The Métis are an Indigenous people whose historical homelands include Canada's three Prairie Provinces, as well as parts of British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, Northwest Ontario and the northern United States. They have a shared history and culture, deriving from specific mixed European and Indigenous ancestry, which became distinct through ethnogenesis by the mid-18th century, during the early years of the North American fur trade.
Contemporary lithograph of the Battle of Batoche
The Trapper's Bride by Alfred Jacob Miller, 1837
Métis fur trader, c. 1870
Métis drivers with Red River carts, c. 1860
There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territory, and an experience of subjugation and discrimination under a dominant cultural model.
A Kaqchikel family in the hamlet of Patzutzun, Guatemala, 1993
Colorized photograph of an Amis couple in traditional clothing. Taken in pre-World War II Japanese-ruled Taiwan.
Guatemalan girls in their traditional clothing from the town of Santa Catarina Palopó on Lake Atitlán
Alonso Fernández de Lugo presenting the captured Guanche kings of Tenerife to Ferdinand and Isabella
