The Hunters Who Owned Themselves

Abstract

The Métis people of Western Canada are descendants of North American Indians intermarried with French Canadian, Scottish and other fur traders. Since 1670, the Hudson’s Bay Company administered a vast region, larger than Europe, known as Rupert’s Land. Neither the British Crown nor the Company distinguished between Indians and Métis in law or policy. Both were left to govern their own affairs. Other companies, based in Canada, blithely ignored the Company’s legal monopoly of the fur trade, but they all respected the political independence of native peoples.