The history of the Metis from the mid-1600's to the present is explored to develop a case against the traditional frontier explanation which states that the Metis people were doomed to extinction because they were a static, primitive society, unable to face the changes of an advancing, sophisticated, white civilization. Partly by reading between the lines of primary sources, and partly by stating events from a native view or perspective, it becomes obvious that the Metis were not only a strong and viable civilization, superior in many respects to that of the eastern whites, but that, in terms of political concepts and organization, they were decades ahead of their time. Their society was dispersed, not by the advance of a superior culture, but by the callous and legalistic exploitation of a people by a small band of fortune-hunting carpetbaggers