American Indian Wars
The 2010 United States Census found 2,932,248 Americans who identified themselves as being American Indian or Alaskan Native, about 0.9% of the US population. The Canada 2011 Census found 1,836,035 Canadians who identified themselves as being First Nations (or Inuit or Métis), about 4.3% of the Canadian population. No consensus exists on how many people lived in the Americas before the arrival of Europeans, but extensive research continues to be conducted. Contemporary estimates range from 2.1 million to 18 million people living on the North American continent prior to European colonization, but the US Census Bureau stated in 1894 that North America was an almost empty continent in 1492 and that Indian populations "could not have exceeded much over 500,000."
Canadian Métis Council
Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 recognizes three Aboriginal peoples of Canada: the First Nations, Inuit and Métis. However, in the absence of a clear definition of the term Métis, certain descendants of the Métis of the Red River Colony, in what is now Manitoba, confuse the concepts of people and nation and assume that this recognition applies to them alone. But in fact, the term métis was used far earlier, in New France, to refer to all descendants of mixed marriages between men of European descent and First Nations women. In modern times, the Manitoba Metis Federation has turned this generic term into an ethnonym and claimed exclusive rights to its use. The Métis National Council – the organization that represents the Métis Nation, defined as Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and parts of Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and the Northern United States – has done the same and still refuses to recognize the existence of other Métis, despite the recommendations in the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and the Powley and Daniels decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada. 
At the time of the 2011 census, there were 451,800 people who self-identified as Métis, including 228,150 in the Prairie provinces (Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta). This means that there were 223,650 people self-identified as Métis and scattered across the other provinces and territories. Although not all of these people are Métis within the meaning of the Powley decision, some 50 communities outside the Prairie provinces can be identified by reference to Department of Justice research reports, federal censuses, provincial and federal court cases, websites, and the transcript of the hearings that the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples held in 2012 on the legal and political recognition of Métis identity in Canada and the rights of Métis in Canada.
Even though this committee heard from Métis from Ontario, Québec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, it did not take their testimony into account in the report that it published in 2013. It recognized only the Métis of the national homeland, except for those in Kelowna, British Columbia and the Northwest Territories, who are covered by Treaty 8 of 1899 and Treaty 11 of 1921, respectively. Reflecting the position of the Métis National Council, the Senate committee did not travel to Labrador and did not consider the existence of the Métis of Sault Ste Marie.