Jun 27, 2010

Names used to designate Natives, other than the name of their tribe or nation, include : Savage (a pejorative, rarely used today but common only a half-century ago), Indian, North American Indian, Native, and Amerindian (this one seems to be used only in French). In French, the corresponding terms are: Sauvage, Indien, Indien nord-américain, Autochtone and Amérindien.

Janet Woppumnaweskum, Metis woman

Metis means mixed blood, that is initially one parent was White, and one was Native, while later one or both were Metis. While a Metis can be any place where there are Natives and Whites, Metis Nation is defined as including the Metis living in the early Manitoba lands.

Contrary to popular belief, there were few marriages between Natives and the French in the early days of the colony of New France. We can find these marriages in Jette for the period before 1731, just like all the other marriages of that period. This kind of marriages seems to be more common in Acadia but because of the missing records, it is not possible to estimate the proportion of Acadian Metis families.

In the Quebec early vital records (1621-1765), we have about 78 couples with a Male Native and a Female European, 45 with a Female Native and a Male European and 540 with 2 Natives. The whole database has over 44,500 couples, including some living in France. So, the % of Metis married couples is very small, under 0.3%. Those are couples according to our church records. It is practically not possible to count about many couples left no official trace except if we do some DNA analysis for the whole population.

While the Acadian records are less complete, it is quite fascinating to compare them with the Quebec records. In the Quebec missions like Tadoussac or Oka, the Amerindians were called with Indian names. In Acadia, they had more frequently European names. In the old West (pays d’en haut), there are some fur traders who married Native women following the local custom. The European settlement appeared after that of Quebec and Acadia and the naming pattern is similar to that of Quebec. This could mean in Acadia, the Natives were mixed to Whites, while in Quebec and the West, the White were mixed to Natives. This would explain why there is no Native parish in Acadia, unlike in Quebec.

From 1600 to 1800 ( very approximate years ), acts of baptism, marriage, and [death] may include only the Christian name or both the Christian and the Native names. In the second case, it is possible to find the genealogical link even if the Native name is not hereditary because that name is kept by a person all along his/her life.

Around 1800-1850 ( very approximate years ), acts concerning Natives start using a family name and it then becomes possible to trace the genealogical links.

There was another special phenomenon, namely the adoption by Whites of Natives, but these adoptions left no trace in the parish registers. In fact, adoptions before 1930, be they of Whites or Natives are rarely mentioned in Quebec parish registers.

2 Comments

Alain Savage
Aug 23, 2010 @ 13:37:08

You state that:
“In French, the corresponding terms are: Sauvage…”

This is not so.
There has been alot written about the difference between the words savage(En)and sauvage(Fr); look it up please.

http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/dmf/sauvage

And yes, Alain Savage is my real name.
Mark Rabideau
Aug 23, 2010 @ 16:17:35

Bonjour Alain,

The article is actually quoted here and was written and published originally on http://www.francogene.com/quebec/amerin.php. I know that from my readings of the writings by Quebec historians those terms do align as stated in the francogene article.

According to David Garneau (see:http://www.telusplanet.net/dgarneau/french.htm) :

Michel Robert and others have brought this to my attention concerning the word sauvage (savage). Michel says:

The meaning of “savage” in the Anglo-Saxon culture and “sauvage” in the French culture are totally different. While you are generally right in your definition of “savage”, it does not apply to “sauvage” which meaning is short and unambiguous : ” son of nature”; where nature means the sun, the earth, the water, the trees, etc. Later, during the XVII century, it also became synonymous with “virgin, purity, untainted by bad faith, etc. When one reads old documents and is aware of this major difference, one will realize how tremendously different were the various European cultures and ensuing actions at that time, particularly in the Americas. You will notice that at one point in Cartier’s journal, he laments the fact that the “sauvage” (one of the secondary leaders at Stadacone) is not that “sauvage” after all, and is capable of bad and covert intentions just like a European. Others suggest the most common definition of ‘Les Sauvages’ in early New France is ‘wild people of the forests’. The Jesuits considered the word sauvage to mean pagan and a minion of Satan or as they considered them the ‘Reign of Satan’ in 1639.

However you may be very correct to state that other terms or translations may be more grammatically correct from a Parisian French perspective. The articles I have quoted on ManyRoads almost always are written with the bias of being Quebecois. I am however no linguistic expert in this area and would love to see or have a much more accurate and detailed explanation. My interest is always to provide an accurate and fair picture within an appropriate context.

Merci beaucoup.
…mark