Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur-Trade Society, 1670-1870 [Paperback]

The author acknowledges that this material was originally a doctorate thesis. Although she says that it received extensive revision, it still reads like a thesis. Like many theses in the humanities, the researcher has started with a hypothesis and collected a critical mass of facts supporting that hypothesis. "Many Tender Ties" sets out to show that Indian women who married white men, and the female children and grandchildren of those unions, played an important role in Western Canada's fur-trade era. Because few of these women kept personal records, the research relies heavily on the journals, letters, and records kept by men of the time and place. The author feels that Indian women gained significantly from trade with the whites, perhaps more than Indian men. Awls, kettles, needles, beads, thread, and cloth all made life easier for women compared to Indian culture prior to European contact. Further, when an Indian woman married a white fur trader, especially an important one, she often gained prestige in both the Indian and the white cultures and she may have found her daily workload diminished. These Indian or mixed-blood women frequently served as a liaison and facilitator of economic and social issues between the whites and the Indians. Since there weren't clergy available, these unions were usually "after the custom of the country." Although some white men considered the unions to be a matter of convenience only, a great many lasted for a lifetime and resulted in numerous offspring. During the initial generations of the fur trade, the whites usually treated the unions as the equivalent of marriage and the women involved had a respectable social status. Problems occurred later as clergy came to the fur trade posts and declared the marriages illicit, the women concubines, and the children illegitimate. Further, as the fur traders brought white women to the posts, the white women reinforced the English, class-based society that the rigors of the fur-trade had muted. Racism intensified. Thus, the status of the Indian and mixed-blood women suffered severely due to the influence of the clergy and the white women. The author sums up the result by saying that "prejudiced gained hold to such an extent that [the] potential for racial integration was lost."

This book had the potential to be great. It contained vast amounts of information, mostly in anecdotal form, but was poorly organized and edited. I'm a bit of a grammar snob, so maybe I'm being too picky, but I was continuously distracted by Van Kirk's usage of the word "which" when "that" would have been correct. It seemed she was self-consciously choosing to use "which" because it sounds more formal, but it was simply wrong in most uses. A sample sentence: "The women which lived in this fort..." No, not correct.
As far as organization, she backtracks frequently and rarely mentions approximate years, which makes it very difficult for a reader to keep track of when the events mentioned took place. In one chapter, events covered will stretch from, say, 1800-1830. Suddenly, the next chapter is referencing events from 1790-1800. There's also no background information provided on the fur trade industry itself or the meaning of the ranks within. She expects the reader to know where bourgeois, voyageur, governor, Chief Factor, and other casually-mentioned positions within the companies. Without these frames of reference, I had a difficult time reconciling all the anecdotal history within the book.
With the help of a ruthless editor, this book could be great. As it stands, its points are often muddled in poor grammar, syntax, and lack of background information.

Focusing on the kin ties that developed during the fur trade in Canada, where the Hudson's Bay Company was in control, Van Kirk demonstrates that women played an active and important role in how fur trade society functioned. My only complaint is that the chapters are arranged more topically, rather than chronologically, so sometimes you end up jumping back and forth through time within a chapter. However, as a whole, Van Kirk does an excellent job showing how women were an important force in what is typically thought of as an all male endeavor.