Description
Book SynopsisIn Eastern Métis, Michel Bouchard, Sébastien Malette, and Siomonn Pulla demonstrate the historical and social evidence for the origins and continued existence of Métis communities across Ontario, Quebec, and the Canadian Maritimes as well as the West. Contributors to this edited collection explore archival and historical records that challenge narratives which exclude the possibility of Métis communities and identities in central and eastern Canada. Taking a continental rhizomatic approach, this book provides a rich and nuanced view of what it means to be Métis.
Trade ReviewThis is a challenging book that weighs in on the controversial and divisive debate of who has the right to claim capital "M" Métis status in Canada. The collection assembles essays by scholars of anthropology, sociology, law, history, linguistics, geography, and interdisciplinary studies, purporting to present historical and social evidence of the origins and continued existence of cohesive Métis communities in Ontario, Quebec, the Maritime provinces, and (despite the title) the Pacific Northwest region of Canada. Challenging the "nationalist trope" that only the Red River Métis of the northern Plains can claim Métis identity, this collection directly challenges the perspective of scholars like Jacqueline Peterson, Darryl Leroux, Adam Gaudry, and Jesse Thistle, not to mention the established Canadian legal view asserting that other claims to Métis status are little more than "race shifting"—a tactical use of long-ago racial mixing to reimagine a "Métis" identity and thus assert treaty rights. This book by no means settles the debate, but is nonetheless a thought-provoking contribution to the complicated topic of mixed Indigenous-settler identity, which will undoubtedly continue to spark controversy and inspire further study. Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.
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Eastern Métis: Chronicling and Reclaiming a Denied Past is long overdue and opens up important new understandings of our shared pasts.
-- Jean Barman, University of British Columbia; author of French Canadians, Furs, and Indigenous Women in the Making of the Pacific Northwest
Table of ContentsChapter 1: Symbolic Violence against the “Other Métis”: The Making of a New Forgotten People in Canada
Chapter 2: Political Ontologies in Turmoil: Métis “Neo-Nationalism” and the “Other Métis”
Chapter 3: The Languages of the Métis in Canada
Chapter 4: Situating Nova Scotia Métis Identities in a Colonial Past
Chapter 5: The Acadian Métis on the Geographic and Social Margins
Chapter 6: Métissage and Métis Identity in the Gaspé Peninsula: From Its
Origins to the 1886 Paspébiac Riots
Chapter 7: Undercoat Communities: The Geohistorical Scaling of Métis Identity in the East
Chapter 8: “The Lowest Race of Any in Canada”: Mitifs from the Fur Trade and the Voyageurs Parishes of St. Lawrence Valley
Chapter 9: Understanding the Impacts of a Transitional and Mixed Regional Economy on the Emergence of the Historic Métis of Mattawa
Chapter 10 : The Voyageur Métis of Penetanguishene: An Examination of the Ethnohistory of the Métis in Ontario
Chapter 11: The Story of French Canadian Métis Voyageur Joseph Dussault in the Pacific Northwest
Chapter 12: The Case of Maxim Cormier and the Unrecognized Acadian Métis: Between Criminalization and Group Lateral Violence
Chapter 13: “This Hero of Whom the Metis Nation at Large Must Be Proud”: Private Patrick Riel of Maniwaki
