Following their exclusion from the 1850 Robinson-Huron Treaty, many of the Sault Ste. Marie Métis Community’s families found themselves without government-recognized title and were forced to relocate from their traditional homes.
As a result, by 1861, Sault Ste. Marie was swamped by Ontario settlers of British origin and Protestant religions—contrasting significantly with Alexander Vidal’s 1846 pre-treaty survey, which enumerated a population almost entirely of Roman Catholic Métis. Many of these settlers were British and Protestant who carried anti-Métis sentiments and took actions to ignore and forget the Sault Ste. Marie Métis Community’s long and distinct history.
In 1901, for example, when the Hudson’s Bay Company sold their land holdings in Sault Ste. Marie, the original Métis cemetery associated with the Company post was built over to make way for other developments.
A second Métis cemetery was dug up and relocated in the early 1900s, then dug up and relocated again in the 1960s. Both times, the Métis community members who laid there were pushed further and further from town—and from their traditional homes.
Of the hundreds of Métis people buried in that cemetery, less than a dozen gravestones survived the desecrations.
The relocations of the Métis cemeteries have left an enduring impact on the Sault Ste. Marie Métis Community. Even today, many local Métis citizens still reflect on their community’s dark history of displacement and say that the settlers, “didn’t even want dead halfbreeds around here.”
See Our Sources
Historical Report on the Métis Community at Sault Ste. Marie
Algoma returns traditional burial ground to Métis Nation of Ontario
Upper Great Lakes Submission to the Métis Nation Expert Panel
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