In the autumn of 1850, government-appointed Treaty Commissioner William B. Robinson, made a promise on behalf of the Crown that the lands on which the Sault Ste. Marie Métis Community resided on along the St. Mary’s River would be respected and protected. These Métis lands were organized into narrow family river lots; a pattern recognizable throughout the Métis Nation Homeland, and shared by other Métis communities including Batoche, the Red River, and St. Albert. These Métis

The Métis and Anishinaabe communities of Sault Ste. Marie have been long-time allies.   Perhaps the most notable example of allyship between the two political groups occurred both during and after the Mica Bay Incident—one of the most important moments in the history of Crown-Indigenous relations in the Upper Great Lakes.   Following their collective action at Mica Bay alongside their Métis allies, the Anishinaabek Chiefs Shingwaukonse-ibun and Nebainagoching-ibun advocated f

Following their exclusion from the 1850 Robinson-Huron Treaty and despite Treaty Commissioner Robinson’s recognition that the Métis were in “free and full possession” of their lands, the Sault Ste. Marie Métis Community’s families found themselves without government-recognized title and were forced to relocate from their River Lot homes. Over the next decade, town sites at Sault Ste. Marie were opened to Ontario settlers. As a result, by 1861, Sault Ste. Marie was swamped by

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