| Summary: |
In French Canadians, Furs, and Indigenous Women, Jean Barman rewrites the history of the Pacific Northwest from the perspective of French Canadians involved in the fur economy, the indigenous women whose presence in their lives encouraged them to stay, and their descendants. Joined in this distant setting by Quebec paternal origins, the French language, and Catholicism, French Canadians comprised Canadiens from Quebec, Iroquois from the Montreal area, and métis combining Canadien and indigenous descent. For half a century, French Canadians were the largest group of newcomers in this region extending from Oregon and Washington east into Montana and north through British Columbia. Here, they facilitated the early overland crossings, drove the fur economy, initiated non-wholly-indigenous agricultural settlement, eased relations with indigenous peoples, and ensured that, when the Pacific Northwest was divided in 1846, the northern half would go to Britain, giving today's Canada its Pacific shoreline. In the generations that followed, Barman argues, descendants did not become Métis, as the term has been used to describe a people apart, but rather drew on both their French Canadians and indigenous inheritances to make the best possible lives for themselves and those around them. -- Review from ubcpress.ca |
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