The Manitoba Act of 1870 provided a land grant of 1.4 million acres for distribution among the Métis in exchange for extinguishing their indigenous title to the land. Dollar-valued land certificates known as scrip entitled the bearer to receive government-surveyed homestead lands at a later date. Although scrip allowed individual claimants to choose any western lands open for settlement, it initiated the widespread dispersal of the Métis from Manitoba. An estimated two-thirds of the province's 10,000 persons of mixed decent in 1870 departed over the next twenty years. Most Métis headed west and settled near the Catholic mission settlements around Fort Edmonton and the South Saskatchewan River.
Holden Stoffel