Here’s an interesting case ([2010] N.B.J. No. 392) out of New Brunswick which discusses what it means to be (or not to be, that is the question) a recognizable Métis community.
Among other things, it analyzes the ten-part test (as established in R. v. Powley) used to establish a Métis right, the historical inter-mixing of Mi’kmaq and Acadians, the history of European contact and control in the Maritime provinces, and “shadow communities.”
While the term Métis in Canada is often popularly used to describe a person of mixed aboriginal and European (often French/Acadian) descent this case is not just about whether Jackie and Roy Vautour have genealogical roots in both the Acadian and Mi’ kmag or some other aboriginal community. As will be discussed below, aboriginal rights that are entrenched in our Constitution are communal in nature and must be rooted in the existence of a historical and present community (in this case Métis) and may only be exercised by reason of an ancestrally based membership in the present community.
Turtle Talk 
Following the transfer from the French colonial administration to the “English Only” race based English feudal approach of land control and management the Metis found themselves getting the short ends of both sticks. The agendas aimed at excluding the Metis from any claim to legal land ownership under British law, was taken up by the english speaking colonizers who held their own small minded approach to which Indians got to have any say in holding on to their lands and their lives. This feudal philosophy based upon the arbitrary actions of the english speaking colonizers was supported by the emerging legal bureaucracies in order to create the english age-old bureaucratic machinery of government. This new atmosphere of colonizing power no longer supported the co-operative atmosphere prevalent during the french speaking administrations. The “English only” philosophy and the resulting anti-indigenous actions of these colonists and administators left many nations scrambling to defend their traditional territories and their rights to peacefully co-exist.
The eventual legal definition of who got to call themselves Indians according to colonial versions of English law did not, and still don’t really, include all of the traditional models of tribal existence. The long standing indigenous tradition of trading and traveling families who spoke multiple languages and traded from the gulf of Mexico to the St. Lawrence and from the eastern shores of Newfoundland and Acadia to the great plains were excluded in the newly formed definitions of who is and who is not an indian – as well as whoi is and who is not a person worthy of protection under British law. The race based aggression supported by the need of the British for control of the land and the people was even more strict than the laws in Europe where under these same conditions the Gypsies would likely have ceased to exist.
By dividing and conquering the indigenous people from their own heritage the ideal result would be that they would become obedient subjects. The approach taken to do this was by claiming that the indigenous families did not have a hierarchy of traditions belonging to certain royal and noble families. In this way whatever Indians wanted to say the land is theirs would become the willing English supported subjects and in this way extinguish the memory of the families who traditionally held the inherent rights and responsibilities to the land and people. The benefit to the English was the creating of obedient subjects who were disconnected from their own past and did not know they had surrendered their voices. Following the two row wampum theory this plan could work except for the fact that true peace is made through the joining of families and true peace is the inheritance and right of the mutual offspring.
Historically, the majority of the early Metis lineages stem from the original noble and chief families who engaged in trading alliances with other indigenous nations trading for european goods. Eventually direct marriage alliances and permanent long term trading relationships were formed with the european suppliers of these goods resulting in an independent family based nation of trading tribes from one coast to the other and from the bottom of Florida to the far north.These tribes spoke their own languages based on the indigenous families they were allied to and traded with. This is where the several forms of Michif and pidgin trade languages and lingos came from. These trading families, whether they were Beothuk, Miami, Chippewa, Fox, Cree, Pasquamoddy or Scottish; all learned to co-operatively trade and live together as one diverse and very large family. These extended tribes seasonally occupied and traded within all the known settled territories including holding permanent allied ties with all of the indigenous nations engaged in the trading of European goods.Following the defeat of the French and the moving from the trading economy to one of expanded feudal settlement led to a time of great conflict and unrest for all indigenous families.
Examining the early genealogical make up of the orignal Metis families, it is plainly obvious that all of these known Metis families are genealogically and racially connected to all of the east coast indigenous nations. Acadia is one of the main examples of the back and forth pushes for control of the land and its peoples who were under english rule, then french then back again. The unsaid effect of this back and forth push was that the majority of the early families relied on forming closer blood alliances with the indigenous populations to remain in these territories and to survive. The English purposeful agenda used to exclude these allied families from their hereditary entitlement was designed to purposefully exclude the tradition of indigenous trading and alliance practices. The proposed effect of all this was the weakening of the tribes to force them to surrender their sovereignty.
