How a $160 certificate issued to a Métis man in 1890 ended up paying for a Surrey homestead — and what 8,700 acres of Lower Mainland land reveal about where the value of Métis scrip really went.
An article in a developing body of research by BC Métis Federation reconsidering the place of Métis scrip in British Columbia history
I remember when scrip records first became accessible on a computer and the first time I located my great-grandfather’s scrip. When I first learned about scrip, I saw it as something that had happened to Métis people a long time ago, something finished, tucked away in the past. People often used the records for genealogy or to help establish their Métis ancestry.
The popular story I heard over the years was that Métis scrip was a Prairie issue. I read academics who stated that scrip had not been issued in British Columbia. Métis Nation B.C. regional health and wellness materials state that the federal Scrip Commission operated only in the historic Northwest and was “specifically prohibited from issuing scrip to Métis in British Columbia.” The assumption was that it was not really part of B.C. history.
Within this viewpoint the difficult history of Métis scrip as a tool for dispossessing Métis from their rights happened “over there” — on the Prairies and in the historic Northwest, while British Columbia is presented as having a separate Métis story centred on the fur trade, exploration, migration, culture, resilience and contributions to the development of the province of B.C.
In addition, the whole scrip system designed by the federal government to extinguish Métis land rights was incredibly confusing. It unfolded over more than thirty years, involved multiple commissions and many administrative steps, and the records were scattered across different repositories. At times, it felt almost purposefully inaccessible and difficult to make sense of.
But as I dug deeper, I began to realize that the history was much broader and more nuanced than I had understood. The dispossession did not stop on the Prairies. The value taken from Métis land rights entered B.C.’s speculation and land markets.
A few years ago, as part of a team of researchers at BCMF, we began researching Treaty 8 in northeastern British Columbia. Métis people were clearly involved, and the federal government dealt with them through scrip. Our research demonstrated that a commission did enter northeastern B.C., and the travel itinerary was even advertised publicly.
That was my first major realization: scrip was already part of British Columbia history. I also began to understand that the scrip process was not a single event. Applying for it, proving a claim, receiving a certificate, selling it and eventually using it were all different parts of a longer process. I learned that there were two main forms: land scrip and money scrip. At first, I focused mostly on land scrip. I wanted to know whether any Métis scrip had actually been located on land in B.C. Our research is still unfolding, but the evidence is growing. We are finding proof that both land scrip and money scrip were part of the settlement of the Peace River Country, including on the British Columbia side. Each new record makes it harder to treat scrip as only a Prairie story.
This showed me that the claims that scrip had nothing to do with B.C. were too narrow and dismissive.
I learned that most Métis claimants received money scrip, and I initially did not understand what happened to those certificates after they were sold. I had heard the familiar stories of Métis people selling their scrip, often for only a fraction of its face value. I assumed they received some cash, spent it, and that was the end of the story. I had never really asked where the value went afterward.
Then I began noticing scrip in unexpected places. I found it over and over in British Columbia newspapers. Speculators, brokers and private banks were buying and selling it in a secondary market. I found advertisements aimed at settlers buying Dominion land, and even a Vancouver based company offering large blocks of scrip for sale. I described this in a recent article we published on our BCMF website.
This led me to understand how money scrip actually worked. Despite its name, money scrip was not cash. A person could not normally take a $160 certificate to a Dominion Lands office and ask for $160 in cash. It worked more like a transferable land credit voucher. Because it was payable to the bearer, it could change hands. A Métis claimant could sell it for usable cash. A speculator or private bank could then resell it to someone who owed money on Dominion land.
The government accepted the certificate at its full face value toward eligible federal land. A settler might buy a $160 certificate at a discount and still receive the full $160 credit on the land. The settler saved money, the intermediary made a profit, and earlier in the chain the Métis claimant had often received much less than the certificate was worth.
Peter Lowe, who worked for Alloway and Champion, explained why money scrip was so attractive to the firm. There were many settlers who needed to pay for Dominion land, so the company could buy scrip cheaply and quickly find someone who could use it. Alloway & Champion bought scrip at steep discounts. In one case, Alloway paid just $80 for a $160 certificate. In some accounts, some buyers paid far less. The buyers later resold it to land purchasers who could use the full amount toward Dominion land. In simple terms, the Métis claimant received reduced cash, while the full value of the certificate travelled through the market and became a discount on someone else’s land. That realization changed the direction of my research.
The settler saved money, the intermediary made a profit, and earlier in the chain the Métis claimant had often received much less than the certificate was worth.
