Abstract
The process of ethnogenesis (i.e., the formation of new ethnic groups) is here considered equivalent to the production of “governance goods” in situations where the state is weak or absent. In these cases, the process of ethnogenesis is a response to (1) the problem of social distance between heterogeneous groups which functions as a barrier to trade, and (2) the problem of providing public goods. As an investment in governance, ethnogenesis reduces the costs of trading and cooperating, and expands the scope for specialization. We rely on two examples of peaceful and productive relations between First Nations and European settlers in Canada between the early seventeenth and mid-nineteenth centuries to support our hypothesis. The emergence of “hybrid” cultural groups and identities fostered peaceful relations and facilitated trade in borderland areas in which state rule was virtually nonexistent. It also permitted these new groups to provide key collective goods within their own communities. This, in turn, facilitated international trade (especially in furs). Both of our examples suggest that cultural processes can be endogenous responses aimed at the production of governance.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
In Canada, indigenous groups today comprise the First Nations, the Inuit, and the Métis. All three groups are constitutionally recognized, and we will use these terms instead of older ones such as Indians, Native Indians or Native Canadians.
The cod trade mattered to a lesser degree at first, but grew to be second in importance behind furs (Innis, 1978).
Gift exchange has often been analyzed as an ingenious use of credit to make exchanges self-enforcing (Leeson, 2007b).
Minimizing the potential for conflict was crucial. Indeed, in the Great Lakes region where settler migration from east to west was constant, there were recurrent disruptions of trade arrangements.
And which we define as a state that is largely unable or unwilling to enforce its edicts as a third party enforce of contracts (Barzel, 2002).
Fearon & Laitin (1996, 718) point to the correlation between weak states and ethnogenesis: “most places where ethnic groups intermingle [...] a well-functioning state and legal system do not exist”.
In our case, this will be particularly relevant, as there were even gradients of ethnogenesis within the mixed groups.
This definition of the state is Barzel’s (2002).
This does not mean that there are no exceptions. For instance, the Comanche or the Lakota were far larger groups (Hämäläinen, 2019).
Canadian settlements were largely in Atlantic Canada, the Quebec areas along the Saint-Lawrence River and the areas in the southwestern portion of Ontario. Few settlements occurred beyond these areas until the 1860 s.
The French expression of “pays d’en haut” refers to the hinterland of North America that is removed from the initial coastal settlements. It is where the fur trade occurred for most of the eighteenth century.
According to a contemporary observer, Lord d’Aigremont, for instance, First Nations in French areas “possess no subordination among themselves.. being opposed to all constraint. Moreover, these peoples [have] no idea of Royal grandeur nor Majesty, nor of the powers of Superiors over inferiors.” (White, 2010, 57). As for the settlers, Elsbeth Heaman’s Short History of the State in Canada makes it clear that the state was weak even in densely populated areas and even weaker in the hinterlands (E. Heaman, 2015, 27–82).
Europeans were not only outsiders but had to understand complicated and sometimes violent inter-tribal relationships.
To be sure, this is a simplification. The French and British wanted peace among the tribes to aid trade and sometimes eschewed punishments in favor of compensation (Roy, 2019) but this was far more frequent during the 18th century when both groups had learned from initial trades and errors in negotiations.
This is true as long as the marginal cost of communicating is increasing in linguistic distance, in which case a synthetic language reduces costs.
Bakker reports the most commonly known languages to be Cree, French, English, Gaelic and Blackfoot (Bakker, 1997, 164).
Fur trader George Croghan explained that French and First Nations, had been “bred up together like Children in that Country, & the French have always adopted the Indians Customs & manners, Treated them Civily & supplyed their wants generously.” Captain Turnbull thought they had “adopted the very Principles and Ideas of the Indians and differ from them only a Little in color.” And General Thomas Gage put it, the French had become “almost one People with them.” (Margry, White (2010), 316).
Similarly, French explorer René de la Salle reported that members of First Nations would be baptised in exchange for guns and that one individual, having been given a dysfunctional rifle, asked the Jesuit to “rebaptise me harder, and give me another [rifle]” (Margry, 1876, 374).
This is akin to Landa (1981), who presented the organization of ethnically homogenous middlemen minorities as concentric circles with decaying degrees of kinship as one moves toward the boundaries of the circle. The difference here is that she was speaking of an already existing group. In our case, it is the members near the boundaries of two concentric circles that form a group.
Ethnically diverse individuals (whose parents belong to two different ethnic groups), are one example of individuals who face a lower cost of forming a new ethnic group.
