Saint-Laurent, Manitoba: Evolving Métis Identities, 1850–1914

Jonathan Anuik is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History and
president of the HGSC at the University of Saskatchewan.

What was the definition of “Métis” resident in Saint Laurent and
its adjacent parishes from 1850 to 1914 and what influences changed the
category? Historian of the Métis of the Red River Settlement Nicole
St-Onge defines Métisness through a case study of the Saint Laurent
parish. St-Onge follows Jennifer S.H. Brown’s 1987 observation of the
multiplicity of contexts for Métisness and the tendency among the
families and communities to define the limits of inclusiveness.

St-Onge seeks to understand the silence surrounding individuals of
mixed ancestry in Canada and places the question in the parish. St-Onge
observes 19th- and early-20th-century Saint Laurent as a community where
predominantly-mixed residents followed a diversity of economic pursuits
ranging from buffalo hunting, fishing, and trapping to sedentary
agriculture. The author uses census data to chart the occupational paths
of families and ecclesiastical records to uncover the changing attitudes
toward the Métis of the parish. St-Onge finds that by the early 20th
century, class affected the choice of the individual to identify as
Métis or French-Canadian. The Roman Catholic clergy favoured agrarian
families who attended church regularly and clergy contributed to the
growing discourse of civilization in Western Canada and abroad. In order
to “fit in” with the “civilized community,” families distanced
themselves from relatives and a next generation grew up to be French
Canadian and not “Indian” or “Métis.”

“To be Métis was to be poor, to live in a run-down shack … and to
cling to pre-1870 customs of dress, language, social and economic values
… to be Métis in Saint Laurent in 1914 meant not to own land or
livestock and not to be at least a part-time farmer.” St-Onge show
that Métis identity changed from one defined by cultural practice and
occupational preference to a class position. The author allows the
families to speak through the use of oral testimony from subsequent
generations and supplies a context for inquiry into the origins of
race-related prejudice and intolerance in Western Canada.