The Role of Native Women in the Fur Trade Society of Western Canada, 1670-1830

Bibliographic Data

ID11242018
AuthorsSylvia Van Kirk (corresponding author)
Year1984
Volume7
Issue3
Pages9
Publication date1984-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueFrontiers A Journal of Women Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0160-9009 • E-ISSN: 1536-0334
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/3346234
OpenAlexW2321040471
LanguageEN
Citations received9

In essence the history of the early Canadian West is the history of the fur trade. For nearly 200 years, from the founding of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1670 until the transfer of Rupert's Land to the newly created dominion of Canada in 1870, the fur trade was the dominant force in shaping the history of what are today Canada's four western provinces. This long and unified experience gave rise in western Canada to frontier society that seems to me to be unique in the realm of interracial contact. Canada's western history has been characterized by relatively little violent conflict between and white. I would like to suggest that there were two major reasons why this was so. First, by its very nature the Canadian fur trade was predicated on mutual exchange and dependency between and white. only good Indian was certainly not a dead Indian, for it was the who provided both the fur pelts and the market for European goods. New research has revealed that not just men but also women played an active role in promoting the fur trade. Although the men were the hunters of beaver and large game animals, the women were responsible for trapping smaller fur-bearing animals, especially the marten whose pelt was highly prized. 1 The notable cases of women emerging as diplomats and peacemakers also indicate that they were anxious to maintain the flow of European goods, such as kettles, cloth, knives, needles, and axes, that helped to alleviate their onerous work role.2 The second factor in promoting harmonious relations was the remarkably wide extent of intermarriage between incoming traders and women, especially among the Cree, the Ojibwa, and the Chipewyan. wives proved indispensable helpmates to the officers and men of both the British-based Hudson's Bay Company and its Canadian rival, the North West Company. Such interracial unions were, in fact, the basis for fur trade society and were sanctioned by an indigenous rite known as mar

Economics · Ethnology · Fur trade · Geography · International trade · Political science · Sociology · Canadian Identity and History · Indigenous Studies and Ecology