This may involve First Nations playing a trigger strategy by refusing future cooperation if their trading partner acts opportunistically. (Kohl 1860, 133) enumerates the principles of a fur trader, among which was: “Never promise them anything you are not quite certain of fulfilling. [...] [I]f you once appear to them a liar, mutual confidence is irrevocably lost”.
At Pittsburgh in 1772, the missionary David McClure explained how “the greater part of the Indian traders keep a squaw [a wife] [...] they allege the good policy of it, as necessary to a successful trade.” (White 2010, 324).
Signaling was not the only way intermarriage helped enforce trade. Marrying Indian women could work as hostage capital, although that strategy would work only if fur traders exchanged with only the one tribe the wife was part of. Since fur traders did not limit their trade with one specific tribe, it is unlikely intermarriage worked primarily as hostage capital. Indian wives also helped reduce transaction costs by, for instance, serving as translators.
(Diéreville 1708, 200), while traveling to Port Royal in Acadia describes that “when a Frenchman trades with them [the local Mi’kmaq], he takes into his services one of their Daughters”.
However, intermarriage is not sufficient for ethnogenesis. There are many instances of intermarriage across ethnic lines that form mixed ethnicities. Ethnogenesis requires a common and distinct core of cultural beliefs and a commonly accepted shared history (Finnäs & O’leary, R., 2003; Gowricharn, 2013) Moreover, it is not purely necessary to have intermarriage to have ethnogenesis. Shared migration history can, for example, act as a factor for ethnogenesis (Warren, 1978; Gowricharn, 2013).
Mixed origins groups need not be homogeneous, which is why there could be problems of opportunistic behavior. For example, the Métis of the Canadian plains whom we discuss in this paper were a mixed-origin people resulting from interbreeding between one of multiple First Nations and either French or British traders. As a result, those of mixed-origin had a high degree of heterogeneity, to the point of making it hard to label tham as an ethnic and cultural group. This is why the Métis—those who developed and learnt the syncretic language of Michif (see more below)—defined themselves as a ethnic and cultural group that originated from a subset of the mixed-origin population.
Report of the Proceedings connected with the Disputes between the Earl of Selkirk and the North West Company at the Assizes held at York, in Upper Canada, October 1818. London: House of Commons. p. 178.
See also Ekberg (2002) who distinguishes between slave and trade marriages between Europeans and First Nations.
See for instance Allen and Barzel (2011) on standardization and the development of modern policing and criminal law.
This is not to say that land-titling is always welfare improving, especially in countries with poor institutions such as Afghanistan (Murtazashvili & Murtazashvili, 2015) In both Canada and the US, the State played a dominant role in land settlements, including with respect to homesteading (Allen, 2019). Libecap and Lueck (2011) show large economic benefits of centralized rectangular land titling in the US relative to decentralized land titling.
This was notably the case in the 1660 s when the French sent a large detachment of troops to fight a major campaign against the Iroquois around Montreal.
In the case of the US after the early 1830 s, (Peterson 1978, 59) notes that “Indian cessions and removals and American land speculation and settlement conspired to disenfranchise the Métis middlemen. American farmers and businessmen did not need a broker class or a buffer between themselves and a broken Indian population herded onto sad reserves”.
It is worth pointing out that comparing eastern Canada (i.e., New France where farming dominated) and Virginia in the seventeenth century is valuable. Both colonies were founded roughly at the same time and both rapidly saw the agricultural sector becoming the dominant one. Similar trade restrictions rapidly emerged with natives for settlers in the Saint-Lawrence valley where farming dominated (Shortt, 1925; Altman, 1988).
Colbert’s idea was to establish public markets to force First Nations to come down to Montréal with their furs and therefore limit the settlers’ incentive to desert the colony. The French expected some tribes, especially the Potawatomi, to become middlemen.
Even in seventeenth century Montréal, a relatively large urban centre, the French “were largely unable to impose their criminal law on domiciled Indigenous peoples who committed violence against European settlers” (E. Heaman, 2015, 25).
One historian described eighteenth century Canada as being in “comparative lawlessness” (E. Heaman, 2015, 31). This description for the eighteenth century applies well to the case of the Acadians below. In the nineteenth century, when a state had begun to emerge and solidify along the Saint-Lawrence River and in Southwestern Ontario, the Prairies to the west of these settlements were essentially stateless as well.
Unfortunately, for reasons of lack of data, it is difficult to draw a map of population density for the Métis. Ergo, we prefer to show maps that depict the area in play.
It had an equivalent in Bungee—a language bred by mixing Cree and Objiwa languages with English—used among those who came from mixed origins resulting from British rather than French interactions (Carter, 1999, 62–3). But the ethnically-mixed who adopted this language to distinguish themselves from the Métis of French origin were far less numerous.
