{"id":22903,"date":"2012-05-04T13:15:04","date_gmt":"2012-05-04T13:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=22903"},"modified":"2012-05-04T13:15:04","modified_gmt":"2012-05-04T13:15:04","slug":"the-historiography-of-metis-land-dispersal-1870-1890","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=22903","title":{"rendered":"The Historiography of M\u00e9tis Land Dispersal, 1870-1890"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Historiography of M\u00e9tis Land Dispersal, 1870-1890<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Manitoba History<\/a>
\nNumber 30, Autumn 1995<\/a>
\n
\nBrad Milne<\/strong>
\nHistory Department
\nUniversity of Manitoba<\/em><\/p>\n

The Manitoba Act of 1870<\/a> provided substantial land grants to the M\u00e9tis<\/a> at Red River.<\/a> Section 31 set aside 1.4 million acres of land for distribution among the children of M\u00e9tis heads of families residing in the province, while section 32 guaranteed all old settlers, M\u00e9tis or white, \u201cpeaceable possession\u201d of the lots they occupied in the Red River settlement prior to 15 July, 1870. Subsection 32(5) guaranteed allotments of land to commute the rights of hay and common in the outer two miles that accompanied many of the old river lots. Additional legislation of 1874 granted $160 scrip, redeemable in Dominion lands, to all M\u00e9tis heads of families. However, as most students and scholars of M\u00e9tis history are aware, very little of this land and scrip remained in M\u00e9tis hands by the late 1870s. Instead, the period from 1870 to 1890 saw the widespread dispersal of the M\u00e9tis from Red River.<\/p>\n

In the last two decades, a virtual \u201cexplosion in M\u00e9tis scholarship\u201d has emerged to determine why this large scale migration occurred.With native political organizations and the governments of Canada and Manitoba embroiled in an on-going court battle, various scholars have received generous financial support to investigate M\u00e9tis land claims in Manitoba. For two scholars in particular, Douglas Sprague<\/a> and Thomas Flanagan<\/a>, the M\u00e9tis dispersal has become a subject of bitter dispute. Flanagan, a University of Calgary political scientist and a historical consultant for the federal Department of Justice, believes that the federal government fulfilled the land provisions of the Manitoba Act. On the other hand, Sprague, a historian retained by the Manitoba M\u00e9tis Federation to undertake research into M\u00e9tis land claims, argues that through a process of formal and informal discouragement, the M\u00e9tis were victims of a deliberate conspiracy in which John A. Macdonald and the Canadian government successfully kept them from obtaining title to the land they were to receive under terms of the Manitoba Act of 1870. Although Sprague and Flanagan remain the central combatants in this historiographical battle, significant research has been conducted by many other scholars, most notably Gerhard Ens<\/a> and Nicole St-Onge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In short, the issue of M\u00e9tis land dispersal is controversial and is the focus of an impressive historiographical debate. This article will not add to the debate. It is designed to help those who are not specialists in M\u00e9tis history gain an understanding of the state of the argument over land claims…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Historiography of M\u00e9tis Land Dispersal, 1870-1890 Manitoba History Number 30, Autumn 1995 Brad Milne History Department University of Manitoba The Manitoba Act of 1870 provided substantial land grants to the M\u00e9tis at Red River. Section 31 set aside 1.4 million acres of land for distribution among the children of M\u00e9tis heads of families residing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,19,459,1467,8],"tags":[10642,9392,10641],"class_list":["post-22903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-canada","category-history","category-law","category-media-archive","tag-brad-milne","tag-manitoba","tag-manitoba-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22903\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}