Colonial Categories and Familial Responses to Treaty and Metis Scrip Policy: The ‘Edmonton and District Stragglers,’ 1870–88

Abstract

Constructed by colonial agents to resolve administrative problems unanticipated by the entrance of Metis individuals without band affiliation into treaty, the ‘straggler’ category was a reflection of the fluid nature of Aboriginal identities during a period of harsh economic and environmental realities on the Plains in the mid to late nineteenth century. This paper argues that Metis women and their families used the ‘straggler’ category in ways unexpected by colonial agents in Treaty Six – they continued to participate in the fur trade economy, refused to settle on reserves, and thus explicitly challenged boundaries of racial classification. This Native agency in turn forced the government to rethink and reformulate status categories.