The Métis were also called mixed, bois-brûle, chicot, half-breed, country born and mixed blood. Michif is a Métis language which uses 'Cree' verbs and French nouns. Nehipwat is a word meaning Cree and Assiniboine from Nehiyaw (Cree) and pwat (Siouan).
The North West company (1760-1821) (also called the XY company) headed in Montreal, Quebec by Scottish Directors used French Canadians for canoeman, the French courer commonly called engagés and voyageurs. The British ran the Hudson Bay Company (1670-1870) from its head office in England. In Northern Saskatchewan, the first fur trading posts arose were built close to the fur trade. Some Métis communities in North West Saskatchewan in the Lloydminster Gen Web Region were Ile à la Crosse, Buffalo Narrows, Lake Athabasca, Delmas, Beauval, Cochin, Delmas, Frenchman's Butte, La Loche, Green Lake, Montreal Lake, Bapaume. Prince Albert Gen Web Region in North East Saskatchewan developed Métis communities at Cumberland House, La Ronge, St. Louis, and Sandy Bay.
From this fur-trading era (1780-1830), a new distinct ethnoculture arose called the Métis which were families of Frenchmen who wed "à la façon du pays" native women mainly those of the 'Ojibwa'. Surnames would change to show the mixed blood marriage and the mother's heritage, the name MACKAY, for instance would change to MACAILLE . In the Red River Colony area were Cree, Ojibway, French and English. Hivernants were winterers who would seasonally leave their Red River Valley homes to be nearer the buffalo and then return. The Métis had settled in seignioral fashion along the Saskatchewan river front with long narrow strips expanding away from the river as the family size increased. The Red River Colony was on the St. Lawrence- Great Lakes- Saskatchewan River Route and was a major fur trading center for the North West company (1760-1821). When the Earl of Selkirk brought Scottish and Northern Irish settlers to the Red River Colony in 1812, there was resistance by the already established Métis. By 1817, a treaty was signed, and Métis, settlers and Hudson Bay Company retirees lived in the Red River Colony till the signing of the Manitoba Act of 1870. In 1821, the administration districts of the Northwest Company and the Hudson Bay Company are merged into the Hudson Bay Company. More settlers arrived to the Red River colony in 1850.
In 1857 the Dominion Government awarded 50 acres (20 hectares) of land to any male who would cut tribal ties and cease to be an indian. Aboriginal women who married non indian men could no longer live on reserve land as of 1869. Children and women lost status. However, a non-indian woman who married an aboriginal male obtained Indian status and both women and the families children could live on the reserve. Louis Riel established a provisional government in 1869-1870 in Red River to assist in Métis land claims. Surveyors came along in 1869 marking out square 6 mile by 6 mile townships which were divided into quarter sections on land already held by the Métis. There was no more Rupert's land in 1870, the area was now divided into the newly formed Province of Manitoba (which did not extend as far north as the present day province of Manitoba) and into the North West Territories with its divisions called provisional districts.
The Manitoba Act signed May 12, 1875 awarded 1,400,000 acres (567,000 hectares) for Métis and half-breeds in the form of "half breed scrip". Only 600,000 acres (243,000 hectares) were actually given out.
From 1835-1890 the Métis left the Red River Settlement. Wood Mountain, Moose Jaw Gen Web region, became the new home of 40 families who left St. François Xavier and Pembina in 1869. St. François Xavier Métis also left to the Battleford area in 1869 following the vanishing buffalo herds. There were those who claimed half breed scrip in the South Saskatchewan River Valley and formed settlement places of Duck Lake, St. Laurent (now called St.Laurent-Grandin), St. Louis de Langevin, Batoche and nearby Domremy in the provisional district of Saskatchewan, North West Territories. 187 St. François Xavier Parish Métis left the Red River Colony in 1870 for this area along the South Saskatchewan River. Before 1870 only 30 of this parish had departed. (These areas are in the Saskatoon Region Gen Web Region pages) As well Métis moved south to the U.S.A. and further west to Fort Edmonton. St. Andrews Parish Métis, Red River Colony moved to Victoria, and Saskatchewan River Forks area (Kindersley Gen Web Region). In the Swift Current Gen Web Region, Chimney Coulee near Eastend, Saskatchewan was so named for the chimneys which remained from Métis cabins which were built in the late 1800's. Touchwood Hills and Lebret were two Métis setlements of the Yorkton Gen Web Region. A little further north Métis settled at Perigord (Kamsack Gen Web Region ) Métis left St. Boniface parish, Red River Colony before 1870 which was 12.5% of the parish. Only 7% of the new province of Manitoba remained Métis, 80% of the Métis migrated elsewhere. See also French-Saskatchewan and Canadian-Saskatchewan web pages.
The Dominion Government passed the Dominion Land Act of 1872 which offered a quarter section or 160 acres of land for homesteaders for a $10.00 application fee. It was decided by the Dominion Govenment in 1867 that first nations people could not apply for homestead grants. By 1884, the quarter section surveyors came further west arriving at the Métis land lots along the South Saskatchewan River in the Saskatchewan provisional district of the North West Territories. To compound the matter further, the land titles agents at the office in Prince Albert did not speak French. By the time the Métis returned to their river lots from the land titles office, there may be a squatter on the land. Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont came forward on behalf of the Métis plight, now arising for the second time. The North West Rebellion of 1885 which ensued became the first Canadian 'national' issue. The rebellion was at once a dividing and unifying agent of Canada. Canada was made up of French speaking Nova Scotians, French Canadian Quebeçois, Anglophone Manitoba and Ontario residents, and in New Brunswick this meant the French from Acadie, and the Anglophone: English (from England and New England) and Irish who all became aware of western Canada and of Canada as a nation. The bi-racial, bi-cultural agreement of Canada's confederacy of 1867 came to notice with this rebellion, Métis or Canadian, a polarization of heritage. See also Batoche and Sask Gen Web Resources: War
In 1952, the government settled indian and Métis at Green Lake, Saskatchewan in a co-operative farming venture.
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