The Importance of Being Monogamous marriage and nation building in western canada to 1915 sarah carter The Importance of Being Monogamous marriage and nation building in western canada to 1915 1 the university of alberta press Published by Exclusive rights to publish and sell this book in print form are licensed to The University of Alberta Press. All The University of Alberta Press other rights are reserved by the author. No part of the Ring House 2 publication may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E1 or transmitted in any forms or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise and without the prior written consent of the copyright owner or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing AU Press Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright Athabasca University licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free: 1 University Drive 1-800-893-5777. An Open Access electronic version of this Athabasca, Alberta, Canada T9S 3A3 book is available on the Athabasca University Press web site at www.aupress.ca. Copyright © Sarah Carter 2008 Printed and bound in Canada by Houghton Boston The University of Alberta Press is committed to protecting Printers, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. our natural environment. As part of our efforts, this First edition, first printing, 2008 book is printed on Enviro Paper: it contains 100% post- All rights reserved consumer recycled fibres and is acid- and chlorine-free. A volume in The West Unbound: Social and Cultural The University of Alberta Press and AU Press gratefully Studies series, edited by Alvin Finkel and Sarah Carter. acknowledge the support received for their publishing programs from The Canada Council for the Arts. They also gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the library and archives canada Government of Canada through the Book Publishing cataloguing in publication Industry Development Program (bpidp) and from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts for their publishing Carter, Sarah, 1954– activities. The importance of being monogamous : marriage and nation building in Western Canada to 1915 / Sarah Carter. (West unbound : social and cultural studies) 7 Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–88864–490–9 6 1. Marriage—Canada, Western—History—19th This book has been published with the help of a grant century. 2. Monogamous relationships—Canada, from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Western—History—19th century. 3. Indian women— Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Canada, Western—History—19th century. Program, using the funds provided by the Social Sciences 4. Mormons—Canada, Western—History—19th century. and Humanities Research Council of Canada. 5. Canada, Western—Social conditions—19th century. I. Title. Titlepage photo: Métis married couple Sarah (née Petit Couteau) and Joseph Descheneau, Camrose, Alberta, HQ560.15.W4C37 2008 306.84’2209712 c. 1905. (gaa na–3474–8) C2007–907579–7 For my mother: Mary Y. Carter Now the first argument that comes ready to my hand is that the real homestead of the concept “good” is sought and located in the wrong place: the judgment “good” did not originate among those to whom goodness was shown. Much rather has it been the good themselves, that is the aristocratic, the powerful, the high-stationed, the high-minded, who have felt that they themselves were good, and that their actions were good, that is to say of the first order, in contradistinction to all the low, the low-minded, the vulgar and the plebian. It was out of this pathos of distance that they first arrogated the right to create values for their own profit, and to coin the names of such values: what had they to do with utility? —friedrich nietzsche “Good and Evil, Good and Bad,” The Genealogy of Morals Contents xi Acknowledgements one 1 Creating, Challenging, Imposing, and Defending the Marriage “Fortress” two 19 Customs Not in Common the monogamous ideal and diverse marital landscape of western canada three 63 Making Newcomers to Western Canada Monogamous four 103 “A Striking Contrast…Where Perpetuity of Union and Exclusiveness is Not a Rule, at Least Not a Strict Rule” plains aboriginal marriage five 147 The 1886 “Traffic in Indian Girls” Panic and the Foundation of the Federal Approach to Aboriginal Marriage and Divorce six 193 Creating “Semi-Widows” and “Supernumerary Wives” prohibiting polygamy in prairie canada’s aboriginal communities seven 231 “Undigested, Conflicting and Inharmonious” administering first nations marriage and divorce eight 279 Conclusion 287 Appendix 297 Notes 343 Bibliography 361 Index Acknowledgements In 1993 I first wrote an abstract sketching out some dimensions of this study for a conference paper proposal. The paper was not