For the hommes du nord, the idea of family usually meant union with a Native or mixed-blood woman. The first Métis children were born soon after Europeans began exploring the West in the 17th century. During trading expeditions, European men needed to communicate with Natives to do business and find their bearings. In the early days of the trade, only a quarter of voyageurs in the North West had founded families with Native women. By 1821, nearly every voyageur, officer and company bourgeois wintering in the North West had an Aboriginal wife and children. Besides the love and companionship these women offered, they also contributed greatly to the fur trade.
Marriage among Native peoples differed from its European equivalent in that it allowed them to form clan-like family networks. Marriage for them was voluntary and could be dissolved through separation. In this manner, a Native woman could have two or three husbands in succession.
Marriage à la façon du pays (in the custom of the country)
Marriage à la facon du pays united voyageurs and Aboriginal women according to First Nations traditions, without the involvement of the Church. It contained customs typical to Lower Canada such as the dowry, parental consent and the wedding banquet. Other rituals included smoking the peace pipe, dressing the bride in Canadian style, and offering a gift to the bride's parents. Voyageurs took these marriages seriously - most had only one wife to whom they remained faithful.
When it came to marriage à la façon du pays, the trading companies had vastly different policies. The Hudson's Bay Company was interested only in business and discouraged mixed marriages. Despite the company's ban on these unions, Métis children began appearing by about 1730. The situation continued evolving into the 19th century, when the HBC lifted the marriage ban and became more involved in the welfare of the families.
The North West Company was much more open to these alliances, which contributed to the fur trade. The company even helped to care for the voyageur's wife and children. Due to the subsequent financial burden, the company began placing controls on these unions in 1806. Even so, enforcing these rules did not turn out to be an easy task.
In general, a marriage in the custom of the country was valid for the duration of the voyageur's service. These unions ranged in length from three to five years (for a typical contract) to a lifetime. The couple could also break up if the wife's tribe moved to new hunting grounds. If the voyageur returned home, the mother's tribe would raise the Métis children, passing on her people's culture. Voyageurs returning home after their contracts ended often left their wives in the care of another man. Conversely, a voyageur who wished to spend his life with his spouse in the North West retired from the company and became a Free Man.
Métis man with his two wives
Some voyageurs and their families settled in the North West, creating the first Métis communities. Others took their children with them back to Lower Canada. In these cases, the woman stayed with the man in whose care she was placed, or she returned to live with her own family.
Children of NWC employees received little support from their fathers and were free to live their own lives. Boys could join Native communities, work for the company as contracted voyageurs or clerks, or become self-employed labourers. As for girls, they could marry a voyageur or bourgeois and live at a trading post. From 1790, the sons of wintering partners were sometimes sent east for a Christian baptism and education. Some of them later returned to the West and started businesses.
Cuthbert Grant, Métis leader in the Battle of Seven Oaks
Trading companies maintained close ties with the Métis community in order to gain their support. With a unique culture and distinct way of life, the Métis sought to make the most of their dual heritage. They wanted the right to live according to their own customs and without interference from colonial governments.
Métis carts and encampment on the Prairies
On June 19, 1816, the growing animosity between the Métis and the North West Company on one side and the colonial administration of Assiniboia and the Hudson's Bay Company on the other culminated with the Battle of Seven Oaks. This armed conflict pitted a mostly Métis party of horsemen against a party of settlers and Hudson's Bay Company employees led by the governor of the colony.
Robert Semple. Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company (H.B.C.) territories, killed in the Battle of Seven Oaks.
Although unplanned, the Battle of Seven Oaks marked a collective awakening for the aspirations of the Métis people, or Bois-Brûlés, as they were known at the time. It succeeded in unifying the Métis people against their common enemy: the governor of Assiniboia and his laws, which they perceived as serving the commercial interests of the HBC.
Métis communities evolved differently according to where they lived. The idea of a Métis nation is therefore not unanimous. Aboriginal peoples believed that lifestyle was more important than genetics, so they considered mixed-blood persons as their own, since they lived, like them, in tribal communities.
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