One of Canada's 3 Aboriginal peoples.
In Canada's colonial times, many French settlers (and sometimes
British as well) married First Nations women and engaged in the fur trade. The children were a
mix of both First Nations and French, and often grew up biculturally. Many married other bicultural children, though some married a European or First Nations instead, whose children would be raised biculturally as well. After a while, these bicultural
people grew to become their own nation and their own
people - The Métis. Called by many names, Half-Breed, Métis, Chicot, the
people who own themselves, etc. The Métis are a proud people with a rich culture and heritage deeply embedded in Canadian History. Some Métis are called pretendians due to misunderstandings of their culture.
"You're Métis, cool, so which of your
parents is an Indian?"
"Neither, my mother is Métis."
"Oh so you're like 1/4 Indian? Dude you're such a Pretendian."
"No, that's not how it works. Métis are a distinct
people based off of a mixed race, we don't really think much of blood quantum since we're a mixed race as it is, and there's
people all over the map on the blood quantum scale, but we're all still Métis anyway. We're not 1/2 Métis if one of our parents is Métis, we're just Métis."
