I don't often write specifically Metis, as it only opens me up for trolls and current political agendas, which influences the history of our ancestors negatively. However, in doing some research I found a letter train to and from Drummond island that should be a point in which we stick a pin in the Historical timeline and say this is an anchor point...
In a letter writen in 1818 from Drummond island after learning he would be in charge of giving out the indian presents (Payments) at Drummond island Thomas Trew asks the Question. What about the native women and children of the involved in the "Metis" relationship and family.
Should they get presents as well? Sadly the response is no, they should not. This however clearly distinguishes them as non-native non-French people. Establishing the people as separate, and becoming the seed of the Georgian Bay metis. At that point, 1818, they were not known as metis. This story puts the marker down for them clearly being distinguished and recognized as such, not part of either group. It doesn't neccesarily say this is the absolute beginning of metis people, only the recognition of this community.
The confluence of people at Drummond island was due to many factors, the fur trade, the war of 1812 and the Indian Departments presence on the island as well as the British Military decision to leave Mackinac to the Americans after the war. Many years later to realize they would have to leave Drummond island as well and move further east, to Penetanguishene.
These families often include those who work for the indian department as interpreters, and it is asked if they should be included, and the reply is no they should not!
So what does this establish, well it shows that at Drummond Island there was a significant amount of metis families. These families decided to come to Penetanguishene, where they were in a community said to be a "Half-breed" community. Independent and prior to other metis communities, and also probably after but also independent of other metis communities.
The British gave these people land, many if not all who had presented themselves as volunteers to fight in the war of 1812, to protect this land from American interests. These families can be found on the muster rolls of the Michigan Fencibles, Mississippi Volunteers, or on the Prize list for the siege of Mackinac.
Asked to fight by their fur trade bourgeois, they were not treated as allies but as underlings. The Native allies were recognized as allies and treated as such, but the metis/voyageurs were expected to conform to British rule. Something that they sometimes are mistakenly said to have done.
Today we have political agendas to separate these people, however at that time, there was no one doing so. Lieutenant Bulger of the British Military and commander of the Newfoundland Fencibles, describes them as..."“having for years lived uncontrolled – there being neither magistrate or minister of religion in the country – they had become almost as intractable as the Indians themselves.” (Bulger 19)
This shows them as one, he doesn't distinguish and probably he could not, they were just one culture, very much unbound by any social reasons and particularly not by blood. They were separate to the British however, and were more bound to the Northwest Company than the Military.
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