Sophie Morigeau : Free Trader, Free Woman, Nineteenth Century Indian Entrepreneur

Sophie Morigeau (1836–1916) was a remarkable woman. Of mixed Indian-white heritage, she lived her life on her own terms. She traded in Canadian mining camps and ran pack trains across the Northern Rocky Mountains. For years she maintained a trading post on Tobacco Plains on the border between Canada and the United States. She broke through the accepted roles for women in the nineteenth century to become an Indian entrepreneur. Jean Barman’s biography of Morigeau details the available historical evidence of a woman who cut her own path, was an important trader for the Kootenai Indians, and was a member of both the Indian and white communities in nineteenth-century northwest Montana and southern British Columbia. Sophie Morigeau was a resourceful and courageous woman on the cultural frontier.