Indian Trader and Interpreter

Peterson (1981:158) provides examples of what she typifies as three patterns of marriage among Great Lakes métis trade families: 1) a son first entered into a short-term “country” marriage with a native woman to ensure the trust of her band; 2) this was usually followed by a permanent second marriage to a prominent métis or French-Canadian creole woman of another trading family, and; 3) métis daughters generally married other métis or if members of the elite, to incoming Europeans. Such patterns resulted in what Peterson calls “trading dynasties" PRAX IS Research Associates, 1999: Historic Métis in Ontario - Wawa Page 25 http://www.metisnation.org/media/141020/ontario%20report%20-%20michipicoten.pdf

"An important métis “invention” was the language of trade (Francais sauvage) which Peterson (1981:176-179) demonstrates was in use in the lower St Lawrence as early as 1632. Further north, an English equivalent of trade communication known as “Home Guard” Ojibwa developed, but it was the French derivative that pervaded and eventually evolved into the vernacular of Canadians and métis at Red River by the 1830s. This new language now known as Michif is a combination of French and Ojibwa and “most certainly transported from the Great Lakes region as the trade shifted westward” (ibid.:179)" PRAXIS Research Associates, 1999: Historic Métis in Ontario - Wawa Page 2 7 http://www.metisnation.org/media/141020/ontario%20report%20-%20michipicoten.pdf

R E S E A R C H    R E P O R T: HISTORIC  MÉTIS IN  ONTARIO: WAWA and ENVIRONS FOR THE MINISTRY OF NATURAL RESOURCES OF THE GOVERNMENT OF ONTARIO NAT IVE AFFAIRS UNIT 300 Water Street P.O. Box 7000 Peterborough, Ontario K9J 8M5 August 12, 1999 Excerpt from Page 24 "Peterson (1985:39) asserts that the distinctiveness of métis in Great Lakes area was fully apparent to outsiders by the early decades of the 1800s when racial terms began to be used in classifying Indians from half-breeds or métis. Van Kirk (1980:95-6) reports that ca. 1800, a NWC policy of supporting servants’ families coupled with the emergence of a body of “freemen”, resulted in the progeny of Nor’Westers being recognized at an early stage as a group distinct from the Indians. They were known as “métis” or “bois brulés” and by far the largest number of them were descendants of the French-Canadian engagés and their Indian wives. According to Gorham (ibid.:40- 41), it was not until the 1820s that a few sc...