A Look at a Metis Family

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Contrary to the idea that Metis identity is a "catch-all", racial term that mean mixed-blood, the actual genesis of the Metis Nation was the creation of generations of mixed-blood marriages, rather than the result of a marriage between a Native person and a European. 

What was quite common was that after the initial European/Indian marriage, ALL subsequent marriages in a lineage were almost exclusively between mixed-bloods and eventually people who were part of the historic Metis Nation.

For instance, in the Magloire McLeod family tree, there is a good genealogical breakdown of a family line that shows significant mixed-blood intermarriage with the European ancestry providing little more than the initial admixture. In essence, European lineages were an almost ancillary fact in the matter in the genesis of the Metis Nation.

​Purple = European, Green = mixed-blood, Yellow = Indian/Native, and Red = historic Metis Nation

Out of a possible 20 ancestors, only 3 are European, and after the initial inter-marriage and resultant children, no European bloodlines re-enter the equation again.

The Genesis of those persons who are later part of the Metis Nation occurred in the early 19th century and not in the 18th or 17th centuries.  These persons were enumerated as Metis in a variety of ways (i.e. scrip or on the 1870 census).

The other side of this family (from wife Marguerite Lafournaise) there is almost no European/Native admixture and none of these individuals were enumerated as Metis on scrip or census in Canada, but were instead listed as Indian or Native on several censuses in the United States, or as mixed-bloods in the United States. The majority of this family was listed on various Indian census rolls for the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in North Dakota.

Although many of these individuals even participated in the battles at Batoche during the 1885 rebellion, most of these people were party to various Native Treaties and Agreements in the United States and are considered "Indian" for most purposes and are not part of the historic Metis Nation.

The thing to remember is that not every mixed-blood person is a Metis, and not every person born of a mixing between a European and a Native is a Metis. The development of the Metis Nation happened over generations of marriage between mixed-blood people in the territories of what is the historic Metis Homeland in western Canada and the northern United States which created kinship ties and the development of a unique and distinct culture that is known as Metis.