Matooskie's blue blanket

[don_niagara]

Nancy MacKenzie, "Matooskie", was born 1790 at Fort Chipewyan in what is now northern Alberta. Her father Roderick was a fur trader born at Achiltibuie in Coigach, her mother a local native woman.  She held an important place in fur trade society until her husband of 17 years dumped her for a Scottish wife in 1830. The new female head of fur trade society Frances Simpson, the Govenor's wife, looked down on her, but allowed her as one of two mixed blood women allowed into Fort Garry, she wrote of Matooskie;

“a complete savage, with a coarse blue sort of woollen gown without shape and a blanket fastened round her neck.”

A descendant emailed me a copy of a copy of a glass plate picture of Matooskie yesterday, quite early as she died 1851, I wonder if colourizing might give her some dignity? A scratch bio of her is at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~coigach/matooskie.htm

Thanks,

Donald.



Here she is;

[mermaid-nl]

Hi Donald,

Can't help with the restores but what a story!  And such a wonderful photo.  You are lucky.  Good luck with your responses although I don't think luck will come into it.  You'll get loads on this one.

Ursula

[PrueM]

She doesn't look like a "complete savage" to me - she looks quite respectable!  How times and attitudes have changed...

Anyway Donald, Is there any chance that Matooskie's descendant could provide you with a bigger, higher-resolution copy of the photo?  This one is rather too small to make any improvements really.  600dpi resolution, full colour, and as close to 500kb in size without going over 500 would be ideal.

Failing that, I'm sure we can have a go at this one anyway, you just won't get the greatest results that's all (but we'll do our best!)

Prue

[dennford]

A descendant emailed me a copy of a copy of a glass plate picture of Matooskie yesterday, quite early as she died 1851,

I wonder if that plate still exists, I think that going on the date of her death it would have been a wet plate and couldn't have been long before her death.

As Prue says though it would be nice to have a bigger scan.

                                                          Denn

[saddles]

I have blown the image up as far as I could and tidied it
up a little with sepia and a hint of colour.

Mike.

[trellisick]

just a bit of fun don, but she does look more at home, kali.

[don_niagara]

Kali wrote:

just a bit of fun don, but she does look more at home,

Har!

Though I wonder if the fellow looks Sioux? She might have been a bit nervous if so...

Heres her brother John, as painted by the famous Canadian Portrait artist Berczy around 1814...

Embracing the Scottish side of his heritage...

Their father Roderick was first cousin of Sir Alexander MacKenzie, first European to travel the third longest river in North America to the arctic, afterwards named for him, and first to cross the continent north of America.

All the best,

Donald.

[Lones]

Hi Don 

Like Prue, I do hope you can get a bigger scan of her, she looks lovely to me  . 

So my question is, "How come the brother gets an oil painting and she just gets dumped, a little picture and a title of 'savage'?"  Typical of the day, I would say    .   Get us a bigger pic and we will make her a picture to rival his oil painting, just for the principle of it, she deserves justice and it's been a long time coming........ What a life the poor woman suffered!! 

Lones (now off her soap box) 

[Woodentop50]

One from me

                   Jim