Half-breed

For other uses, see Half-Breed (disambiguation).

Half-breed

Holmes Colbert · Greenwood LeFlore · Quanah Parker Jim Thorpe
Languages
American English Native American languages
Religion
Native American Church Protestant Sacred Pipe Kiva Religion Long House Roman Catholic Russian Orthodox
Related ethnic groups
Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Native Americans in the United States

Half-breed is an historic term used to describe anyone who is of mixed Native American (especially North American) and white European parentage. Métis is a more general French term for mixed race, which has generally referred to a person of descent from two different major ethnic groups, such as European and African, European and Native American, or European and Asian.

Prior to 1763, when Canada passed into British hands, most traders with the Indians in northern North America were French, thus half-breeds were usually half French. As fur-trading became the province of the Northwest Company of Montreal, and, later, the Hudson's Bay Company, half-breeds were more likely to have fathers of Scottish or Orkney origins. Trappers were often still French-Canadian or Métis, however, as they had long been in the business. Their sons, familiar with First Nations languages and cultures, found ready employment with the trading companies.

The Métis were so numerous as to create some communities of their own, such as the Red River settlement in Manitoba, and Prince Albert in Saskatchewan.

Controversy

The term "half-breed" was considered an impolite and rude offensive slur by almost everyone.

In popular culture

• The villain of Mark Twain's novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, is a Native American-European-American man named "Injun Joe"; he is referred to as a "half-breed", often together with a derogatory adjective, such as "stinking," and has a violent and homicidal personality, which is attributed to his heritage}.
• "Half-Breed" is a song recorded by Cher and released as a single in 1973. On October 6, 1973, it became Cher's second U.S. number one hit as a solo artist, and it was her second solo single to hit the top spot in Canada on the same date.
• In the Harry Potter series, the term "Half-Breed" is used as an insult toward a character who is of mixed human/magical creature ancestry^{[citation needed]}

Further reading

• Hudson, Charles. Red, White, and Black: Symposium on Indians in the Old South, Southern Anthropological Society, 1971. SBN: 820303089.
• Perdue, Theda. Mixed Blood Indians, The University of Georgia Press, 2003. ISBN 082032731X.

See also

• Anglo-Metis
• Half-caste
• Mixed Race Day
• Mestizo
• Mulatto
• Quadroon
• Octoroon
• Zambo

External links

• Murray Parker: "The Half-breed Savage/ Quanah Parker", Texas Escapes
• "Half-breed", Dictionary