(Photo via Sonny Bou)
Mount Sinclair on the far south-eastern edge of British Columbia (Ktunaxa and Secwepemc territory), named by colonizers after the infamous Métis leader, and my relative, James Sinclair of Red River. I am a direct descendant of his sister Catherine Sinclair
by M.Gouldhawke (2020)
Challenging the BC Metis Federation’s (BCMF) recent statements regarding Secwepemc sovereignty and false claims to Métis territorial rights in BC; links to articles about similar claims made by a different organization, the Metis Nation of BC (MNBC); and some personal-historical commentary about Métis in British Columbia.
For reference: Shuswap Nation Tribal Council (SNTC) regarding Assertions of Métis Rights in Secwepemc Territory, December 8, 2020, letter
The BC Métis Federation is wrong. There was no ethnogenesis of Métis in BC. Ethnogenesis results in a unique ppl in a specific location not the same ppl in diff. places. It’s a result of endogamy & resistance to assimilation not some mixture of supposed European & Native “races”
Chief Wayne Christian’s Dec. 8 letter on behalf of the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council showed a correct understanding of who the Métis people are, where we are from & where we’re able to claim territorial Sec.35 rights (our homeland centred on the prairies), in contrast to the BCMF.
Settler government granted “rights” are a problematic framework because they can be utilized by neo-colonial organizations against Indigenous peoples (of the same or another nation). What about responsibilities & obligations instead of rights?
Métis shouldn’t have territorial rights in the vast majority of BC (west of the Rockies & outside Treaty 8). But Canada still has a fiduciary obligation to us wherever we are cuz they forcibly stole our land in 1870-1885. Urban supports? But not territorial. Not to be confused.
By “urban supports”, I mean government-funded services such as health care and housing for diasporic Métis (living outside our homeland), in contrast to territory-based Section 35 rights. All of Canada benefits from having stolen Métis land and resources, so it stands to argument that Métis are owed rent in some form. It’s important to remember though that urban areas are also Indigenous territory, as Métis people should know well, having played a major part in founding the prairies cities of Winnipeg, Prince Albert and Edmonton. But the vast majority of urban areas in BC are the territories of other Indigenous nations, not the Métis.
– M.Gouldhawke (2020)
Recommended recent articles
In Defence Of The Integrity Of Our Nation: Métis Colonialism West Of The Rocky Mountains, by Stephen Mussell via the Yellowhead Institute (April 6, 2021)
“MNBC is not, and never has been, a nation — nor have any of the other four provincial Métis governments or the Métis National Council. MNBC is a representative body that advocates on behalf of a largely arbitrary group of Métis who reside within the arbitrary colonial borders of B.C.”
Do Métis Have Rights In British Columbia? Let Our Métis People Be Heard In A Good Way, by Stephen Mussell via the Yellowhead Institute (October 22, 2020)
“However, there is a baseless and deeply troubling aspect of the report I do not agree with: MNBC asserts that we have constitutionally protected Aboriginal rights to lands and resources in British Columbia west of the Rocky Mountains.“
Some personally-relevant history of Métis people in BC
Hudson’s Bay Company governor George Simpson once said that James Sinclair (pictured above) was “without exception, the most unprincipled man I ever had any dealings with in the Company’s territories, and [he] has through misrepresentation and low cunning very seriously injured the Company’s interests.”
James Sinclair was an integral part of the coalescence of the Métis Nation in Red River in the 1840s, due to his organizing of petitions against the Hudson’s Bay Company monopoly on trade, as well as his work as a defense lawyer for Métis fur-trader Pierre-Guillaume Sayer in 1849, alongside an armed mobilization by Louis Riel’s father, Louis Riel Sr.
This mobilization successfully broke the Company’s trade monopoly once again, just as the Métis/Halfbreeds had previously done by armed force in 1816.
As part of an attempt to remove Sinclair from the hotspot of Red River, and as part of a territorial struggle with the United States, the Hudson’s Bay Company later had Sinclair take Métis settlers to British Columbia and Oregon (then a disputed territory).
This history does not in itself give Métis people any territorial rights whatsoever in BC or Oregon, or make us ‘Indigenous’ to these areas in any sense at all, in contrast to what state-recognized organizations like the Metis Nation of BC (MNBC) imply.
– M.Gouldhawke
Also
An Appeal for Justice, by Louis Riel (1885)
We Do Take Exception to This Term “Rebellion”, by Malcolm Norris (1962)
Overshadowed National Liberation Wars, by Howard Adams (1992)
Secwepemc History of Resistance, by M.Gouldhawke (2005)
We need to return to the principles of Wahkotowin, by Maria Campbell (2007)