Maegan Ellis
University of Guelph
I’m currently a graduate student – a Métis historian in-training – but this document has been familiar to me for some time. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately – a scrip application from 1900, filled out by my third great-grandmother, Elizabeth Abraham (née Nelson) in Prince Albert, SK. My aunt and I have returned to it many times, pouring over its pages with curiosity. On the surface it’s another government document, issued by the Halfbreed Claims Commission, part of Canada’s effort to extinguish Métis land rights through individual compensation instead of treaty.
Library and Archives Canada. Extract from Form A. North-West Halfbreed Claims Commission, 1900, RG15-D-II-8-c, volume 1333, microfilm reel C-14944.
But like so many archival records, there’s more to it than meets the eye. It’s a thread that ties together questions of kinship, identity, grief, gender, and survival. And, more recently, it has become interwoven with my thesis research on historical Métis beadwork – particularly in twentieth-century Saskatchewan. Elizabeth’s beadwork is a source of inspiration to me. Her life is a story I’ve been piecing together, one detail at a time.
Elizabeth applied for scrip on behalf of her deceased daughter Mary. Within these pages, her first husband John Abraham relinquishes all rights to Elizabeth, signing with an “X,” next to a note indicating the agreement was “read over and explained in English and he appeared to understand.” Family stories, this document, and suggestions from the St. Boniface Historical Society indicate he may have been Dakota or Lakota, possibly one of those who crossed into Canada with Sitting Bull after Little Bighorn. Yet Elizabeth and their other daughter Caroline identifies him in this application as “American.” We believe the two were separated around this time, and Elizabeth was later married after John’s death to H. E. Ross – a signed witness on the application.
As a Métis woman and researcher, I bring my own questions to this document, seeking connection rather than certainty. What did it mean for Elizabeth to apply for scrip on behalf of her deceased daughter? Was this an act of survival, remembrance, resistance? What kind of relationship did Elizabeth have with John at this point, and what did it mean to witness him sign with an “X”? What was the nature of her connection with H. E. Ross? I’m left with more questions than answers, but this is one of the few written records we have that ties our family to this time, this land, this story.
For historians familiar with the questions we bring to colonial sources and what they offer, scrip records are often read as evidence of dispossession and the mechanisms of settler colonialism. But for many Métis families, especially those outside of academic circles, they can be something more intimate: a rare paper trail to follow, a thread that leads back to a name, a lost place, or a family story waiting to be reclaimed.
The story I’ve found here belongs to Elizabeth. It belongs to me, to my aunt, my sister, my mother. I believe it belongs to other Métis people, too – those still searching the archives for pieces of themselves.
Source(s)
Library and Archives Canada. “Abraham, Elizabeth; on behalf of the heirs of Mary Christy Abraham, deceased; claim no. 129; address: Prince Albert, Saskatchewan; born: 12 February, 1882 at Prince Albert; father: John Abraham (American); mother: Elizabeth Nelson (Métis and deponent); died 27 June, 1883; heir; John Abraham, her father; scrip cert.: form D, no. 183 for $240.00 = Abraham, Elizabeth.” Item 1505967. 1885-1906. Archives/ Collections and Fonds, RG15-D-II-8-c, volume 1333, microfilm reel C-14944. https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/Home/Record?app=fonandcol&IdNumber=1505967&q_type_1=q&q_1=Elizabeth%20Abrahams&ecopy=e011357231.