dakota Territory, Volume 2. Bismarck: ​S.J. Clarke Publishing Company.

​By almost any account you read regarding the subsistence of the indigenous people of the prairies, it is indisputable that Pemmican was the favorite food of the Indians and the Metis.
 
Pemmican can be made from the flesh of any animal, but it was usually made from buffalo meat. The process of making it was to first cut meat into slices, then to dry the meat either by fire or in the sun. Once the meat was dried, it was then pounded into a thick flaky “fluffy” powder. Once rendered down, the meat was put into large bags made from buffalo hides. To this, rendered, melted fat melted fat was poured. The quantity of fat was nearly half the total weight of the finished product, in a portion where for every five pounds of powdered meat, four pounds of fat would be poured. The best pemmican generally saw berries and sugar mixed in for flavor. Once complete, the whole composition formed a solid block that could be cut into portions for later use.

​Fish was also used to make pemmican. During sturgeon fishing, much of the sturgeon flesh was cured and stored for later use. This was made by drying and pounding sturgeon flesh into a powder, to which sturgeon oil and berries were added. This mixture was then packed into sturgeon skin bags, and used similar to bison pemmican.
 
A person could subsist on buffalo (or fish) Pemmican in good times and lean. Pemmican, with its high fat content, provides a high calorie source of energy that is almost unrivaled. Thus, it was an important food throughout the year, but especially in winter because it stayed “fresh” almost forever and could be stored without worry for years without spoiling.

​Pemmican could be eaten when other foods were scarce, it could be used to stretch a meal, or it could be eaten on its own just like a block of fatty jerky – a great, portable source of food energy on long hunts or while doing any task where energy was needed. When cooked, Pemmican was easily turned into rubaboo (the most popular method by far) making a delicious stew that could feed an entire camp. Another method was to serve it fried – mixed with a little flour – to create a tasty roux that could be sopped up with bannock bread for a filling meal.

So what does pemmican taste like?' The only way you can describe the taste, is that it tastes 'Like pemmican.' There is nothing else in the world that bears the slightest resemblance. In terms of its quality as a food, it is a ‘super food’. 

Question:  What do you understand "half -breed"' to be, or a mixed blood to be?

Answer:  A person who first of all, would have to be a person of mixed biological background -- racially mixed.

Question:  With some Indian blood in him?

Answer:  Yes. Then, secondly, half-bred to me, is distinguished by a person who is sort of marginal with two different cultures in his or her background.

Question:  In your study of the evidence did you discover that in many cases the half-breeds were members of these tribes or bands of Chippewas?

Answer:  Yes, there were some that were biologically mixed who were living an Indian way of life and regarded themselves p as Indians.

Question:  Where did you know the difference was, if some of them were members of the tribes and bands, how could you tell which ones were Indians and which ones were not?

Answer:  By the references made by various observers who so consistently find it necessary in their recollections, sports, accounts, and the like, to make a distinction between two social groups, one of whom they called Indians, one of whom they called half-breeds.

Question:  So you ended up with in some cases, considering half-breeds Chippewas and in some cases not, is that what it amounts to?

Answer:  Yes. And this is a distinction that is based now primarily on cultural differences, not the biological ones. We have two processes running along here, sometimes independent, sometimes merged. One is a biological process, one is cultural.

Question:  How is a half-breed determined, by the person himself or by somebody else?

Answer:  I think I indicated this morning that I would prefer to make the distinction on the basis of their own self-identification and self-regard.

Question:  So it could have been possible that many of these persons who called themselves half-breeds might have been full-blooded Indians, or vice versa, is that true?

Answer:  The likelihood is here that if a person were full-blooded they wouldn't think of themselves as non-Indian.

Question:  Well, if they were half-bloods, might they mistakenly perhaps consider themselves full-blooded Indians?

Answer:  They might.

Question:  It is very difficult to tell which is which in the study of history of these people, isn't that true?

Answer:  Yes, and certainly it is difficult to tell how many of each there would be who are both biologically and culturally mixed, or persons, and distinguish that number from those who were biologically and culturally purely Indian.

Question:  In these cases, where you had occasion to study these people, did you resolve any doubts in favor of the Indian being half-breed rather than a full-blood?

Answer:  No, I don't believe I did.

Question:  Would you say that the half-breed group of Chippewas was the larger percentage of it than other Indian tribes in North America at the time in question here?

Answer:  I would be hesitant to make a statement like that.

Question:  Have you studied any other tribes in North America in this connection?

Answer:  No.

Question:  So you don't know whether there was a difference here than there was in other tribes?

Answer:  I have the general feeling from review of the materials that in and near the subject area of this case there were a somewhat higher proportion of persons who were biologically and culturally mixed whom I called half-breed than in many other parts of North America, but I couldn't anchor this in exact numbers.

Question:  That is just a feeling you have? There is no authority to give substance to that opinion?

Answer:  The reason I have that feeling is they do emerge so early in the historical account.

Question:  The half-breeds?

Answer:  Yes.

Question:  How early did they emerge?

