The free people = Li gens libres : a history of the Métis community of Batoche, Saskatchewan /

This handsomely designed title is a revised and expanded edition of Payment's 1990 Parks Canada commissioned and published work "The Free People, Otipemisiwak." Additions to this edition include a discussion of recent developments and trends at Batoche and a review of new literature published since 1990. The first edition is considered a seminal work for its unapologetic Metis-centered stance in approaching the history of Batoche (a central site for Louis Riel and the Metis during the 1885 North-West Resistance). Heavily reliant on oral history and sympathetic to a Metis perspective, Payment (Parks Canada) offers an alternative to earlier historical narratives presented by scholars like G. F. G. Stanley, Donald Creighton, Marcel Giraud, and others who generally characterized the Metis as a static people. Payment presents Batoche as a society in constant flux, adaptive to new economic circumstances without abandoning core Aboriginal values. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers, lower-division undergraduates and above. B. F. R. Edwards Mount Allison University