Métis flag

The Métis flag was first used by Métis resistance fighters in Rupert's Land before the 1816 Battle of Seven Oaks. According to only one contemporary account, the flag was "said to be" a gift from the North West Company in 1815, but no other surviving accounts confirm this. Both the red and blue versions of the flag have been used to represent the political and military force of the Métis since that time. The Métis flag predates the Flag of Canada by at least 150 years, and is the oldest patriotic flag that is indigenous to Canada.
The blue background flag has been accepted by the Métis National Council as the official flag of the Métis Nation. In 2013, the Métis National Council secured an official mark for the flag to protect it as a symbol of the Métis Nation, and ensure its collective ownership by citizens of the Métis Nation.
The first flag of the Métis was long forgotten among the other flags adopted and flown by the Métis at various points of their political and national growth. In the mid 1970s, the Métis flag being flown by the Native Council of Canada had a green background, and on the flag was a ring of alternating shamrocks and fleur-de-lys around a bison. However, there was friction due to difference of opinions between the Métis Society of Saskatchewan and the Native Council of Canada, and this friction helped to spur the debate about whether there was a historic Métis flag that they should be using. A consultant was tasked by the Métis Society of Saskatchewan board of directors to research and present on historic flags used by Métis. There was debate about which flag to adopt, and especially the red or blue infinity flag, and the Métis Society of Saskatchewan board chose the blue version. The red and blue versions were subsequently adopted by other Métis governments across Western Canada.
The flag shows a white infinity symbol on a field of either blue or red. There are many interpretations of what the colours and symbol mean.
Several origins and meanings have been suggested for the infinity symbol flag:
There is debate about the historical interpretations of the colours of the Métis flags.
The difficulty in knowing the accurate history of the origin of the flag and potential interpretations of the symbolism is that there are no known records that accurately describe the origin of the flag in a first-hand account or other written records of its creation.
Prominent Métis lawyer, historian, and author Jean Teillet argues that the story of the origin of the Métis flag is an urban myth. Of the first three historic accounts of the Métis flag, only James Sutherland attributed the flag as a gift from the North West Company, based on rumours that he was told, and she argues for an exercise of caution in taking it as fact. Teillet and others argue that the Métis had a more active role in the origin of the flag, rather than being passive recipients of the flag or being manipulated by the North West Company.
In 1815, popular fabrics in tradings posts that were available were calico, corduroy, plaid, and stroud. Stroud, a woollen, felt-like, broadcloth commonly used in making coats, was the only suitable material available for making flags. The common colours that were available at the time were green, red, and blue. Teillet asserts that as a matter of practicality, the Métis would have used the material that was available to them for making flags. When they needed to make a new flag, they purchased the material that was available, and if red was not available, they might have chosen to use blue instead. Rather than being a strategic ideological decision to align colours with particular trading companies, her assertion is that the colour was a reaction to what was practical in that time and location.
Originally, the flags that would have been flown in Rupert's Land and across the North-Western Territory were the Hudson's Bay Company flag and North West Company flag, respectively, and the Union Jack.
Métis oral tradition tells that the Métis developed the infinity flag for themselves, and called the flag Li Paviiyoon di Michif in the Michif language. Some people tell a story that Alexander Macdonell of Greenfield gifted the Métis employed by the North West Company a flag in 1814, helping to create the Métis Nation, but there are no records that directly confirm this version of events, and some that potentially contradict this story.
The flag was first reported by James Sutherland in 1815 as red with an infinity symbol, and that it was being flown by Cuthbert Grant at Fort John in the Qu'Appelle area when a Hudson's Bay Company crew were rebuilding Fort Qu'Appelle (not to be confused with Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan built in 1864). In his account, Sutherland reported that the flag was said to be a gift from the North West Company given in early 1815, but provided no evidence to confirm this origin story for the flag nor did he state that it was a gift from Alexander Macdonell of Greenfield. The events reported in this account happened prior to Sutherland's arrival at Qu'Appelle on December 8, 1815, so were conveyed to him by Hudson's Bay Company Officer John Richards McKay and his party, who had arrived there in early October 1815 and had witnessed the events described.
Sutherland would also describe his first time seeing the flag at the arrival of John McDonald from Swan River in early 1816, though he did not provide an additional description of the flag.
Sutherland also discussed what he had been told about why the flag was flying.
Sutherland's account of these events was written sometime after the events and based on his memory, as he had destroyed his papers to prevent them from being taken by the North West Company.
