Women of Power

Paper Summary:

This paper argues that native women who married white fur traders in pre-confederation Canada, did so because they knew that they fulfilled an important intermediary role within native/white business relations, and thus stood to see their social and economic status increase dramatically through marriage to non-native men. It was understood that being a translator and a bridge to both worlds was an excellent means of accruing power, status and capital. The paper maintains that, although there were external pressures that may often have propelled native women into one marriage or another, the final decision to marry a white man was chiefly prompted by self-interest.

From the Paper:

"Suffice it to say, the early Canadian fur trade that prospered in Canada during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries would not have been possible unless two racial groups - Native Americans and their European counterparts - found a way to work together in some fashion for the enrichment of both. Sylvia Van Kirk, one of the more perceptive students of the old Canadian fur trade, has written that the native women in those Indian communities that came into contact with white European traders found themselves caught between two groups of males: the male leaders of their own community, and the enterprising traders of the European colonizers. In a very real sense, these native women used their status as the wives of traders to act as "go-betweens" or as "social brokers" between two groups with often strained relations. In fact, Van Kirk is largely of the view that native women used their status as a go-between to bolster their own stature while, at the very same time, they coveted the economic power that derived from being the wife of a fur trader. In that sense, the old notion that these women were somehow agent-less victims is one that desperately needs to be cast aside in favor of a more modern interpretation."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Abel, Kerry. Drum Songs: Glimpses of Dene History, Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1993. Questia.com, 29 May 2007 <http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=102598224>
• Brown, Jennifer S.H. Strangers in Blood: Fur Trade Company Families in Indian Country. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1980. Questia.com. 29 May 2007 <http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=43142929>
• "Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur Trade Society, 1670-1870 (Book Review)." Education, 105.4 (1985): 390.
• Nadeau, Chantal. Fur Nation: From the Beaver to Brigitte Bardot. London: Routledge, 2001. Questia.com. 29 May 2007 <http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=107570326>
• Rollason Driscoll, Heather. "'A Most Important Chain of Connection': Marriage in the Hudson's Bay Company, Readings in Canadian History: Pre-Confederation, 6th edition (?). Eds. R. Douglas Francis and Donald B. Smith, Toronto: Nelson Thomson Learning, 2002. 76-90.

More papers on Women of Power:

• Research Paper # 93426 : "The Royal Women of Medieval Europe"
• Essay # 52004 : "Women and Power in the Medical Profession"
• Analytical Essay # 132673 : "Women and Power"

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