Rape and Revenge!

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The crimes of some Frenchmen do not go unpunished

​Conflict between European fur traders and Natives seldom arose, but when trouble did arise it often happened because a trader failed to respect the moral standards of the Natives and tried to take a Native woman by force (i.e. rape), rather than by courting her and asking permission from her family, as custom mandated.
 
One such incident occurred when a group of Frenchmen decided to rape some Cree women. The Frenchmen decided they had the right to the Native women, so they just went up to a group pf women and dragged them kicking and screaming into the trading post against their will and had their way with them. 

The revenge took the lives of the 8 criminals

Following the crime, the women avenged themselves with the cooperation of their husbands. They informed their husbands to be ready for a signal. Then the women took the opportunity to wet the fuses of the Frenchmen’s rifles with their urine and gave the signal.  The men crept up to the post under cover of darkness and attacked.  The Frenchmen ran to their guns but they would not fire.  Eight Frenchmen were killed in revenge for their awful crime.

Adapted from Beginnings of the Mixed Blood Family in Canada, Gabriel Dumont Institute