Breaching Crown-Métis Allyship in Penetanguishene

As Georgian Bay Métis Community member, Lewis Solomon, later recalled to journalist A.C. Osborne, when the Métis of Drummond Island first arrived in Penetanguishene, the future town site was home to only a small British military garrison with few permanent residents or structures:

“We landed at the Barrack’s Point, near the site of the garrison, and where the officers’ quarters were erected… There were only three houses there: a block-house, the quarters of Capt. Woodin, the post Commander; a log-house covered with cedar bark for the sailors near the shore; and a log-house on the hill, called the ‘Masonic Arms,’ a place of entertainment kept by Mrs. Johnson.”

Despite the alliance between the British and Métis, which was critical to preserving the Upper Great Lakes from American invasion during the War of 1812, the British increasingly began to ignore their Métis allies and the promises made to them once the Métis had relocated to Penetanguishene. 

This included excluding Métis in Penetanguishene from receiving “presents”—a diplomatic tradition used by the Crown to maintain relations and alliances with Indigenous nations in the Great Lakes region prior to treaty-making—something the Métis in Penetanguishene knew their relatives in Sault Ste. Marie were still included in. 

In response, in 1840, “Half breeds residing in the town of Penetanguishene” sent a petition to their Crown allies as a distinct Métis collective, raising the issue of growing inequity between the Métis at Penetanguishene and other Upper Great Lakes Métis settlements, citing that they did “not share in any advantage in presents issued to the Indians as a number of the half breeds, from the Sault St. Marie and other places on the shores of Lake Huron.”

Rathan than provide “the same advantages that persons of the same class derive”, as the Métis of Penetanguishene had requested in their petition, in 1842, the British formally moved to end the annual present-giving practice with their former Métis allies in Penetanguishene through the Mode of Excluding Half-Breeds, which prohibited “presents being issued to small bands, as they are at Drummond Island and Penetanguishine [sic]… preventing the improper class of half-breeds from receiving presents at Manitoulin Island and Penetanguishine [sic].”

Despite the Crown’s 1842 attempt to reduce the Métis community at Penetanguishene from political allies to governable British subjects through the Mode of Excluding Half-Breeds, the Georgian Bay Métis Community has resiliently maintained its distinct Métis identity, way of life, political consciousness, and sense of community for generations since.

See Our Sources

• The Mode of Excluding Half-Breeds from Receiving Presents

• The Migration of Voyageurs from Drummond Island to Penetanguishene in 1828

• Upper Great Lakes Submission to the MNC Expert Panel

  
  

Mini Word Search

Have fun with the facts by completing today's mini word search.