Prior to 2000 historians used the term borderlands to refer to the US-Mexico border area. Since then, however, that has changed dramatically, as this study illustrates. Many borderlands historians have turned their attention north to the US-Canada boundary region. At the same time, the research focus expanded and now incorporates both transnational and comparative studies in what has become a growing and fascinating new approach to North American history. Within this field, particularly in Canadian history, the Metis peoples have attracted at least some attention for generations dating back to Marcel Giraud’s massive 1945 study. In the United States, until recently, many historians accepted the nineteenth-century pioneers’ views that the mixed-race people living in frontier communities represented a degraded and dying culture.
With the new approaches to border and ethnic issues, the focus has shifted, and Metis communities and individuals now receive increasing study. Michel Hogue’s new analysis examines how...
