Metis and the Medicine Line

Born of encounters between Indigenous women and Euro-American men in the first decades of the nineteenth century, the Plains Metis people occupied contentious geographic and cultural spaces. Living in a disputed area of the northern Plains inhabited by various Indigenous nations and claimed by both the United States and Great Britain, the Metis emerged as a people with distinctive styles of speech, dress, and religious practice, and occupational identities forged in the intense rivalries of the fur and provisions trade. Michel Hogue explores how, as fur trade societies waned and as state officials looked to establish clear lines separating the United States from Canada and Indians from non-Indians, these communities of mixed Indigenous and European ancestry were profoundly affected by the efforts of nation-states to divide and absorb the North American West.

Grounded in extensive research in U.S. and Canadian archives, Hogue's account recenters historical discussions that have typically been confined within national boundaries and illuminates how Plains Indigenous peoples like the Metis were at the center of both the unexpected accommodations and the hidden history of violence that made the "world's longest undefended border."

Michel Hogue is assistant professor of history at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.
[A} substantial historical achievement . . . in the field of Metis history."--Canadian Historical Review

A stimulating read, and one worth pursuing for the reader with an interest in northern plains history.--North Dakota History

A welcome addition to the literature on Canadian metis and the westward expansion of Canada and the United States during the nineteenth century.--Journal of American History

An important addition to the Metis studies canon.--Canadian Journal of History

An important and useful book, exhaustively researched and well written.--Western Historical Quarterly

An impressive piece of scholarship that examines how the Metis were impacted by the making of the border between Canada and the United States.--Journal of Genocide Research

Changes the terrain of our understanding.--American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Hogue has devoted himself to fingering through archival collections in seven states and four provinces to uncover the boundary-crossing history of the Plains Metis.--Literary Review of Canada

One of the best studies written about the western Canadian-US borderlands.--Labour/Le Travail

Particularly effective in documenting how questions of race and nationality as well as the disappearance of the buffalo and the emergence of a more well-defined border determined the fate of the Plains Metis...Recommended.--Choice

Rich, detailed, and nuanced portrait of Native American whalemen.--International Journal of Maritime History