Research Catalog

Homeland to hinterland : the changing worlds of the Red River Metis in the nineteenth century

Title: Homeland to hinterland : the changing worlds of the Red River Metis in the nineteenth century / Gerhard J. Ens.
Author: Ens, Gerhard J. (Gerhard John), 1954-
Publication: Toronto : University of Toronto Press, ©1996.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Use in library	E99.M47 E57 1996	Off-site

Details

Description

xiv, 268 pages : illustrations, maps, portraits; 23 cm

Summary

Most writing on Metis history has tended to concentrate on the Resistance of 1869-70 and the Rebellion of 1885, without adequately explaining the social and economic origins of the Metis that shaped those conflicts. Historians have often emphasized the aboriginal aspect of the Metis heritage, stereotyping the Metis as a primitive people unable or unwilling to adjust to civilized life and capitalist society. In this social and economic history of the Metis of the Red River Settlement, specifically the parishes of St Francois Xavier and St Andrew's, Gerhard Ens argues that the Metis participated with growing confidence in two worlds: one Indian and pre-capitalist, the other European and capitalist. Ens maintains that Metis identity was not defined by biology or blood but rather by the economic and social niche they carved out for themselves within the fur trade. Ens finds that the Metis, rather than being overwhelmed, adapted quickly to the changed economic conditions of the 1840s and actually influenced the nature of change. The opening of new markets and the rise of the buffalo-robe trade fed a 'cottage industry' whose increasing importance had significant repercussions for the maintenance of ethnic boundaries, the nature of Metis response to the Riel Resistance, and the eventual decline of the Red River Settlement as a Metis homeland.

Subjects

Genre/Form

History

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (p. [229]-253) and index.

Contents

The Metis and the Formation of the Red River Colony -- The Red River Peasantry: Metis Economy and Society in the 1830s -- The Red River Peasantry: The Demographic Regime -- The Metis and the Transition to Market Capitalism, 1840-1870 -- Metis Demography and Proto-Industrialism in Red River, 1840-1870 -- Family, Ethnicity, Class, and the Riel Resistance of 1869-1870 -- Homeland to Hinterland: The Dispersal of the Red River Metis after 1870 -- Appendix A. Family Reconstitution Methodology -- Appendix B. Migration Data and Methodology.

ISBN

0802008356
9780802008350
0802078222
9780802078223

LCCN

97123117

OCLC

ocm37221100
37221100
SCSB-2112611

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library