Some point to even higher estimates reaching the mark of 20,000 people circa 1755 (Griffiths, 1992, 48).
However, some historians contest whether European powers were uninterested while still accepting that that they lacked the ability to build an effective state in the area. Describing the ability of the Mi’kmaq (the First Nation of the region) to resist acculturation, Upton observed that it was “lack of power, not of desire” which prevented the French crown from attempting to conquer them (Upton, 1979, 16). When the British took over the colony permanently after 1713, they assumed their grip was so weak that they could not ask settlers for an oath of loyalty to the Crown, and settled for asking for an oath of neutrality (i.e., a promise that they would not take up arms, or incite the Mi’kmaq to take up arms against them) (Griffiths, 1992, 41).
Government officials in the nineteenth century apparently were aware of the difference but simply lumped them all together under the heading of “half-breeds”.
Moreover, as we will see below with the case of the buffalo hunt, expulsion was possible which made these investments irrecoverable (Barkwell et al., 2007).
As it was dried buffalo meat mixed with lard, pemmican was well-suited for long preservation.
In fact, many rituals, such as the election of a captain, were applied to other activities such as autumn excursions to pick roots and berries (and this remained true even after bison hunting ended) K. Saunders & Dubois, 2019, 38).
The Métis spoke of being “related in a good way” (Saunders & Dubois, 2019) In their work, Saunders and Dubois (2019) speak of kinship, but in a very broad manner that suggests that there was a membership aspect more than a blood-relation. For example, they state that “family ties among the Métis could stretch to infinity, so to speak. If two grandfathers traded dogs one day, that was enough for their grandchildren to call themselves relatives. Children of cousins two or three times removed turned into uncles and aunts” (K. Saunders & Dubois, 2019, 42). Elsewhere, they make clear that the production of the hunt was a key mechanism for determining membership under the label of what the Métis deemed to be kinship: “Extended families and relatives would (re)connect with each other as they came together to participate in buffalo hunts and other activities related to the fur trade, and would nurture these relationships upon their return to their home communities and settlements” K. Saunders & Dubois, 2019, 43).
Colpitts (2014) provides consumption figures for the 1870 s rather than the 1840 s. We had to scale the number by population to arrive at our estimates.
The quantity of meat consumed is estimated based on 32 families in Red River which—at six persons per family—amounts to 192 persons or roughly a third of the colony’s population. Scaling this up to approximate the entire colony and using the 1827 hunt figure of 16,000 pounds of pemmican gives us the cited figure.
As he puts it, “their [the Red River colonists] very survival depended on it [pemmican and meat]” (Colpitts, 2014, 160).
Numbers are hard to estimate, but the individuals in direct contact were probably in the dozens as the permanent European population stood at roughly fifty households (Upton, 1979, 25). In addition, the initial European population had a skewed male-to-female ratio which opened the door to mixed marriages in which a European trader would marry a Mi’kmaw (the singular of Mi’kmaq) woman to create kinship networks to secure trade (Faragher, 2006, 37–38, 47.
Micmacs is the Europeanized version of Mi’kmaq (the name preferred by members of that Nation).
Unlike Michif, little is known about the structure of this new mixed language.
In fact, the high levels of attendance at the assemblies meant that ostracism of free riders was also an option, although there is limited evidence to this effect.
A dyke also required close surveillance and immediate care that could not be undertaken by a single individual.
In fact, one of the first two recorded delegates, Claude Petitpas, was of mixed ancestry.
This allowed autonomous internal management, but maintained dependence on Britain for foreign relations and war. For example, when Britain declared war on Germany in 1914, Canada was constitutionally mandated to support Britain.
It is, of course, also possible for ethnogenesis to occur because it reduces costs related to enforcement of political property rights. We do not focus on such cases here.
References
Akerlof, G. (1976). The economics of caste and of the rat race and other woeful tales. Quarterly Journal of Economics, pp. 599–617.
Akerlof, G. A. (1997). Social distance and social decisions. Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society, pp. 1005–1027.
Allen, D. W. (2009). A theory of the pre-modern British aristocracy. Explorations in Economic History, 46(3), 299–313.
Allen, D. W. (2011). The institutional revolution: Measurement and the economic emergence of the modern world. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Allen, D. W. (2019). Establishing economic property rights by giving away an empire. The Journal of Law and Economics, 62(2), 251–280.
Allen, D. W., & Barzel, Y. (2011). The evolution of criminal law and police during the pre-modern era. The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 27(3), 540–567.