I began studying the B.C. Homestead Grant Registers from BC Archives, accessed through FamilySearch. These records followed settlers as they occupied land, applied for it, made payments and eventually received patents or Crown grants.
Reading each homestead entry, I began noticing references to Métis scrip. One of the first examples I noticed involved Elias John Newton, an early settler in the Newton area of Surrey. The Surrey Archive records that in 1890 Newton received a Crown Land Grant, totalling 160 acres of the land encompassing the area between 72 and 76 Avenue and 124 and 128 Street. An 1892 Surrey pre-emption map also places E.J. Newton on the southeast quarter of Section 19, matching the parcel identified in the homestead record.
In the B.C. Homestead Grant Register, the entry lists Elias John Newton’s name, the legal description of the parcel, and the progress of his land account. In the remarks, a handwritten note states, “Paid in full scrip No. 8081 for $160.” That small notation was the clue: it showed that scrip had been used to complete payment on Newton’s land and it gave me a specific certificate number to trace.
I wondered what that number meant. On a hunch, I searched for scrip certificate No. 8081 in the Métis scrip records at Library and Archives Canada (LAC). It led me to a $160 money-scrip certificate originally issued to a Métis man named Zéphirin Morin.
On the back of Morin’s certificate was a handwritten legal land description. The accompanying description said the scrip had been “applied on” a particular parcel, SE 19-2 W.C.M.
That LAC description matched Elias Newton’s homestead exactly. Suddenly, the two sets of records connected. The B.C. homestead record documented Newton’s path toward ownership. The federal scrip record documented a certificate originally issued to Morin in recognition and extinguishment of his Métis land rights. The common link was Métis scrip.
We do not yet know who first bought Morin’s certificate, what Morin was paid or whether Alloway and Champion handled it. We also do not know whether Newton personally carried it into the office. But we do know that on April 1, 1890, Morin’s $160 certificate was presented at or through the Dominion Lands office in New Westminster and applied to Newton’s homestead account.
The government did not hand anyone $160 in cash. It credited the full $160 value of Morin’s certificate toward Newton’s land. The most likely reason for using scrip was the discount. There would have been little advantage for Newton in buying a $160 certificate for the full $160. But if Newton or an intermediary obtained it for less, the transaction made financial sense. That is when I understood that the value of Métis money scrip did not just disappear after the original claimant sold it. The value travelled.
It moved through the hands of speculators, banks, brokers and settlers. It entered the Dominion Lands system and was converted into land in British Columbia. Once scrip entered a settler’s land account, the system worked to help that settler complete the purchase: payments were tracked, credits could be adjusted, disputes addressed and title secured. The system gave settlers both recourse and recognition, while favouring a settled agricultural model that fit much less easily with more mobile Métis land use. Similarly, Morin had no continuing recognized place in the land transaction in Surrey. His name does not appear beside Newton’s in the B.C. homestead register. The register records only that “scrip” was used, along with a certificate number. Morin can be recovered only by reconnecting that number to a separate federal archive.
Newton remained visible in the land record. Morin disappeared from it.
Newton remained visible in the land record. Morin disappeared from it. That discovery changed how I understood scrip. It was not simply a Prairie policy that ended when a Métis person sold a certificate. It was a portable federal land credit whose value could travel across the country or remain within the province and be converted into land in British Columbia.
Now we are in a position to reconnect these land records to the Métis people and families whose rights created that value. To date, we have directly matched 56 distinct parcels totalling more than 8,700 acres of Lower Mainland land to Métis scrip records, across Surrey, Langley, Abbotsford, Maple Ridge, Mission, Coquitlam and elsewhere. These were separate parcels scattered across the region, not one continuous block. And the 8,700 acres represent only the portion of the research that currently meets our strictest matching standard. Thousands of additional acres remain in our working inventory and are still under review.
Scrip is not only part of Métis history on the Prairies. This knowledge has the potential to change how we understand British Columbia and Canadian history. For Métis people, this research helps reconnect our ancestors to the lands their scrip helped pay for and helps us tell the fuller story of dispossession. The dispossession did not stop on the Prairies. The value taken from Métis land rights travelled into B.C.’s speculation and land markets, while Métis families were left carrying the loss across generations. For Canada, this means looking at the whole story, not just how scrip was issued, but what happened after it was sold, how government policy stripped people of land rights, where that value went, and what the consequences were for families over time. This is about responsibility, access to records, historical transparency and, above all, reconciliation. The records remembered the settlers. Our work is putting the Métis people back into the story.
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Joe Desjarlais, M.A., is Director of Research at the BC Métis Federation. He can be reached at J.Desjarlais@BCMetis.com.