Answer:  They make their appearance as soon as the Red River Valley settlements were made in the northeast area of the subject area.

Question:  What time would that be approximately?

Answer:  The very early 1800s.

Question:  So that early in the history of this entire influence of the mixture evidenced itself, is that correct?

Answer:  Yes.

Question:  And a great proportion of these people were of that mixture, is that true?

Answer:  Yes.

Question:  But they nevertheless conducted themselves and were considered as Indian tribes, as members of the Indian tribes, is that right?

Answer:  There might have been some that were members of an Indian group, yes.

Question:  Do you mean it is possible that that could have been true? Don't you know as a matter of fact most of these tribes considered many of their half-breeds as full members of their tribes?

Answer:  Oh, yes, indeed.

Question:  And they were so considered by the United States in their dealings with them?

Answer:  Very often, yes.

Question:  Were there any cases where they weren't?

Answer:  Well, I recall the McCumber Commission period, in which there was very systematic attempts to make this very kind of distinction between those who were, shall I say, legitimate members of the Indian group and those who were really not members of it, who were called half-breeds.

Question:  Was that McCumber's doing, or his committee, that brought about that?

Answer:  I don't remember the details of exactly how that committee was formed.

Question:  At that time they we pretty active in striking people off the rolls that were against the approval of the McCumber agreement, isn't that so?

Answer:  Yes.

Question:  But in McCumber's negotiations, or hearings that he held, he made no distinction between the members of that group, whether they were mixed-bloods or full-bloods, is that true? Wasn't the determination whether they were part Canadians or not?

Answer:  I believe that was the major one.

Question:  Even McCumber recognized as Indians those people of mixed-blood who were qualified members in his judgment of the Turtle Mountain group, is that right?

Answer:  Yes, that is right. 

The Great Slave Lake area – especially the area around Fort Resolution – was a major center of Metis occupation since the inception of the fur trade in the Northwest Territories. Initially this community was mostly of Cree-French heritage, but the group was, over time, an amalgamation that added Chipewyan, Scotch, English and other heritages. It is possible to make the claim that many of the Metis of Fort Resolution, and the rest of the Mackenzie District south of Fort Simpson, can be classified as having roots as “Red River” Metis (Slobodin 1966:12–14). This is because many people who would be classified as Metis have their origins with people who came north in the service of the early traders from the Red and Saskatchewan River valleys (but especially the Red River Valley).
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It is certain that many of the Red River Metis who came to the Great Slave Lake area were “freemen” who had previously worked for the Hudson Bay Company, but for various reasons did not remain in the service and came here for new opportunities. However, it is known that some of these Metis returned to Red River country – many being forced to remove by compulsion of the Hudson's Bay Company (Rich 1961:474). Many of the Metis joined the Indian people and adopted their culture, and some assumed a rather complete Indian cultural identity and their children were culturally rather fully “Indian and not Metis after a few generations, with no traces of any Michif language present, but rather seeing Chipewyan as their first language and French and English secondary. The Metis and Indian populations thus became intertwined by complex ties of kinship, language, and culture. 

Because of this rampant assimilation of the early Metis into Chipewyan culture, it could be argued that modern-day use of the word Metis to describe them is something of a misnomer.  During negotiations for Treaty, the Indian community first recommended as their chief the eminent leader, Pierre Beaulieu. The fact that the Indian people of Fort Resolution chose Beaulieu doesn’t mean that they necessarily believed he could speak well on their behalf because he was a mixed-blood (aka Metis), but rather shows that they did not draw distinction between themselves and the Metis people who had been absorbed into their community as Indians. The confusion, and the renewed use of the term Metis to designate people who were not fully Chipewyan, was not because they were a separate identifiable “Metis” community, but rather because the Treaty Commissioner tried to lessen the impact of the treaty on the government by striking half-breeds from the treaty list, with no one recognized as being “mixed” being permitted to take Treaty in 1900. The Catholic priest was the government's main source in removing people from the rolls and naming them as not “Indian”.
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In some sense, the argument could be made that those people in the Northwest Territories now calling themselves Metis are doing so not because they are culturally Metis, or that they necessarily are Metis. While some of them do descend from early Metis who came from the Red River region and who were Metis, over the period of a hundred-plus years, the community was absorbed into Chipewyan society and had assimilated completely as Indian. It was only after many of them were removed from the Treaty paylists in 1900 that the idea of calling this community “Metis” came forward as a designator for them. Perhaps a more appropriate term would be non-status Indian, rather than Metis, as they are culturally Indian and certainly indigenous. Nonetheless, this “picking of nits” and semantic argument does not diminish their existence as a distinct community, but it does call into question using the term Metis to define them as they evolved along a completely different cultural and historical trajectory to the actual historic, or modern-day Metis Nation.

​Rich, E.E. 1961 Hudson's Bay Company, 1670–1870. 3 Vols. (Vol. III, 1821–1870). New York: Macmillan.
Slobodin, R. 1964 “The Subarctic Metis as Products and Agents of Culture Contact,” Arctic Anthropology, 2:50–55.