A number of factors may have played a role in shifting
marriage patterns immediately before the coming of white
cultural norms.
- The Influence of Tribal Conflicts:
A case in point is the famous battle between Ojibwa
people and the Iroquois at Iroquois Point, in what is
Chippewa County, Michigan in 1662. Women captured in such
conflicts inevitably went to the warrior victors, and
children could be enslaved and separated from their mothers.
Thereafter children could become members of the victorious
group through adoption; contrary-wise they could be killed
or traded for supplies with another band who wanted them.
The dominance of the father’s bloodline in tracing origins
was important, but not crucial.
- The Movement East and West
As Jesuit Paul Le Jeune notes: " Besides having some
kind of Laws maintained among themselves, there is also a
certain order established as regards foreign nations…he is
Master of one line of trade who was first to discover it…if
any one should be bold enough to engage in a trade without
permission from him who is Master, he may do a good business
in secret and concealment, but if he is surprised by the way
he will not be better treated than a thief." (Thwaites, ed.,
Jesuit Relations, X, 225.) The lines of trade date back at
least to the obsidian quarries of British Columbia (8,000
BCE.) and copper from Lake Superior (circa 4000 BCE.). Cree
tradition has it that their ancestors migrated West
periodically long before the fur trade to enter into trade
with the Plains people, and that some of them resided in
B.C. and made forays East. This has some credence to it
given the importance of Head-Smashed-In as a trading center
(perhaps connected to Cahokia in the East) for at least 5000
years. (Dickason, 76) In all of these activities women would
be involved. Even in war parties, a few women would travel
long distances with them to provide food and other services
for the fighters. Doubtless some of them remained and became
the wives of chiefs and other important officials who wanted
to establish trade hegemony. Marriage was a strong form of
alliance. While marriage always may have been the basis of
family alliances, the potential of trade alliances gives
added impetus to the fact that marriage of a chief’s
daughter with a distant ally provided a significant form of
relationship not part of the usual form of marriage
contract.
- The Rise of the Fur Trade and Metis Culture
It was during the 17th century that the Cree and Assiniboia began
moving west, and during that time, they brought the fur
trade with them. They had over a century of trade activity
before other tribes entered the picture from the Northwest.
In the north, theYellowknives and Dogrib were in conflict
with Chipewyans for the best routes to Hudson’s Bay. The
Cree had early on acquired firearms, and they used them with
great advantage to expand their control over the trade
routes, but this only lasted as long as Hudson’s Bay
remained the center of trade…once the HBC moved inland, the
Cree lost their favoured position.
Then Iroquois trappers, Athapaskan and Cree fought for
control of the resources; with major struggles for control
of the resource after 1800. When the North West Company
challenged the HBC, it did so on the basis of Iroquois
trappers, who used the latest in steel traps. These trappers
were ‘free’, in the sense that they sold their furs to the
best and most convenient company, and were no longer tied to
settlements and to tribal politics. They contracted
themselves to the company that gave them the best price. The
result that, as they moved west, they intermarried with
women along the routes they worked, and established
themselves as independents in the land.
Their marriages arose out of the Amerindian conviction of
marriage as an alliance. Their families married with both
Cree and Metis, and they formed alliances with other groups
as the need arose. These ‘independent’ families can be found
today in Alberta at Grand Cache, Lac Ste. Anne and Lesser
Slave Lake. (Peterson & Brown, eds. The New Peoples, 163ff.
These developments cut marriage from its tribal moorings,
although it is likely that norms followed that of the
husband, given his role in moving away from tribal centers.
Metis groups were already formed from the earlier liaison of
Aboriginal women with French and Scottish traders and these
followed patterns laid down by the religion of the men. The
value system of these alliances reflects the Amerindian
system as the following demonstrates:
When a Frenchman
trades with them (Amerindians), he takes into his services
one of their Daughters, the one, presumably, who is most to
his taste; he asks the Father for her,& under certain
conditions, it is arranged; he promises to give the Father
some blankets, a few shirts, a Musket, Powder & Shoot,
Tobacco & Tools; they come to an agreement at last & the
exchange is made. The Girls, who is familiar with the
Country, undertakes, on her part, to serve the Frenchman in
every way, to dress his pelts, to sell his Mechandise for a
specified length of time; the bargain is faithfully carried
out on both sides. (Sieur de Diéreville, 187)
It is from such alliances as this that pockets of
Christianized Aboriginal peoples spread throughout the West,
bringing with them the marital norms laid down by the
Church.
- The Devastation of Smallpox and Other Diseases of
White Origin
Innis has estimated that the smallpox epidemic of
1782 in the west reduced the population by from 60 to 90%.
The devastation of such a pandemic today is beyond
calculation, but it is well to note that it was women and
children who bore the first brunt of the disease, since it
was women who nursed the ill. The men, challenged to find
some reason for the disaster fled into the woods to find
better food. Yet, perhaps more debilitating was the impact
on the spiritual life and values of the people. As Coutu and
Hoffman-Mercredi note regarding the Athapascan indigenous
people:
The People’s understanding of the structure and
order of their universe was shattered and reciprocity in
the natural world no longer had significance. These
epidemics seriously challenged The People’s spiritual
principles, and even today a loss of faith and a
fatalistic world view continues to trouble many segments
of indigenous societies across North America. In the
darkest moment of The People’s history, the power to
dream and magically create their reality ceased to
exist. (191)
From the standpoint of social relations, the diseases
destroyed family life, rendering men without anchor or
future. Those who did survive wondered at a world that was
infused with white man’s presence and apparent ability to
escape the death of the epidemics. Indigenous beliefs now
looked as if they had been defeated by the Whiteman’s
religion, with the result that the value system inherent in
the Indigenous community was severely challenged. With that
came changes in marriage perceptions, and a greater
acceptance of the Christian mode of marriage based on the
alliance of two people for their own benefit. For those who
saw the majority of their community die, it appeared that
the old ways were now indeed dead too, with a commensurate
weakening of traditional views of marriage and community
solidarity. |