The ability of different nations, families and tribes to share traditional territories in common has remained a thorn in the side of british autocracy. Following the forced introduction of English law in the later 1700’s and the early 1800′s, the disenfranchisement of the indigenous claims to territorial rights went into full swing. The merger of the early Metis lineages with the newly arriving Scottish and English traders (primarily with the NWC) brought a challenge to English law from the dual citizen nature of the Bois Brule/Metis. At that time mixed bloods were classed as fully indigenous and had no protection of their rights to inheritance from their British subject parentage. Many court battles were fought over this that eventually established the legal formulas for proving entitlement – yet the holding of it was another matter entirely. It was from the futility of those endless battles that the Bois Brule/Metis realized they needed to show their hand and eventually were forced to defend their rights to life and property through forcefully defending themselves against the attempted theft of their traditional trading family’s territory at White Oaks Plains. Following their armed defense of their territory, the emerging newly formed Canadian English speaking bureaucracy increased their race based approach and focussed specifically on the Metis to exclude the Bois Brule/Metis from their British and their indigenous hereditary rights to entitlement.
By focusing on excluding rights of the Metis from their indigenous heritage and from their British heritage the bureaucracy found its best approach was to support the vigilante and brutish cabals who willingly and joyfully used force to take over the best pasture and faming locations.Through the use of these blatantly racist vigilantes most families found themselves uprooted and disinherited while the British and colonial coffers and land holdings just got fatter and fatter. For the most part the British Crown did not have to get its fingers dirty as the vigilantes from all walks of life virtually stripped the land clean of any opposition to complete British control and ownership.
What is excluded from this brutal approach are the long term peaceful alliances of families agreeing to walk the same road while their children go between the rows to become the strong united mixed blood family that is the fulfilling of the true pledge of peace. The English colonial approach when viewed in indigenous terms of reference would be like the making of a one row wampum treaty where the english are really only in alliance with themselves to the exclusion of all others.
When we look at the effects of this one row wampum approach, we can now easily see that the indigenous, traveling, trading tradition of seasonal occupation have virtually become illegal and punishable through English law. Through the exclusion to protection of Metis and mixed hereditary rights; the government has created a generational fast-track for the eventual and permanent exclusion to indigenous rights and heritage for every first nation and every status card holder or native band member. The first nations under control of the non-indigenous governments will continue to alienate the long term relationships of their traditionally allied by blood mixed descendants until there are no more first nations people left.It is our choice and our freedom to halt this process by standing against the tyranny of these laws that are really only aimed at the exclusion of all mixed blood descendants from their indigenous heritage and rights. When we each remember our true families, including the Maliseet, Beothuk and other eastern allied families, we will find ourselves standing firmly together again as one large family, united in the heart of creation forever. Until then we are just subjects of age-old feudal tyranny.
I am a Voutour and yet yes there metis in the maritimes i did research and i have proof off that
There are at least 15,000 Metis in Nova Scotia alone. Yet the have the audacity to make claims that we do not exist here, we are shunned by every part of society therefore we made our own communities that is exactly how it happened to our brothers out west. I’m proud to be Metis and to have over a quarter of native blood, but due to the racism of the government at both provincial and federal levels Metis here are forced to abandon their own people and hide there native roots and only ever mention the roots our “society” deems acceptable ( I.e just European roots ) People in some parts if Canada even lose their jobs in some places to even admit to being Metis. We have been abused and tormented since we lost the two uprisings over a century ago and even today we are still de-humanized and made to look like villains in most cases which is the case for most peoples with native blood in this country when dealing with our government. My Metis roots go back on every one of my lines to the 1600’s and yet my government seems to forget all about the tens of thousands of Metis who live in Atlantic Canada. According to the government and some of the best lawyers of the maritimes seem to think we are nothing but a bunch of free loaders yet most of my family spend every single day working like most people. Several relatives are very long serving veterans in the Canadian armed forces, if all go’s we’ll I will follow the example of my uncle a 33 year tank veteran, my great grand dad a ww1 navy veteran , 11 cousins in ww1 , a great uncle in ww2 , a great uncle in desert storm, and a my extended family members has/had some of my relatives who fought in the Afghanistan war despite the government.