THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE METIS NATION
METIS ...1850-1854
METIS INDEX ...Return to MAIN Metis INDEX
The second half of the nineteenth century is a dynamic one for the Garneau clan. Lawrence Garneau (1840-1921) grew up in the Chippewa Territory of Michigan and Wisconsin. He was thrust into the middle of the Minnesota and Dakota Sioux Resistance movement of 1862, resulting in his near death and flight to Red River. His involvement in the Red River Metis Resistance movement of 1869-1870 led to the creation of the Province of Manitoba. The persecution of the Metis farmers by English Ontario claim jumpers caused the exodus of the Metis up the Saskatchewan River. This flight of his young family led to relative security at Fort Edmonton in 1873 or 1874.
Some of the maternal ancestors like the Gauthier, Ouimette, Monroe, Salzl, Weinzetl, and Leurer, established themselves in the Dakota's. They are driven on by drought to Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia and the Oregon Territory. They would all eventually claim Alberta as home.
Another aboriginal Nation, the Cree, joined with two of the earliest Scottish Hudson Bay Metis clans of Thomas, which would combine in Red River with the Garneau clan. In short, the Garneau clan is a potpourri of origins. Some of the clan referred to themselves as true Canadian Mongrels. One Metis definition of civilization is to love being a mongrel, love the environment and respect the value and dignity of other peoples.
The Jesuits, however, had taught that intermarriage between French and Native peoples was immoral. The Cree and Ojibwa did not agree with the Church and developed a custom to reserve one or more daughters specifically as wives for the Metis, French or English, to ensure integration of the peoples. Most of the Garneau clan ,during my formative years, strongly denied that there was Indian blood in the family. This is due to three hundred years of Roman Catholic Church teachings which ingrained a detest for the dirty, ignorant Native Savages and their heathen culture. This inbred, associated shame was drilled into Native Canadians for generations by the Roman Catholic Church, the Government and business, and still lingers in many dark corners of our civilization. A Native cultural genocide program became systemic in the political, legal and educational systems. Prayers instead of guns, as a cultural genocide tool, are just as deadly.
"MY PEOPLE WILL SLEEP FOR A HUNDRED YEARS,
BUT WHEN THEY AWAKE,
IT WILL BE THE ARTISTS WHO GIVE THEM
THEIR SPIRIT BACK."
LOUIS RIEL - 1885