The Historical Roots of Métis Communities North of Lake Superior Gwynneth C. D. Jones Vancouver, B. C. 31 March 2015. Prepared for the Métis Nation of Ontario Table of Contents Introduction 3 Section I: The Early Fur Trade and Populations to 1821 The Fur Trade on Lakes Superior and Nipigon, 1600 – 1763 8 Post-Conquest Organization of the Fur Trade, 1761 – 1784 14 Nipigon, Michipicoten, Grand Portage, and Mixed-Ancestry Fur Trade Employees, 1789 - 1804 21 Grand Portage, Kaministiquia, and North West Company families, 1799 – 1805 29 Posts and Settlements, 1807 – 1817 33 Long Lake, 1815 – 1818 40 Michipicoten, 1817 – 1821 44 Fort William/Point Meuron, 1817 – 1821 49 The HBC, NWC and Mixed-Ancestry Populations to 1821 57 Fur Trade Culture to 1821 60 Section II: From the Merger to the Treaty: 1821 - 1850 After the Merger: Restructuring the Fur Trade and Associated Populations, 1821 - 1826 67 Fort William, 1823 - 1836 73 Nipigon, Pic, Long Lake and Michipicoten, 1823 - 1836 79 Families in the Lake Superior District, 1825 - 1835 81 Fur Trade People and Work, 1825 - 1841 85 "Half-breed Indians", 1823 - 1849 92 Fur Trade Culture, 1821 - 1850 95 Section III: The Robinson Treaties, 1850 Preparations for Treaty, 1845 - 1850 111 The Robinson Treaty and the Métis, 1850 - 1856 117 Fur Trade Culture on Lake Superior in the 1850s 128 After the Treaty, 1856 - 1859 138 2 Section IV: Persistence of Fur Trade Families on Lakes Superior and Nipigon, 1855 - 1901 Infrastructure Changes in the Lake Superior District, 1863 - 1921 158 Investigations into Robinson-Superior Treaty paylists, 1879 - 1899 160 The Dominion Census of 1901 169 Section V: The Twentieth Century Lake Nipigon Fisheries, 1884 - 1973 172 Métis Organizations in Lake Nipigon and Lake Superior, 1971 - 1973 180 Appendix: Maps and Illustrations Watercolour, “Miss Le Ronde, Hudson Bay Post, Lake Nipigon”, 1867?/1901 Map of Lake Nipigon in T. Longstreth, The Lake Superior Country, 1924 Map of Lake Superior in T. Longstreth, The Lake Superior Country, 1924 Topographic map of vicinity of Nipigon (Gull Bay) HBC post 3 Introduction This report was prepared at the request of the Métis Nation of Ontario. The terms of reference for this report included: 1. To prepare a report based on historical research on the Métis in and around Lake Superior, Lake Nipigon and Michipicoten, as part of the Métis Nation. 2. The general focus of the historical research will be on those members of the Métis Nation who lived, used and/or occupied the areas around upper Lake Superior and Lake Nipigon. 3. The particular focus will be on historic settlements including but not limited to, Fort William (Thunder Bay), Nipigon, Rossport, McDiarmid, Longlac, Geraldton, Terrace Bay and Michipicoten (Wawa). 4. The report will cover the political, cultural, social and economic history of the Métis living in and around the Upper Great Lakes generally and the Lake Superior/Lake Nipigon/Michipicoten region specifically, including its ethnogenesis, early influences and persistence. 5. The report will look at historic Métis patterns of use and occupation including resource harvesting, with a particular focus on Métis use of the fisheries on Lake Nipigon and Lake Superior region. The study area includes the territory north of Lake Superior, from Sault Ste. Marie to Fort William/Thunder Bay, south of the height of land separating waters draining into Lakes Superior and Nipigon from those draining into Hudson’s and James Bay. These boundaries are not intended to define a territory based on use or occupancy by a specific population, but rather to provide a geographical frame within which to study activities and populations over time. The study relies on documentary evidence only and does not include an oral history or interview element. The precise genealogical and ethnic origins of much of the population of the area north of Lake Superior prior to 1821 are not clear, because of the sparseness of the documentary record from this time period. However, it is evident that there was significant interaction between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in the study region from the late seventeenth century onwards, together with the development of a distinctive way of life and economic structure drawing on 4 Aboriginal, non-Aboriginal and newly-created elements. Because of the uncertainties surrounding the identification and genealogies of specific individuals involved in this way of life, I have chosen to call it a “fur trade culture” instead of ascribing a biologically-specific term, as it developed as a result of the requirements and characteristics of the fur trade. The available historical record strongly suggests that many of the participants in this culture were of mixed Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal ancestry, and that mixed-ancestry children were raised in this culture in increasing numbers in the study region in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Many elements