Altman, M. (1988). Economic Growth in Canada, 1695-1739: Estimates and Analysis. William and Mary Quarterly, pp. 684–711.
Anderson, T. L., & Hill, P. J. (2004). The not so wild, wild west: Property rights on the frontier. Stanford University Press.
Anderson, T. L., & McChesney, F. S. (1994). Raid or trade? An economic model of Indian-White relations. Journal of Law and Economics, 37(1), 39–74.
Bakker, P. (1997). A language of our own: The genesis of Michif, the mixed Cree-French language of the Canadian Métis, (Vol. 10). Oxford University Press.
Bakker, P. (2012). Ethnogenesis, Language and Identity: The Genesis of Michif and Other Mixed Languages. In N. St-Onge, C. Podruchny, & B. Macdougall (Eds.), Contours of a people: Métis family, mobility, and history (pp. 169–193). University of Oklahoma Press.
Barkwell, L. J., Acco, A. C., and Rozyk, A. (2007). The origins of métis customary law with a discussion of métis legal traditions. Gabriel Dumont Institute’s Virtual Museum of Métis History and Culture.
Barth, F. (1998). Ethnic groups and boundaries: The social organization of culture difference. Waveland Press.
Barzel, Y. (1997). Economic analysis of property rights. Cambridge University Press.
Barzel, Y. (2002). A theory of the state: Economic rights, legal rights, and the scope of the state. Cambridge University Press.
Bell, G., Campbell, G., Dubois, J., Flanagan, T., Haggarty, L., Kearns, L.-L., O’Toole, D., Patzer, J., Pulla, S., and Saunders, K. L. (2013). Métis in Canada: History, identity, law and politics. University of Alberta.
Benson, B. L. (1990). The enterprise of law: Justice without the state. Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy San Francisco.
Blanton, R. E. (2015). Theories of ethnicity and the dynamics of ethnic change in multiethnic societies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(30), 9176–9181.
Boas, F. (1896). The limitations of the comparative method of anthropology. Science, 4(103), 901–908.
Bock, P. (1978). Micmacs. In B. Trigger (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 15: Northeast (pp. 109–122). Smithsonian Institution.
Bonhage Freund, M. T., & Kurland, J. A. (1994). Tit-for-tat among the Iroquois: A game theoretic perspective on inter-tribal political organization. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 13(3), 278–305.
Bryce, G. (1900). The Remarkable History of the Hudson’s Bay Company: Including that of the French Traders of North-western Canada and of the North-west, XY, and Astor Fur Companies. S. Low, Marston, limited.https://books.google.com/books?id=_ltbNBHw-eIC
Buchanan, J. (1965). An economic theory of clubs. Economica, 32(125), 1–14.
Candela, R., & Geloso, V. (2021). Trade or raid: Acadian settlers and native Americans before 1755. Public Choice, 188(3), 549–575.
Candela, R., & Geloso, V. J. (2018). The lightship in economics. Public Choice, 176(3–4), 479–506.
Carlos, A. (1981). The causes and origins of the North American Fur Trade rivalry: 1804–1810. The Journal of Economic History, 41(4), 777–794.
Carter, S. (1999). Aboriginal people and colonizers of western Canada to 1900. University of Toronto Press.
Chappell, D. A. (1993). Ethnogenesis and frontiers. Journal of World History, pp. 267–275.
Cheung, S. N. (1983). The contractual nature of the firm. Journal of Law and Economics, 26(1), 1–21.
Clark, A. H. (1968). Acadia: The geography of early Nova Scotia to 1760. University of Wisconsin Press.
Clay, K. (1997). Trade without law: Private-order institutions in Mexican California. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 13(1), 202–231.
Coase, R. H. (1974). The lighthouse in economics. Journal of Law and Economics, 17(2), 357–376.
Colpitts, G. (2014). Pemmican Empire: Food, trade, and the last bison hunts in the North American Plains, 1780–1882. Cambridge University Press.
Cormier, Y. (1990). Les aboiteaux en Acadie: hier et aujourd’hui. Chaire d’études acadiennes: Université de Moncton.
Cornell, S. & Hartmann, D. (2006). Ethnicity and race: Making identities in a changing world. Sage Publications.
Cowen, T. (1992). Law as a public good: The economics of anarchy. Economics and Philosophy, 8(2), 249–267.
Cowen, T., & Sutter, D. (2005). Conflict, cooperation and competition in anarchy. The Review of Austrian Economics, 18(1), 109–115.
Delâge, D. & Warren, J. (2017). Le piège de la liberté: les peuples autochtones dans l’engrenage des régimes coloniaux. Boréal.https://books.google.com/books?id=9nawswEACAAJ
Dick, L. (1991). The Seven Oaks Incident and the construction of a Historical Tradition, 1816 to 1970. Journal of the Canadian Historical Association/Revue de la Société historique du Canada, 2(1), 91–113.
