Charlotte Small: Metis, Mom, Fur Trader’s Wife

I fell in love with history in Grade 10 when I did a world history course. To me, the course was all about the stories of people who had lived so many years before. In university I pursued this interest, doing a minor in history. Yet the history books gave only a hint of the stories, and often left more questions unanswered than answered.

Historical fiction is one attempt to answer those questions. My mom often says this is the best way to learn history. Many of my favourite authors—Sigmund Brouwer, Charlotte Gray, Tricia Goyer—take a time or person in history and make them come alive through the story. I often thought, as I studied history in university, that someday I’d like to write like that myself. At the time, though, I was busy with my studies and with other writing.

At the 2008 ICWF Fall Conference, my dream of writing historical fiction was once again ignited. I’ve been fascinated by how Jane Kirkpatrick tells the stories of actual, historical American women. Many of them required a huge amount of research for her, because their stories haven’t been told before. I thought, “I want to do that—for Canadian women.” After the conference, it became my goal to find a woman whose story I could tell. Yet it took me several months to make it into our local small town museum.

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Meeting Charlotte Small

It was a very small museum, and had much the same stuff as other museums I’ve been in. As Sunshine and I wandered through, one display caught my eye. It was on David Thompson. His name is pretty big in Canadian history—I knew he had explored most of western Canada and drew maps. Yet I didn’t know he had married a Metis woman. Her name jumped off the placard at me: Charlotte Small. Why had she never appeared in my history books?

Since that day, I’ve been working on finding out more about Charlotte. She and David were married for nearly sixty years—unusual in an era when fur traders married Indian women for the trade advantage it offered, and then retired back to England and left their “country wives” here. Charlotte’s own father, Patrick Small, had been one of these men, abandoning his family when Charlotte was six. Charlotte and David had thirteen children, most of whom survived them. She also accompanied David on many of his travels.

The more I learn about Charlotte, the more intrigued I am. As Aritha van Herk says, “We know so little about Charlotte Small that it is tempting to invent. We imagine her a beauty. We attribute to her, wisdom and devotedness. We construct between Thompson and Small a patient and loving partnership. For all their relative silence, they become the model couple of the great Canadian romance. The fur trader and the Cree woman together symbolize all that we imagine for a secret history of Canada.”

Adventurer Bert terHart asks, “Looking at a map today, it’s hard to grasp how difficult it is to map something, and how unbelievably dedicated, professional, meticulous, driven, and persistent the early explorers of Canada were. The efforts of those early Canadians are humbling in every way, shape and form. What does it take for Samuel de Champlain to cross the Atlantic 27 times? What does it take for David Thompson to pack up, along with his Métis wife Charlotte Small and their children, and paddle and walk for thousands of kilometres between Rocky Mountain House and Fort William as a sort of summer vacation?”

Further Questions about Charlotte

One of the books in my reading pile is Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur Trade Society, 1670-1870 by Sylvia van Kirk. Although van Kirk mentions Charlotte a few times, they are brief references that don’t tell me much more about her than I already knew. What the book does provide is an overview of the era and circumstances Charlotte lived in.

One thing I’ve been trying to learn about is the circumstances surrounding Charlotte’s and David’s marriage. Most marriages among the Indians were arranged by the parents or close relations. Van Kirk notes that “fur-trade observers thought there was a curious lack of romantic involvement between Indian husbands and wives. Individual romantic inclination was not the operative factor in choosing a marriage partner.” Charlotte thus probably expected to have an arranged marriage. But since her father was gone, who arranged her marriage?

Many fur trade marriages were temporary, ending when the fur traders returned to either England or Canada. That seemed to follow the custom of the country, as “Most Indian tribes did not hold the marriage bond to be indissoluble” (van Kirk).  Of particular interest to me was David Thompson’s observation that “if ‘they cannot live peaceably together, they separate with as little ceremony as they came together, and both parties are free to attach themselves to whom they will, without any stain on their character.’” Since both Charlotte and David were aware of the custom of divorce or separation, it makes it even more remarkable that they stayed together for their whole lives.

I also wondered why Charlotte accompanied David on some of his voyages, but not on others. At times, it was obvious that pregnancy gave her ample reason not to embark on a strenuous expedition. Other times, no reason was given. Van Kirk explains that many times, the canoes were loaded so heavily that there was no room for wives or children. The fur traders’ families were thus often left behind at the forts until the men returned. Thus it seems that when it was possible, David took his family with him, but when that was not possible, he arranged for them to stay at a fort, often with Charlotte’s sister’s family.

I’ve got a lot more research to do, but some pieces of the puzzle of Charlotte Small are beginning to fall into place. What I read just makes me more interested in this incredible woman and her story.