French Canadians, Furs, and Indigenous Women in the Making of the Pacific Northwest
Uncovers the forgotten story of French Canadians who, along with the Indigenous women in their lives, shaped the Canadian and American Pacific Northwest.
Description
Jean Barman rewrites the history of the Pacific Northwest from the perspective of the French Canadians involved in the fur economy, the Indigenous women whose presence in their lives encouraged them to stay, and their descendants. For half a century, French Canadians were the region’s largest group of newcomers, facilitating early overland crossings, driving the fur economy, initiating non-wholly-Indigenous agricultural settlement, and easing relations with Indigenous peoples. When the region was divided in 1846, they also ensured that the northern half would go to Britain, ultimately giving Canada its Pacific shoreline.
Awards
- Winner, The Sir John A. Macdonald Prize, Canadian Historical Association 2015
- Winner, 2015 K. D. Srivastava Prize, UBC Press 2015
- Winner, Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Book on British Columbia, UBC Library 2015
Reviews
In Barman’s adroit hands, the lives and experiences, hopes and dreams of the French Indian families who had a significant yet generally unremarked impact on the Pacific Northwest come to life. Rather than peripheral figures in the larger course of historical events, they were often at the center of the action - in exploring and fur-trapping expeditions, during periods of relatively peaceful negotiation and exchange, and at times of armed conflict.
- Melinda Marie Jetté
Barman’s feast of historical and genealogical data on French Canadians in British Columbia forces the reader to ponder their absence in previous BC histories, and reinforces the position of French Canadians as one of the founding peoples of that province.
- Maurice Guibord, Société historique francophone de la Colombie-Britannique
The history of French Canadian fur trappers in the northwest, often mentioned in local state histories, here crosses national and cultural borders to include their interactions with indigenous peoples and stories of travels from eastern Canada to Oregon and British Columbia. This book is an essential forensic history for all people who trace their ancestry to the fur trade era of the Pacific Northwest.
- David G. Lewis, PhD, Tribal Historian, Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon