tive American women. These marriages led to the formation of important coalitions with Indian tribes: "In most other areas of the world, sexual contact between European men and native women has usually been illicit in nature and essentially peripheral to the white man's trading or colonizing ventures. In the Canadian West, however, alliances with Indian women were the central social aspect of the fur traders' progress across the country (Van Kirk, 1980, p. 4).
Native American women who married traders became not only integral parts of the trading society but were also regarded as influential members of Indian society. As such, the women occupied a status that was not available to their male, Indian counterparts. Enterprising Indian women took advantage of this status and actively pursued relationships with European men. The Europeans were the source of imported goods such as iron kettles and woven cloth which had become essential elements of the modernized Indian lifestyle. With the authority bestowed upon them through consorting Europeans, I
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