Metis: Who are they? people of mixed indigenous and European or African blood in the Americas, by Destiny Kinal
While the term metis generally refers to people along the US/Canadian border who are of mixed parentage–indigenous and European or African lineage–the term Mestizo refers to Indios and Spanish along the south borders of the North and South America, and Creole refers to indigenous, French and African bloodlines in Louisiana and along the Gulf of Mexico. But in truth, all of these people of mixed indigenous and European/African/Asian heritage are spread throughout North America.
I first became aware of metis as a girl when I read James Fennimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans. The fact that Indian scouts spoke several European and native American languages provided a doorway into that time, an doorway that led to further research. Louise Erdrich’s novels, as well as Linda Hogan’s, brought the reality of mixed bloodlines people to life for me and many readers in the past several decades…continued at http://www.destinykinal.com/metis.html