In 1850, the Métis community at Sault Ste. Marie stood together to protect their River Lots from settler encroachment, following the Robinson-Huron Treaty, by signing the 1850 Sault Ste. Marie Métis Petition. Michel (Michael) Labatte was among the 1850 Sault Ste. Marie Métis Petition’s signatories, on behalf of his Métis River Lot family. Born in 1814 on the American side of Sault Ste. Marie, Michael was the son of Métis War of 1812 veteran Louis George Labatte and Louisa Cad

In 1850, the Métis of Sault Ste. Marie petitioned the Crown for the recognition and protection of their River Lots on the St. Marys River following their exclusion from the Robinson-Huron Treaty. The 1850 Sault Ste. Marie Métis Petition was signed by members of numerous prominent Métis families in the area, including the Biron, Cadotte, Lesage, Nolin, Sayer, and Labatte families. Seven members of the Métis Boissonneau family were also among the 1850 Petition’s fifty-five sign

On October 21, 1850, Treaty Commissioner William B. Robinson formally submitted a petition to the Governor General, Lord Elgin, on behalf of the Métis of Sault Ste. Marie. Alongside the Sault Ste. Marie Métis Petition, Commissioner Robinson provided a handwritten cover letter advocating for its just implementation, stating: “I will thank you to lay the accompanying paper before His Excellency the Governor General. They are those to which I alluded in conversation with His Exc

On October 21, 1850, Treaty Commissioner William B. Robinson delivered a petition to the Crown on behalf of the Métis community at Sault Ste. Marie seeking recognition and protections for their River Lot homes along the St. Marys River. The 1850 Sault Ste. Marie Métis Petition was penned following the advice Treaty Commissioner Robinson gave the Métis during the recent Robinson-Huron Treaty negotiations, after asserting he “had no power to give them free grants of land” as pa

Marie Anne Cadotte was born in 1789 at La Pointe on Lake Superior in the Upper Great Lakes to fur trader Michel Cadotte le Petite and his Ojibwe wife Charlotte Okapeguijigokoue. Growing up enmeshed in the thriving Upper Great Lakes fur trade, Marie Anne regularly interacted with travelers and traders from locations throughout the historic North-West on both sides of what is now the Canadian-American border, including her future husband, fur-trader Francois Xavier Biron. Marie

Elizabeth Dusome was born in 1847 at Highland Point, “across the bay” from Penetanguishene into the large and deeply connected Métis family that had moved from the Red River to Georgian Bay in the Upper Great Lakes in the years before her birth.   As a “pioneer resident” of the region who grew up at a time when Penetanguishene was a “cedar swamp with a scattering of Indian wigwams and fishing shanties”, only a generation after much of the community had been relocated there fr