Dickason, O. P. (1982). From" One Nation" in the Northeast to" New Nation" in the Northwest: A Look at the Emergence of the Metis. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 6(2), 1–21.
Dickason, O. P. (2006). A concise history of Canada’s First Nations. Oxford University Press.
Diéreville, N. d. (1708). Relation du voyage du Port Royal de l’Acadie, ou de la Nouvelle France. Chez Jean-Baptiste Besongne.
Dobak, W. A. (1996). Killing the Canadian Buffalo, 1821–1881. The Western Historical Quarterly, 27(1), 33–52.
DuVal, K. (2008). Indian intermarriage and métissage in colonial Louisiana. The William and Mary Quarterly, 65(2), 267–304.
Eccles, W. J. & Eccles, W. J. (1983). The Canadian Frontier, pp. 1534–1760. UNM Press.
Ekberg, C. J. (2002). François Vallée and his World: Upper Louisiana before Lewis and Clark, (Vol. 1). University of Missouri Press.
Ellickson, R. C. (1989). A hypothesis of wealth-maximizing norms: Evidence from the whaling industry. Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, 5(1), 83–99.
Ellickson, R. C. (1994). Order without law. Harvard University Press.
Ens, G. (1988). Dispossession or adaptation? Migration and persistence of the Red River Metis, 1835–1890. Historical Papers/Communications Historiques, 23(1), 120–144.
Ens, G. (2012). The battle of Seven Oaks and the articulation of a Metis national tradition, 1811–1849. In N. St-Onge, C. Podruchny, & B. Macdougall (Eds.), Contours of a people: Métis family, mobility, and history (pp. 93–119). University of Oklahoma Press.
Faragher, J. M. (2006). A great and noble scheme: Thoughts on the expulsion of the acadians. Acadiensis, 36(1), 82–92.
Faragher, J. M. (2014). Commentary: Settler colonial studies and the North American frontier. Settler Colonial Studies, 4(2), 181–191.
Fearon, J. D., & Laitin, D. D. (1996). Explaining interethnic cooperation. American Political Science Review, 90(4), 715–735.
Finnäs, F., & O’leary, R. (2003). Choosing for the children: The affiliation of the children of minority-majority group intermarriages. European Sociological Review, 19(5), 483–499.
Friedman, D. (1979). Private creation and enforcement of law: a historical case. Journal of Legal Studies, 8(2), 399–415.
Gaudry, A. (2014). Kaa-tipeyimishoyaahk-’We are those who own ourselves’: A Political History of Métis Self-Determination in the North-West, pp. 1830–1870. PhD thesis.
Geloso, V., & Lacombe, A. (2016). Why was flour of poor quality? The impact of seigneurial laws and price controls on flour in Quebec during the colonial era. Agricultural History Review, 64(2), 181–195.
Geloso, V. & Leeson, P. (2021). Are Anarcho-Capitalists Insane? Living Standards Under Medieval Icelandic Conflict Institutions. Revue d’Ećonomie Politique, 131(2):undetermined.
Gowricharn, R. (2013). Ethnogenesis: The case of British Indians in the caribbean. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 55(2), 388–418.
Gregg, M. T., & Wishart, D. M. (2012). The price of Cherokee removal. Explorations in Economic History, 49(4), 423–442.
Greif, A. (1993). Contract enforceability and economic institutions in early trade: The Maghribi traders’ coalition. American Economic Review, 83(3), 525–548.
Greif, A. (1994). Cultural beliefs and the organization of society: A historical and theoretical reflection on collectivist and individualist societies. Journal of political economy, 102(5), 912–950.
Greif, A. (2006). History lessons: the birth of impersonal exchange: The community responsibility system and impartial justice. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(2), 221–236.
Griffiths, N. E. (1992). Contexts of Acadian history, pp. 1686–1784. McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Griffiths, N. E. (2004). From migrant to Acadian: a North American border people, pp. 1604–1755. McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Hall, T. D. (2000). Frontiers, ethnogenesis, and world-systems: Rethinking the theories. Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield.
Hämäläinen, P. (2019). Lakota America. Yale University Press.
Harris, C. (2008). The Reluctant Land: Society, Space, and Environment in Canada before Confederation. ubc Press.
Hatvany, M. G. (2002). The Origins of the Acadian Aboiteau: An Environmental Historical Geography. Historical Geography, 30, 121–137.
