Riel Resistance 1885, Métis -- History, Métis, Saskatchewan, Hudson's Bay Company, Academic dissertations 

"The contemporary French Metis of western Canada do not live at the same socio-economic level as their Euro-Canadian neighbors. The reasons for these inequities have their origins in the asymmetrical sets of relationships, which existed between the Metis and two dominant powers: the Hudson's Bay Company (1821-1869) and the government of Canada (1870-1885). The role the Metis played within the structure of the Hudson's Bay Company fur trade monopoly was essential to the success of the fur trade. As guides, interpreters and provisioners of fresh buffalo meat and pemmican, the Metis relationship with the Hudson's Bay Company was one of mutual benefit. Historically, this was the high point of Metis culture. Following 1869, the Metis entered into a relationship with the government of Canada. Canada's objectives for the recently acquired North West Territories and Manitoba, were not the same as the objectives which had been held by the Hudson's Bay Company. Canada wanted to open the west to agriculture. Very quickly the Metis were forced to change their lifestyle, if they were to exist as a stable culture. Unable to change, because of lack of money and technology, the Metis appealed to the territorial and federal governments for assistance. The Metis knew that they had to change from a nomadic, buffalo hunting life-style to that of being sedentary farmers. The federal government ignored the requests of the Metis and thus provided all the necessary conditions for the Rebellion of 1885. The Metis armed Rebellion of 1885 was an attempt by a subordinate culture to secure an equitable position within a new socio-economic environment."--pages iv-v. 

x, 209 leaves.