The Autobiography of a Frontier Woman

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It was the belief of the Metis during this period that their rights were going to continue to be infringed upon. Word had reached the Red River settlement that the HBC was going to sell its territory to the newly formed federal Government in Ottawa and that Metis rights were not going to be honoured by this deal. This would not have been the first time the Metis were wronged by territorial agreements in Manitoba and to this extent many Metis could not trust the HBC or the white government in Ottawa. This compounded with the lower class status of Metis in the Red River region made the choice to migrate further west and hunt new herds of Buffalo a necessary one for Rosa’s family. Rosa spent her teenaged years with her family on the frontier hunting buffalo and living off the land. Her mother passed away from pneumonia when she was 18 and had been living outside of the Red River settlement for ten years. During these years she learnt to hunt, sew clothes, tan leathers and hides, forage for fruits and berries and many other skills necessary to live in the wilderness. Although Buffalo was her family’s main source of food they would also trap small game such as fox and rabbits. After her mother’s death Rosa would return to the Red River region and marry a Metis trapper, and would live in the region as part of the Metis community until her death in 1895. During the latter years of her life she would bear witness to the Riel Rebellions and the creation of the province of Manitoba. Her life would unfortunately take place during the decline of the Metis cultures role in the fur trade and ultimately as part of frontier culture. As more settlers continued to arrive and establish legal settlements in the place of Metis or aboriginal lands as Metis and aboriginal rights were seldom valued by European settlers. Rosa McTavish’s life would have been drastically different had her parent’s marriage been valued by the Protestant Church for if no annulment was granted her father would have had to honour his first engagement. This was just one example of European’s de-valuing Metis society and considering it inferior to western practices. It is to this extent that Rosa’s life was filled with experiences of the lowest social denomination, a female mixed blood on the frontier of Canada, and therefore gives great insight into the perceptions and perspectives one would encounter in the Red River settlement during the latter years of the 19th century.

Bibliography:

Barkwell, J. Lawrence. Women of the Métis Nation. Winnipeg: Louis Riel Institute, 2010.

Jaland, Pat. Women, Marriage and Politics. Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1986.

Lewis, Jane. Labour and Love. London: Basil Blackwell, 1986.

Bilston, Sarah. Awkward Age in Women’s Popular Fiction 1850-1900: Girls and the

Transition to Womanhood. Oxford University Press, 2004.