Havard, G. (2003). Empire et métissages: Indiens et Français dans le Pays d’en Haut, 1660–1715. Sillery, Québec: Septentrion.
Heaman, E. (2015). A Short History of the State in Canada (Vol. 11). University of Toronto Press.
Heaman, E. A. (2022). Civilization: From Enlightenment Philosophy to Canadian History. McGill-Queen’s Press-MQUP.
Heidenreich, C. & Galois, R. (1998). Native Canada, ca. 1820. In Dean, W., Heidenreich, C., McIlwraith, T., and Warkentin, J., editors, Concise Historical Atlas of Canada, page Plate 4. University of Toronto Press.
Hill, C., Soares, P., Mormina, M., Macaulay, V., Meehan, W., Blackburn, J., Clarke, D., Raja, J. M., Ismail, P., Bulbeck, D., et al. (2006). Phylogeography and ethnogenesis of aboriginal Southeast Asians. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 23(12), 2480–2491.
Hodgson-Smith, K. L. & Kermoal, N. (2016). Community-based research and Métis women’s knowledge in Northwestern Saskatchewan. In Living on the land: Indigenous women’s understanding of place, pp. 139–167. Athabasca University Press.
Hope, D. (2016). Britain and the Fur Trade: Commerce and Consumers in the North-Atlantic World, pp. 1783–1821. PhD thesis, Northumbria University.
House of Commons (1857). Report from the Select committee on the Hudson’s Bay company; together with the proceedings of the committee, minutes of evidence, appendix and index. House of Commons.
Hughes, M. (2016). Within the grasp of company law: Land, legitimacy, and the racialization of the métis, 1815–1821. Ethnohistory, 63(3), 519–540.
Iannaccone, L. R. (1992). Sacrifice and stigma: Reducing free-riding in cults, communes, and other collectives. Journal of political economy, 100(2), 271–291.
Innis, H. (1978). Cod fisheries: The history of an international economy. University of Toronto Press.
Jaenen, C. J. (1976). Friend and foe: Aspects of French-Amerindian cultural contact in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. McClelland & Stewart.
Jefferson, C. (1994). Conquest by law. Ministry of the Solicitor General of Canada.
Kennedy, G. (2013). Marshland colonization in acadia and poitou during the 17th century. Acadiensis, 42(1), 37–46.
Kennedy, G., Peace, T., & Pettigrew, S. (2018). Social networks across Chignecto: Applying social network analysis to Acadie, Mi’kma’ki, and Nova Scotia, 1670–1751. Acadiensis, 47(1), 8–40.
Kennedy, G. M. (2008a). French peasants in two worlds: A comparative study of rural experience in seventeenth and eighteenth century Acadia and the Loudunais. PhD thesis.
Kennedy, G. M. (2008). The Parish assembly and its delegates in the Loudunais and Acadia, 1650–1755. Proceedings of the Western Society for French History, 36, 21–35.
Kennedy, G. M. (2014). Something of a Peasant Paradise?: comparing rural societies in Acadie and the Loudunais, pp. 1604–1755. McGill-Queen’s Press-MQUP.
Kohl, J. G. (1860). Kitchi-Gami: Wanderings Round Lake Superior. Number 36182. Chapman and Hall.
Kroeber, A. (1948). Anthropology: Race, Language, Culture, Psychology, Prehistory. Harcourt, Brace & World.https://books.google.com/books?id=sjeBAAAAMAAJ
La Croix, S. J. (1989). Homogeneous middleman groups: What determines the homogeneity? Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 5(1), 211–222.
Landa, J. T. (1981). A theory of the ethnically homogeneous middleman group: An institutional alternative to contract law. The Journal of Legal Studies, 10(2), 349–362.
Lazear, E. P. (1999). Culture and language. Journal of Political Economy, 107(S6), S95–S126.
Leblanc, R. (1979). Les migrations acadiennes. Cahiers de géographie du Québec, 23(58), 99–124.
Leeson, P. T. (2005). Endogenizing fractionalization. Journal of Institutional Economics, 1(1), 75–98.
Leeson, P. T. (2007). An-arrgh-chy: The law and economics of pirate organization. Journal of political economy, 115(6), 1049–1094.
Leeson, P. T. (2007). Trading with bandits. The Journal of Law and Economics, 50(2), 303–321.
Leeson, P. T. (2008). Social distance and self-enforcing exchange. Journal of Legal Studies, 37(1), 161–188.
Leeson, P. T. (2009). The laws of lawlessness. Journal of Legal Studies, 38(2), 471–503.
Leeson, P. T. (2011). Trial by battle. Journal of Legal Analysis, 3(1), 341–375.