of what scholars have identified at a later period as “Métis culture” clearly emerge prior to 1821. Therefore, although I have not characterized this “fur trade” culture as being exclusive to mixed-ancestry people, it is directly relevant to the lives and identities of people and families labelled in later documents as “half-breeds” or “Métis”. I have also emphasized that this culture was transmissible to succeeding cohorts in ways that did not depend on genetics, so that even if individuals within the culture were highly mobile (a characteristic requirement of the fur trade), the distinctive elements of the culture developed and persisted over time. Between 1821 and 1850, this distinctive fur trade culture and the populations associated with it continued to thrive, despite a reduction in the number of people directly involved in the fur trade and changes in the work environment. Families of mixed ancestry were raised together in this setting around the posts, and were joined by newcomers who were hired based on their familiarity with the skills and culture of the trade. "Half breeds", "Canadians", "Métis", "voyageurs", "freemen", "engagés", "servants", traders and clerks were all a part of this way of life. Including both heads of households and families, people of mixed ancestry were the majority in the fur-trade community north of Lake Superior during this period. The historical sources reveal a strong sense of shared identity and traditions in both a larger fur trade community that extended from the Great Lakes to the Athabasca-Mackenzie, and a specific Lake Superior (Sault Ste. Marie/Nipigon/Fort William) community. The few outside non-Aboriginal observers that passed through this area between 1821 and 1850 could easily distinguish the members of this community both from themselves as Europeans and from the "Indians" or "Sauvages", who with a few "half-breed Indians" participated as fur trappers and customers at the posts. Unfortunately, although we know that fur-trade marriages were being made and 5 families expanded during this period, the lack of birth, marriage or death records obscures the ways in which an interrelated community may have been developing genealogically as well as culturally. The few families for which we have genealogical data demonstrate a tendency for fur-trade families to marry within the culture and strengthen their connections over generations. Terminology in research on mixed-ancestry peoples is often problematic. As much as possible, I have tried to follow the terminology used in the source historical documents, which may or may not reflect the words that people used to describe themselves. “Indian” is an unsatisfactory term that has become overlaid with legal and historical implications I do not intend, but I have used it in the absence of definite ethnological identifications for indigenous North American people who probably did not have any European ancestry. It is the usual term for such people in the documents from this time period. “Aboriginal” is a term I use as implying descent from indigenous North Americans. I have used the term “mixed ancestry” as a relatively neutral descriptor for people in the study area of mixed Aboriginal (which could include Métis) and non- Aboriginal ancestry. For non-Aboriginal people, I often use the term “European” to describe ethnic origin, without implying that everyone to whom I apply the term was born in Europe. “Canadian”, in this time period, could have different meanings depending on who was using the term. Prior to the merger of the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821, Hudson’s Bay Company men used it in a generic way to mean anyone who was affiliated with the fur trade exporting out of Montréal. It was used in contradistinction to someone affiliated with the HBC, which exported out of Hudson’s and James Bay. A “Canadian”, to an HBC author, could include someone born or living in the Great Lakes region as well as someone from the St. Lawrence River valley, regardless of ethnicity. Some North West or independent fur company authors narrowed the definition to mean a person descended from French settlers in New France (with or without Aboriginal ancestry). After the merger of the HBC and the NWC, "Canadian" could be used by HBC managers or visitors to describe someone hired in or with ancestry in "Canada" (which could include the Great Lakes), usually with some connection to the fur trade, without excluding the possibility that they might have Aboriginal ancestry. I have tried to clarify definitions in the text, following the context of the document, where necessary, but there are many instances where the precise ancestry of the person being described is obscure without further genealogical research. A person from “Hudson’s Bay”, in HBC parlance during 6 this time period, was a mixed-ancestry person, usually the child of an HBC employee, born in HBC Charter territory (not necessarily on or near Hudson’s Bay).