accepted. Undeterred, I’ve continued to work on this topic ever since although many other projects and responsibilities have intervened. I am grateful to the many people who helped me over many years and I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone. I would like to first acknowledge and thank my researchers at the Universities of Calgary, Alberta and elsewhere (some of whom will likely have forgotten that they helped me with this project): Alana Bourque, Kristin Burnett, Peter Fortna, Patricia Gordon, Laurel Halladay, Michel Hogue, Kenneth J. Hughes (of Ottawa, not to be confused with an old friend of the same name in Winnipeg), Pernille Jakobsen, Nadine Kozak, Siri Louie, Melanie Methot, Ted McCoy, Jill St. Germaine, and Char Smith. While I did not have a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada standard research grant specifically for this project, some of the research from two others (one on Alberta women and another on Great Plains gender and land distri- bution history) spilled over and was lapped up by this project and I am very grateful for these grants. The study was also enriched by the assis- tance, comments, suggestions and leads of many friends, colleagues and archivists including Judith Beattie, Mary Eggermont, Keith Goulet, Alice Kehoe, Maureen Lux, Bryan Palmer, Donald B. Smith, David E. Wilkins, H.C. Wolfart. Thanks to my father Roger Colenso Carter, Saskatoon, for his comments on a final draft. Special thanks to the Calgary Institute for xi the Humanities of the University of Calgary that provided important intellectual and physical space during the year I spent there as a fellow. I am grateful to Rev. John Pilling for permission to use the Records of the Anglican Diocese of Calgary at the University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. Thanks to Sean England and Scott Anderson for their careful editorial work, and to Lesley Erickson for compiling the bibliography. Thanks to Erna Dominey and Peter Midgley for their assistance with the many tasks involved in preparing the final version of the manuscript; thanks also to the anonymous readers of the original submission for their comments and to Moira Calder for the index. I have given papers based on this research on many occasions over the years and have found several to be significant moments in helping me formulate my ideas and engage with audiences. Thanks to Adele Perry and other organizers of the 2002 conference “Manitoba, Canada, Empire: A Day of History in Honor of John Kendle,” to Joan Sangster for asking me to give the 2003 W.L. Morton Lecture at Trent University, to Georgina Taylor for asking me to speak at the Saskatoon Campus of First Nations University in the spring of 2007 and to Joanna Dean for the invitation to give the 2007 Shannon Lecture in History at Carleton University. Earlier versions of some of this material has appeared in two articles: “Creating ‘Semi-Widows” and ‘Supernumerary Wives’: Prohibiting Polygamy in Prairie Canada’s Aboriginal Communities to 1900,” in Contact Zones: Aboriginal and Settler Women in Canada’s Colonial Past,” ed., Katie Pickles and Myra Rutherdale (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2005), 131–59; and “‘Complicated and Clouded’: The Federal Administration of First Nations Marriage and Divorce Among the First Nations of Western Canada, 1887–1906,” in Unsettled Pasts: Reconceiving the West Through Women’s History, ed. Sarah Carter, Lesley Erickson, Patricia Roome and Char Smith (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2005): 151–78. I am grateful for permission to reprint this material. Special thanks as always to my partner, Walter Hildebrandt, for his support and comments during the many years of this project and I hope he hasn’t tired of (hearing about) monogamy. The book is dedicated to xii Acknowledgements my mother, Mary Y. Carter, who had a long career as a lawyer, magistrate and judge in Saskatoon and was herself a “pioneer” in family law in Western Canada. Acknowledgements xiii List of Abbreviations aps Aborigines Protection Society cms Church Missionary Society (of the Anglican Church) dia Department of Indian Affairs hbc Hudson’s Bay Company nwc North West Company nwmp North West Mounted Police msrcc Moral and Social Reform Council of Canada xv one Creating, Challenging, Imposing, and Defending the Marriage “Fortress” “Marriage ‘Fortress’ Guards Way of Life”; this was the headline of a 3 June 2006 editorial by Ted Byfield in the Calgary Sunday Sun. The highlighted quotation read, “A viable society depends on stable families, which depend on stable marriages.” The next day marriage was once again on the front page, this time in Toronto’s Globe and Mail, as Prime Minister Stephen Harper had announced that Members of Parliament would vote in the fall on a motion asking