Adams, Howard

ADAMS, Howard, writer, educator, Metis activist (b 1921, St Louis, SK; d Sept 2001, Vancouver). He was raised in poverty in a METIS community north of Saskatoon. After graduating from high school he joined the RCMP for 4 years, then attended university, first UBC (BA 1950) and then in Toronto, where he took teacher training. He then returned to BC and worked as a school counsellor and teacher for several years. He studied history at the Univ of California at Berkeley, where he received a PhD in 1966, then taught at the Univ of Saskatchewan (1966-74) and the Univ of California (1974-87). In retirement he lived in VANCOUVER but returned to Saskatchewan each summer to teach. Called a "Metis guru," Adams was active all his life in aboriginal political organizations. He served as president of the Metis Society of Saskatchewan from 1968 to 1972, and in 1999 he received a National Aboriginal Achievement Award. His book Prison of Grass (1975), an impassioned mix of autobiography and history, told the story of Canada for the first time from an aboriginal perspective. He also published No Surrender: The Dynamics of Colonization (1992) and A Tortured People (1995).