Leeson, P. T. (2014a). Anarchy unbound: Why self-governance works better than you think. Cambridge University Press.
Leeson, P. T. (2014). Oracles. Rationality and Society, 26(2), 141–169.
Leeson, P. T., et al. (2014). Human sacrifice. Review of Behavioral Economics, 1(1–2), 137–165.
Libecap, G. D., & Lueck, D. (2011). The demarcation of land and the role of coordinating property institutions. Journal of Political Economy, 119(3), 426–467.
Lowe, R. G. (1968). Massachusetts and the Acadians. The William and Mary quarterly: A magazine of early American history and culture, 25(2), 212–229.
Lunn, A. (1939). The Illegal Fur Trade out of New France, 1713–60. Report of the annual meeting of the Canadian historical society, 18(1), 61–76.
Macdougall, B. (2008). The comforts of married life: Metis family life, labour, and the Hudson’s Bay company. Labour/Le Travailleur, 61, 9–39.
Macdougall, B. (2012). The Myth of Métis Cultural Ambivalence. In N. St-Onge, C. Podruchny, & B. Macdougall (Eds.), Contours of a people: Métis family, mobility, and history (pp. 422–464). University of Oklahoma Press.
Marcotte, G. (2021). De freemen à Métis: l’histoire retrouvée des gens libres entre la Baie-James et Montréal. Presses de l’Université Laval.
Margry, P. (1876). Découvertes et établissements des français dans l’ouest et dans le sud de l’Amérique Septentrionale (1614–1754) (Vol. 1). Jouaust: Impr. D.
Martel, G. (1979). Quand une majorité devient une minorité: les Métis francophones de l’Ouest canadien. Cahiers de géographie du Québec, 23(58), 73–98.
McCabe, S. (1998). Contesting home: tourism, memory, and identity in Sackville, New Brunswick. Canadian Geographer/Le Géographe Canadien, 42(3), 231–245.
Michaux, E. (2021). Metissage and Métis Identity in the Gaspé Peninsula. In M. Bouchard, S. Mallette, & S. Pulla (Eds.), Eastern Métis: Chronicling and Reclaiming a Denied Past (pp. 133–152). Lexington Books.
Moodie, W., Kaye, B., & Lytwyn, V. (1993). The Fur Trade Northwest to 1870. In R. Gentilcore, D. Measner, R. Walder, G. Matthew, & B. Moldofsky (Eds.), Historical Atlas of Canada, Volume II, page Plate 17. University of Toronto Press.
Mueller, D. C. (1988). Anarchy, the market, and the state. Southern Economic Journal, 54(4), 821–830.
Murtazashvili, I., & Murtazashvili, J. (2015). Anarchy, self-governance, and legal titling. Public Choice, 162(3), 287–305.
Nash, G. B. (1995). The hidden history of mestizo America. The Journal of American History, 82(3), 941–964.
North, D. C. (1990). Institutions, institutional change and economic performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
O’Connell, S. (2021). The Acadian Metis on the Geographic and Social Margins. In M. Bouchard, S. Mallette, & S. Pulla (Eds.), Eastern Métis: Chronicling and Reclaiming a Denied Past (pp. 111–132). Lexington Books.
Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press.
Ouellet, M. -È. (2018). Structures et pratiques dans l’historiographie de l’État en Nouvelle-France. Bulletin d’histoire politique, 18(1), 37–49.
Payment, D. P. (2001). Plains Métis. In R. DeMallie (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 13, Part 1 of 2: Plains (pp. 661–676). Smithsonian Institution.
Peterson, J. (1978). Prelude to Red River: a social portrait of the Great Lakes Métis. Ethnohistory, 41–67.
Peterson, J. (2012). Red River Redux: Métis Ethnogenesis and the Great Lakes Region. In N. St-Onge, C. Podruchny, & B. Macdougall (Eds.), Contours of a people: Métis family, mobility, and history (pp. 22–58). University of Oklahoma Press.
Peterson, J. & Brown, J. S. (2001). The new peoples: Being and becoming Métis in North America, volume 1. Kindle edition.
Piano, E. E., & Carson, B. B. (2020). Scalp-taking. Rationality and Society, 32(1), 40–66.
Posner, R. A. (1980). A theory of primitive society, with special reference to law. Journal of Law and Economics, 23(1), 1–53.
Powell, B., & Stringham, E. P. (2009). Public choice and the economic analysis of anarchy: a survey. Public Choice, 140(3–4), 503–538.
Public Archives of Canada (1874). Censuses of Canada, 1665 to 1871, Vol. 4. Department of Agriculture.
