Métis

The Métis are members of ethnic groups indigenous to Canada and parts of the United States that trace their descent to indigenous North Americans and European settlers. The Métis in Canada are recognized as an aboriginal people under the Constitution Act of 1982; they number 451,795 as of 2011. Smaller communities identifying as Métis exist in the U.S.

Métis communities descended from unions between Native Americans and white settlers have developed over the centuries since European contact. In Canada, Métis in the western regions were heavily involved in the fur trade, and formed communities that have retained a unique culture.

The word "Métis" (originally from the French adjective métis: 1. something that is half of one thing and half of another, and 2. someone whose father and mother are of different races, or mixed-race) was first used to refer to people of mixed race born generally to indigenous women and French men in New France and La Louisiane. Over time in Canada, many mixed-race people married within their own group, maintaining contact with their indigenous culture. The term developed in association with these particular communities of mixed-race people and their unique culture.

The word is a cognate of Spanish mestizo and Portuguese mestiço, which have the same meaning but refer to descendants with indigenous and European ancestry in Latin American colonies. The English word mestee is a corruption of the Middle French mestis (the letters 's' both pronounced at the start of the Middle French period, and both silent at the end of the Middle French period).

The term mestee was widely used in the antebellum United States for mixed-race individuals, according to Jack D. Forbes, used for people of European and Native American ancestry, as well as European and African, or tri-racial. In the 19th century, the census takers recorded people of color as mulatto, also meaning mixed race. In former French colonies, a group known as free people of color had developed from unions between African or mixed-race women and French male colonists; often the men freed their children.

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