Metis people

WikiProjectThe Métis (/meɪˈtiː/) are members of ethnic groups native to Canada and parts of the United States that trace their descent to both indigenous North Americans and European settlers. Originally the term applied to French-speaking mixed-race families, especially in the Red River area of what became Manitoba, Canada; in the late 19th century in Canada, those of mixed English descent were classified separately as Mixed Bloods. The Métis (/meɪˈtiː/) are members of ethnic groups native to Canada and parts of the United States that trace their descent to both indigenous North Americans and European settlers. Originally the term applied to French-speaking mixed-race families, especially in the Red River area of what became Manitoba, Canada; in the late 19th century in Canada, those of mixed English descent were classified separately as Mixed Bloods. Since the late 20th century, the Métis in Canada have been recognized as a distinct aboriginal people under the Constitution Act of 1982; they number 587,545 as of 2016. Smaller communities self-identifying as Métis exist in the U.S. The word derives from the French adjective métis, also spelled metice, referring to a hybrid, or someone of mixed ancestry.:1080 In the 16th century, French colonists used the term métis as a noun for people of mixed European and indigenous American parentage in New France (Quebec) and La Louisiane in North America; at the time, it applied generally to French-speaking people who were of partial ethnic French descent. (It is related to the Spanish term 'Mestizo', which has the same meaning.) It later came to be used for people of mixed European and indigenous backgrounds in other French colonies, including Guadeloupe in the Caribbean; Senegal in West Africa; Algeria in North Africa; and the former French Indochina in Southeast Asia. In Latin America, a similar word is mestizo in Spanish-speaking countries, and in Portuguese-speaking countries, mestiço is also used. The English word mestee is a corruption of the Middle French mestis (the letters 's' both pronounced at the start of the Middle French period, and both silent at the end of the Middle French period). It has also been used to refer to people of mixed race born generally to indigenous women and French men in New France. The Métis in Canada married within their own group, and over time, created a distinct culture and ethnicity of their own. In former French colonies where slavery was part of society, a group known as gens du couleur libre (free people of color) developed from unions between African or mixed-race women and French male colonists. In New Orleans, the system of plaçage was well developed in the eighteenth century, in which women in these relationships received some protection by contracts, often negotiated by their mothers. Often the men freed the women, if they were enslaved, and their mixed-race children, if born into slavery. Property settlements were also part of the relationship, and the men sometimes provided for education of sons, sometimes in France. The term mestee was widely used in the antebellum United States for mixed-race individuals, according to Jack D. Forbes. It was used for people of European and Native American ancestry, as well as European and African, and for those who were tri-racial. In the 19th century and up until 1930, United States census takers recorded people of color as mulatto, also meaning mixed race. After the American Civil War, the term 'mestee' gradually fell into disuse when millions of slaves were emancipated as freedmen. As whites in the South worked to re-establish white supremacy, they imposed Jim Crow laws after regaining control of state legislatures. In the early 20th century, they passed more stringent laws establishing the 'one-drop rule'. By this anyone with any known Sub-Saharan African ancestry was legally 'Black', a more restrictive definition than had previously operated in the South, especially on the frontier. Scholar Jack D. Forbes has attempted to revive 'mestee' as a term for the mixed-race peoples who were established as free before the Civil War. Worldwide, since the early 20th century the term Metis has been applied in various ways. Metisaje was used from the 1920s to the 1960s in some Latin American countries to indicate cultural hybridity, and at times to invoke a nationalist sentiment. Cultural 'Hybridity' theorists have used the term 'métissage' to examine postcolonial themes, including Françoise Lionnet. Creolité is a cultural and literary movement that has common threads with 'métis' identity, and has been a counterpoint to the Négritude movement, although it has also been used to indicate 'race and gender specific' themes as well. The Métis Nation is considered to be rooted in what is known as the 'Métis Homeland,' an area ranging from northwestern Ontario and moving westward across the prairies. In this area, fur trappers married indigenous Cree and Saulteaux women. A distinct ethnicity developed, as mixed-race descendants married within this group and remained involved with fur trapping and trading. They also began to farm in the Red River of the North area.