Rauch, J. E. (2001). Business and social networks in international trade. Journal of economic literature, 39(4), 1177–1203.
Ray, A. (1988). The Hudson’s Bay Company and Native People. In W. E. Washburn (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 4: History of Indian-White Relations (pp. 335–350). Smithsonian Institution.
Richman, B. D. (2017). Stateless commerce. Harvard University Press.
Richter, D. K. (1988). Cultural brokers and intercultural politics: New York–Iroquois relations, 1664–1701. The Journal of American History, 75(1), 40–67.
Roback, J. (1992). Exchange, sovereignty, and Indian-Anglo relations. In Anderson, T. L., editor, Property rights and Indian economies, pp. 5–26. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, Publishers.
Roosens, E. E. (1989). Creating ethnicity: The process of ethnogenesis. Sage Publications, Inc.
Ross, A. (1856). The Red River settlement: Its rise, progress, and present state. London: Smith.
Rothbard, M. N. (2011). Conceived in liberty. Ludwig von Mises Institute.
Rouanet, L. & Piano, E. E. (2019). Filling the ranks: The remplacement militaire in post-revolutionary France. European Review of Economic History.
Roy, G. L. (2019). Ce qui échappe à la Raison d’État: stratégies discursives des intendants de la Nouvelle France confrontés à la contrebande des fourrures, 1715-1750. PhD thesis, University of Montreal.
Russell, P. A. (2012). How agriculture made Canada: Farming in the nineteenth century. McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Sanchez, D. T., Shih, M., & Garcia, J. A. (2009). Juggling multiple racial identities: Malleable racial identification and psychological well-being. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 15(3), 243.
Saunders, K. & Dubois, J. (2019). Métis politics and governance in Canada. UBC Press.
Saunders, S. (2016). A language survey of Northern Métis languages: A community-based language revitalization. PhD thesis, University of Victoria.
Shortt, A. (1925). Documents relating canadian currency, exchange and finance during the French Period: Selected and edited with notes and introduction, volume 1. Board of Historical Publications Canadian Archives.
Solvason, B. T. (1993). Institutional evolution in the Icelandic commonwealth. Constitutional Political Economy, 4(1), 97–125.
St-Onge, N. (1985). The Dissolution of a Métis Community: Pointe à Grouette, 1860–1885. Studies in Political Economy, 18(1), 149–172.
St-Onge, N., & Podruchny, C. (2012). Scuttling Along a Spider’s Web: Mobility and Kinship in Métis Ethnogenesis. In N. St-Onge, C. Podruchny, & B. Macdougall (Eds.), Contours of a people: Métis family, mobility, and history (pp. 59–92). University of Oklahoma Press.
Stephen, S. P. (2006). Masters and servants: The Hudson’s Bay Company and its personnel, pp. 1668–1782,PhD thesis.
Stringham, E. (2015). Private governance: Creating order in economic and social life. Oxford University Press.
Sutter, D. (1995). Asymmetric power relations and cooperation in anarchy. Southern Economic Journal, pp. 602–613.
Tesdahl, E. R. H. (2012). The Price of Empire: Smuggling Between New York and New France, pp. 1700–1754. PhD thesis, PhD diss., University of Colorado.
Trigger, B. G. (1989). The Indians and the heroic age of New France. Number 30–32. Canadian Historical Association.
Upton, L. F. (1979). Micmacs and colonists: Indian white relations in the maritime provinces 1713–1867. University of British Columbia Press.
Van Kirk, S. (1983). Many tender ties: Women in fur-trade society (pp. 1670–1870). University of Oklahoma Press.
Viau, R. (1997). Enfants du néant et mangeurs d’âmes: guerre, culture et société en Iroquoisie ancienne. Boréal (Editions du).
Warren, J. (1978). Who were the balangingi samal? Slave raiding and ethnogenesis in nineteenth-century sulu. The Journal of Asian Studies, 37(3), 477–490.
White, R. (2010). The middle ground: Indians, empires, and republics in the Great Lakes region (pp. 1650–1815). Cambridge University Press.
Williamson, O. E. (2000). The new institutional economics: Taking stock, looking ahead. Journal of Economic Literature, 38(3), 595–613.
Acknowledgement
We wish to thank Peter Leeson and Ennio Piano for their comments on earlier drafts. Louis wishes to thank Mary Zhulkie for her continuous support. Vincent thanks Glenfiddich Vintage Cask.
Funding
The authors received no funding for this article.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Confict of interest
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Geloso, V., Rouanet, L. Ethnogenesis and statelessness. Eur J Law Econ 55, 377–407 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10657-023-09767-8
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10657-023-09767-8