Did they go native? Representations of first encounters and personal interrelations with First Nations Canadians in the writings of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill

• Published in: The Journal of Commonwealth Literature
• Main Author: Bigot, Corinne
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publications 2013
• Subjects: Canada; Indian; First Nations
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0021989413497952; http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0021989413497952; http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/0021989413497952

Between 1836 and 1852, Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill, two British gentlewomen who had emigrated to Canada, published accounts of their lives in the backwoods of Canada for a British audience. Descriptions of their encounters with their Native neighbours, more particularly women, are prominent in their texts. A gradual sense of intimacy permeates the writings, battling with the prejudices of the times. I propose to read Traill’s main work, The Backwoods of Canada, her 1848 sketch, “A Visit to the Camp of the Chippewa Indians”, and Susanna Moodie’s Roughing it in the Bush as emblematic of the “discourses of difference” that Sara Mills identifies in nineteenth century texts by female travel writers. I would like to suggest that Moodie and Traill, in their own way, “went native”. Echoes with later texts such as Canadian Crusoes and Pearls and Pebbles will also be traced to show how the texts admit to an Indian presence that is more than merely exotic, and allow the voice of the First Nations Canadians to be heard, albeit on a small scale. Simultaneously, the texts also inscribe their empowerment.