Dispossession or Adaptation? Migration and Persistence of the Red River Metis, 1835-1890

From the Author's Abstract: "The period from 1870 to 1890 saw the widespread dispersal of the Red Rive Metis. In the past historians have attributed this migration either to the inability of the Metis to adjust to settled society, o to the forced dispossession by the Canadian government. Both these views have some validity, but oversimplify the causes of the Metis emigration from Red River. An examination of the changing nature of the Metis family economy and dynamics of migration show that the Metis movement out of Red River had begun well before 1870 and was a response to new economic opportunities. Changes in the Metis economy after 1850, changes that integrated the Red River Settlement into a wider capitalist economy, also divided Metis society on economic and occupational lines and affected the decision whether to emigrate or not. Thus the dispersal of the Metis was in some sense an adaptive and innovative response, on that had a different effect on the various Metis groups." Pg 120.