This young lady was a native Ojibwa, born about 1769 in the Courtes Orielles River area. She lived with her band east of what is now, Lake Michigan, in the United States. For over 170 years French traders had come to that area and gone back to Montreal with their furs, so these white men were not unknown to this girl. History has left no record of her native name and she first comes to light  when Priest Gibault recorded her as “Francoise Sauvagess” at the baptism of her children at the frontier mission at Michilimackinac in 1775. The word “sauvagess” meant nothing more than a female Native. Somehow Francoise must have taken some schooling to become a Catholic or Gibault could not have mentioned a “legitimate marriage” of the father and mother at the baptism of their children.

We do know much more about the young Frenchman she married, who came to stay and live among those Ojibwa. He was Louis Pascal Dumouchel, born in Montreal, New France in 1725. His father was Bernard Dumouchel and his mother was Marie Anne Tessier, both third generation in America. All three generations of Dumouchels and Tessiers had been involved in the fur trade south of the Great Lakes since their arrival in New France and likely the area Francois and her Ojibwa family lived was known well to them.

Louis Pascal was orphaned, before age ten, but he had been trained to be a shoemaker by his father, then Grandfather whose occupation was shoemaking while he lived in Montreal between fur trading trips. But it was not long before young Louis Pascal chose to leave for the south, to become a “courier-de-bois”, for ever giving up life in Montreal.

.

When New France fell to the hands of the British, the fur trade south of the Great Lakes fell into turmoil. The new inexperienced British rulers, the industry and the French, Mixed-bloods and Natives who plied it. When that effort failed and the British withdrew, local interests formed their own company at Michilimackinac on the Macinac Straits between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, and brought it back to some tranquility. It was there, to the Catholic Mission of St. Ignace, on two occasions that the Dumouchel children were brought to be baptized. First on July 9, 1775 when Bernard, at age five, Jean at age 3 and Francoise at age one were baptised. The second time was eleven years later due to the mission being without a priest. Finally on July 22, 1786,

 Joachim at age 10 and Magdelane at age nearly 2 were baptised. It was Jean Dumouchel who carried the Ojibwa blood on down to Archange Dumouchelle and her spouse, Rene Trudeau, (who was the son of Jean Baptiste Trudeau who was important person #3) and then on to all the descendants of that Ojibwa girl from the native land near Lake Michigan.

Today, when indigenous people are being recognized and claiming their equal rights and non-indigenous others are trying to find ways to correct the wrongs of the past, it is up to all of us to do the best we can to help. One way is to recognize the Native blood that runs in our veins and show pride in the fact we have it. It is important for everyone to gain better understanding of each other and appreciate their contribution to our history and our present and future. It is good to see people claiming with pride their aboriginal blood, and to see it revealed along side their French, English or any other ancestry.