However, the assertion that the flag was a gift for the Métis from Alexander Macdonell of Greenfield and the North West Company is potentially contradicted by other accounts of gifts being given to the Métis by the North West Company and people they employed, in which the accounts do not mention of the flag among other gifts being given.
A potential contradiction of Sutherland's suggestion that the flag may have been a gift is found in an account of gifts being given to the Métis by the North West Company on June 28, 1815, at Fort William. The gifts, which included two swords, were given for the actions of the Métis against the Red River Colony, but there is no mention of a flag being gifted to the Métis.
Colin Robertson (then employed by the Hudson's Bay Company) describes gifts being given to the Métis at Fort Gibraltar in his journal entry from September 15, 1815 at Fort Douglas, but there is no mention of a flag being given by Macdonnell among the other presents given by Duncan Cameron to the Métis for their activity against the Colony in Spring 1815 (Macdonell and Cameron had arrived at Fort Gibraltar on two days before on September 13, 1815).
Robertson also recorded details reported to him of a speech and gifts by Cameron upon Cameron's arrival in the Fall of 1814, and the gifts did not include a flag.
Further to potential contradictions of Sutherland's account of the flag being a gift is a dismissal of rumours about Duncan Cameron's gifts to the Métis and the use of the Métis as a militia of the North West Company that was written by Alexander Macdonell of Greenfield in his book A Narrative of Transactions in the Red River Country in 1819. In this book, Macdonell does not mention himself or others gifting a flag to the Métis.
Macdonell also mentioned a general meeting that occurred at Fort William in 1815, but again he did not discuss a flag being given to the Métis.
Peter Fidler first reported a red Métis flag with an infinity symbol around March 12, 1816, on the Qu'Appelle River, and said that it had been see the previous fall, which corroborated Sutherland's account of John McDonald's visit to Qu'Appelle. Fidler reported a rumour that he had heard that the North West Company was trying to direct the Métis to action against the Hudson's Bay Company and the newly established Red River Colony (the support was not unanimous among the Métis), but he did not attribute the flag to being a gift to the Métis.
On June 1, 1816, Peter Fidler recorded in his Brandon House Journal that the Métis, under the leadership of Cuthbert Grant, were flying the blue flag with an infinity symbol when they attacked the Hudson's Bay Company's Brandon House, mere weeks before the Battle of Seven Oaks that happened on June 19, 1816. The reason for the change in the colour of the flag is not known, and Fidler did not provide information about the origin of the flag. In his narrative of the events to Lord Selkirk, Fidler did not report the changed colour, stating only that the flag was present.
The provisional government, the Legislative Assembly of Assiniboia, established by the Métis under Louis Riel on December 8, 1869, flew a flag. There are numerous descriptions of the flag that was flown by the provisional government:
The provisional government was established by Louis Riel at Batoche on March 19, 1885. There were at least two flags used by the provisional government. The first was described as:
Riel also flew a personal banner at Batoche, which some sources say was the main flag of the Métis at Batoche and used as a battle standard. The flag consisted of an image of Notre Dame de Lourdes on one side and an inscription at the bottom that lists family members and a poem to Our Lady, and the reverse side contained poetry of a similar theme. The Roman Catholic priests expressed concern during the Battle of Batoche that if they raised a white peace flag to signal to the Canadian forces to stop firing on the church and rectory that the white flag would be confused for Riel's white emblazoned flag and would attract shots and shelling from the troops, but white flag was recognized and respected.
During the Battle of Batoche, Gabriel Dumont reported "on Baker's house [on the West side of the river] ... flew a flag of the Blessed Virgin. Another flag of Our Lord was in the midst of [Batoche], on the Council's house." It was reported by witnesses that a flag was flying above a small building at the centre of Batoche that was used as the Council's chamber and located next to Xavier Letendre dit Batoche's house that was used as a headquarters, but these reports did not provide a description of this flag other than it was white and emblazoned.
There is a claim that there was a Métis Battle Standard used at the Battle of Batoche that is described as being a blue background, with a wolf's head and hand (palm outward) in the middle, and a banner with the Michif words "maisons ... autels ... Surtout Liberté" (literally translated, this means "homes, altars, above all liberty"). This flag was said to have been created by the Métis women at Batoche to encourage the men in the battle. However, the earliest known reference to this flag is a hand-drawn picture from 1975.