Sexual encounters between Indian women and the fur traders of the North West and Hudson’s Bay Companies are generally thought to have been casual and illicit in nature.

This illuminating and book reveals instead that Indian-white marriages, sanctioned “after the custom of the country”, resulted in many warm and enduring family unions. These were profoundly altered by the coming of the white women in the 1820s and 1830s.

“A pleasure to read and a valuable asset to scholarship.”
—Western American Literature