Free People - Li Gens Libres: A History of the Metis Community of Batoche, Saskatchewan

Revised and expanded to include fresh research, a discussion of recent interpretive trends, and a review of new literature, The Free People--Li Gens Libres is a comprehensive history of the M tis community and national historic site of Batoche, Saskatchewan.

Diane Payment has a long personal association with Batoche; her study is the culmination of thirty years of documentary and field research as a participant-observer within the community. Her inquiry draws on a range of dictated and written historical sources, both M tis and non-M tis, as well as more recent oral history narratives and personal observations.

The Free People is one of the few studies on M tis communities in western and northern Canada. Payment's approach demonstrates that any understanding of M tis culture cannot be based on European or Euro-Canadian historical models, but on its own values and traditions. She argues that Batoche has persisted as a community despite conflict, crisis, and prejudice from immigrant ethnic groups and institutions such as the Canadian government and the Roman Catholic Church, succeeding in maintaining its uniquely M tis identity.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: University of Calgary Press
Published: 04/01/2009
ISBN: 9781552382394
Pages: 406
Weight: 1.40lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 1.10d

Review Citations: Reference and Research Bk News 05/01/2009 pg. 70
Choice 02/01/2010