Uncertain Margins: Metis and Saulteaux Identities in St-Paul des Saulteaux, Red River 1821-1870‪.‬

The events marking the culmination of an historical process often surprise those contemporary to, but not part of, the process. With the events of June 1816, known alternatively as the "Seven Oaks Massacre" or the more neutral terms, "The Battle of Seven Oaks" or "la bataille de la grenouillere," fur trading and political authorities took note of a seemingly new group in the Northwest. Thus an emergent population, composed largely of individuals and families of mixed French-Native ancestry, burst onto the British North American colonial scene. While mixed descent families and clans had existed on fur trading frontiers for generations, this group defined itself as "La Nation," with corporate interests distinct from those of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) and perhaps also from those of its old ally, the North West Company (NWC). Boundaries had been drawn not only between these "Metis" and their French-Canadian or Scottish allies and kin, but also between them and other tribes like the Cree, the Saulteaux, the Assiniboine and the Sioux. The birth of "La Nation" was a case of ethnogenesis occurring on the banks of the Red and Assiniboine rivers. This was not what Jonathan Friedman would label a "primordial phenomenon"--one in which consciousness develops within a group for reasons internal to a group. Rather, this ethnogenensis occurred, at least in part, as a reaction to the process of modernisation. (1) Metis nationalism derived from increasingly problematic relations with other interest groups coupled with rapidly changing social and economic situations. These changes forced a community of people to realize common interests beyond the individual, family or clan. Being Metis moved from a statement of ancestry to an assumed corporate identity around which to mobilize and fight. Loyalty was thus transferred to a larger "imagined" community and seemingly clear boundaries ("Us and Them" / "Metis and non-Metis") were traced. (2) Metis nationalism, like all nationalist or ethnic groupings, was a socially constructed concept created by and in reaction to economic and political circumstances. (3) Metis identity became crucially important the moment it was perceived to be under threat. At that point, the need to establish boundaries to resist outside pressure from aggressive non-Metis (initially HBC personnel and Orkney settlers) became paramount. (4)