U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt’s take on the Métis and mention of their carts can be found in Volume 1, chapter 2 of his history:
The Winning of the West, Vol1, 1905
Here is the actual text from John Laws about the carts from the footnotes (pg 67/68) in President Roosevelt’s book:
History of Vincennes, by Judge John Law, Vincennes, 1858, pp 18 and 140.
“They are just such carts as I have seen myself in the valley of the Red River, and in the big bend of the Missouri, carrying all the worldly goods of the owners, the French Métis. These Métis, —ex-trappers, ex-buffalo runners, and small farmers, —are the best representatives of the old French of the west ; they are a little less civilized, they have somewhat more Indian blood in their veins, but they are substantially the same people. It may be noted that the herds of buffaloes that during the last century thronged the planes of what are now the States of Illinois and Indiana furnished to the French of Kaskaskia and Vincennes their winter meat; exactly as during the present century the Saskatchewan Métis lived on the wild herds, until they were exterminated. “
A couple observations on the above:
-Note the capital “M” Metis if you are part of that argument.
-it seems that Judge J Law is comparing observations from Red River to the big bend of the Missouri. Could these be the same people?
-it also seems that Judge J Law is comparing observations from Saskatchewan Metis. Could these be the same people?
-His choice of the words “These Metis”, “the old French of the west”, and “substantially the same people” would indicate too many that “These Metis” of Kaskaskia and Vincennes where the same as the Metis from the prairies in Canada.
Excerpts from Chapter 2 (pg 47) of the same book listed above:
The French inhabitants were in very many cases not of pure blood. The early settlements had been made by men only, by soldiers, traders, and trappers, who took Indian wives. They were not trammelled by the queer pride which makes a man of English stock unwilling to make a red-skinned woman his wife, though anxious enough to make her his concubine.
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their fields often lay untilled. while the owners lolled in the sunshine smoking their pipes. In consequence they were sometimes brought to sore distress for food, being obliged to pluck their corn while it was still green.
The pursuits of the fur trader and fur trapper were far more congenial to them, and it was upon these that they chiefly depended. The half-savage life of toil, hardship, excitement, and long intervals of idleness attracted them strongly. This was perhaps one among the reasons why they got on so much better with the Indians than did the Americans, who, wherever they went, made clearings and settlements, cut down the trees, and drove off the game.
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Many of the French coureurs des bois, whose duty it was to travers the wilderness, and who were expert trappers, took up their abode with the Indians, taught them how to catch the sable, fisher, otter, and beaver, and lived among them as members of the tribe, marrying copper-colored squaws, and rearing dusky children.
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Under ordinary circumstances he was a good-humored, kindly man, always polite — his manners offering an agreeable contrast to those of some of our own frontiersmen, — with a ready smile and laugh, and ever eager to join in any merrymaking. On Sundays and fast-days he was summoned to the little parish church by the tolling of the old bell in the small wooden belfry. The church was a rude oblong building, the walls made out of peeled logs, thrust upright in the ground, chinked with moss and coated with clay or cement. Thither every man went, clad in a capote or blanket coat, a bright silk handkerchief knotted round his head, and his feet shod with moccasins or strong rawhide sandals. If young, he walked or rode a shaggy pony; if older, he drove his creaking, springless wooden cart, untired and unironed, in which family sat on stools.
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Three generations of isolated life in the wilderness had greatly changed the characters of these groups of traders, trappers, bateau-men, and adventurous warriors. It was inevitable that they should borrow many traits from their savage friends and neighbors. Hospitable, but bigoted to their old customs, ignorant, indolent, and given to drunkenness, they spoke a corrupt jargon of the French tongue ; the common people were even beginning to give up reckoning time by months and years, and dated events, as the Indians did, with reference to the phenomena of nature, such as the time of the floods, the maturing of the green corn, or the ripening of the strawberries.33 All their attributes seemed alien to the polished army officers of old France ; they had but little more in common with the latter than with the American backwoodsmen. But they had kept many valuable qualities, and, in especial, they were brave and hardy, and, after their own fashion, good soldiers. They had fought valiantly beside King Louis’ musketeers, and in alliance with the painted warriors of the forest; later on they served, though perhaps with less heart, under the gloomy ensign of Spain, shared the fate of the red-coated grenadiers of King George, or followed the lead of the tall Kentucky riflemen.
It is quite clear the President Roosevelt seen a different people when he looked at the “French” of the Ohio Valley. He did not see Americans or Indians. The French inhabitants were “not of pure blood”, the early settlements “were of men only” taking “Indian wives”. The “half savage life of toil” indicates a “betweeness” of not French and not Indian. Roosevelt mentions the carts they take to church on Sundays, the same carts that Judge Law observes in 1858. He also states they were “after their own fashion, good soldiers” which is a further indication of a separate and distinguishable people.
