Acoutsina - Infinite Women

This biography is shared from The Dictionary of Canadian Biography, in line with the Creative Commons licensing. See below for full attribution.

Born: circa 1697, Canada
Died: after 1719
Country most active: Canada
Also known as: Acountsina

ACOUTSINA (also written Acountsina), Inuit enslaved by Augustin Le Gardeur de Courtemanche at his trading post on Baie de Phélypeaux (previously Baie des Espagnes and later Brador Bay), on the north shore of the St Lawrence, at the entrance to the Strait of Belle Isle. She was about 20 years old in 1717 and lived at the post from 1717 to 1719.
With a young companion, whose name is not known, Acoutsina played the part of family helper. She learned enough French to serve as an interpreter when needed arose, and to teach the rudiments of Inuktituk to Courtemanche’s successor, his step-son, François Martel* de Brouague. Brouague’s and Antoine-Denis Raudot ‘s writings usually refer to her as “the young slave girl,” “the young Indian girl,” the “esquimaude” (which takes this grammatical form back to at least the beginning of the 18th century ), the “esquimaute,” or the “esquimote.”
The young captive was the daughter of the chief Ouibignaro, who came to the fort on the Baie de Phélypeaux in 1719 and took his daughter back. He was accompanied on that occasion by numerous Inuit and by another chief, Camerlique, who seems to have been of European origin if we interpret the girl’s statements correctly. We possess very little information about these three persons. Acoutsina’s accounts, noted down at the time and known only in manuscript form, likewise contained brief descriptions of Inuit customs and legends. In particular, Acoutsina informed her captors that there existed in the northern beings “without a fundament” and “pygmies”; she thus led Raudot to believe that certain of Jacques Cartier* ‘s tales, supposedly mythical, might not be entirely void of truth.
The problem that first arises is to ascertain whether Acoutsina and her people were really Inuit. Indeed, J. A. Burgesse has shown that the “Eskimos” in the first register of births, marriages, and deaths of the Tadoussac domain were actually Papinachois or Naskapi (of the Algonquian family). The word esquimau , a French term dating from the beginning of the colony, is derived from an Algonquian word eisimeow (or its equivalent), meaning “eater of raw flesh.” Originally, therefore, this word applied not only to the Inuit, but equally to northern First Nations, such as the Naskapi. One might more readily believe that Acoutsina and her people were Beothuk, an Indigenous people of Newfoundland who were known to European settlers as the “Red Indians.” The Beothuk disappeared entirely when Shawnadithit* died in captivity in 1829.
These two hypotheses must be eliminated. Acoutsina and her people were indeed Inuit. The following facts allow us to affirm this. Courtemanche, like his contemporary Pierre Constantin* and their predecessor Louis Jolliet* , had set up fur-trading posts on the borders of Inuit territory, between the Strait of Belle Isle and Mingan. They even hoped to establish friendly relations and bring the inhabitants into the orbit of French commerce, and thus met frequently with the Inuit to attempt to organize trade with them. They could hardly be mistaken as to their identity. They had in their service Montagnais (Innu) who spoke a dialect closely allied to that of the Naskapi, and who could not have been mistaken as to the relationship of the Inuit in question. Moreover, these Montagnais hunters were well acquainted with the Beothuk, who were at that time confined to central Newfoundland. The Indigenous names, transcribed after being heard by ears trained to French sounds, underwent inevitable distortion; however, the three names quoted above can easily be interpreted as Inuktitut terms. According to Roderick MacGregor, Acoutsina seems to be a transformation of akutsiarq , which could be translated as “the beautiful apron” ( aku referring to the wide back part of the mother’s parka). The nearest word to Ouibignaro is uiviquartok , meaning “inclined to be difficult.” Camerlique can be explained by kamilik , meaning “he has boots.” For anyone acquainted with Inuktitut, in which the phoneme r is often reduced to a single very attenuated roll, the two forms seem almost homonyms. Furthermore, these names are quite consistent with Inuit linguistic conventions. Brouague, whom Acoutsina taught to speak a little Inuktitut, quotes from his vocabulary the word annanâ , which in that language means “mother.” Finally, several ethnological traits described by Acoutsina are characteristics of Inuit culture.
Acoutsina and Ouibignaro – for we must leave aside Camerlique, who was probably of foreign origin – do not seem to have been the only Inuit in contact with the French in this period. Indeed, a letter from a Father François dated Oct. 20, 1732 contains this passage: “I counted on having the privilege of giving you a detailed account of matters relating to the Eskimo natives, but it will be extremely brief, for this is all I could get out of the young Eskimo woman who lives at Beauport; not being very familiar as yet with the French language, she could not express herself adequately, or even understand clearly what she was being asked.” According to the few pieces of information that one can glean from this letter, it is clear that reference is being made to Inuit and not to Naskapi or to Beothuk. In this period it was only the Inuit who were able to come and steal from the French fishermen on the north bank of the St Lawrence.
Acoutsina’s story and her statements permit us to assess European–Inuit relations a century after the establishment of the French colony. Of those who spoke languages belonging to the three linguistic families in eastern Canada (Algonquian, Iroquoian, and Inuktitut), only the smaller group of Inuktitut-speaking people long remained hostile to the European element. Their coastal territory, of subarctic type, ran southwest from the Strait of Belle Isle to near the Mingan Islands. Beyond, to the west, lived their traditional enemies the Montagnais, whom they always designated in their language by terms of contempt – erpalik , for example, which meant “who has nits” – or “the enemy.” Seasonal cod-fishermen and Inuit encroached on each other. The Inuit wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to get nails, and like the Beothuk of Newfoundland they could think of nothing more practical than burning the boats.
Those at the French posts on the Strait of Belle Isle attempted, however, to establish friendly contacts with the Inuit and organize fur-trading. It was at this point that the Sieur de Courtemanche appeared on the scene. On Oct. 16, 1716 M. Lair, Courtemanche’s chaplain, wrote from Baie de Phélypeaux to Madame de Courtemanche, who was then at Bayonne: “All conceivable means must be employed to win over the Eskimos. Those means are: 1) forbid the French to fire on them; 2) try to entice or catch a few of them, treat them well in all sorts of ways, and send them back with gifts for themselves and their compatriots; 3) urge a few bold and clever Frenchmen to go among them in order to try to bring them round, or at least to appeal to the Frenchmen who are believed to be among them [for deserters sometimes bandied together with the natives] to persuade them to trade with the French. To this end promise to give good rewards to these Frenchmen. ”
Madame de Courtemanche was apparently a masterful woman who had her say in the affairs of the post. We may wonder if the chaplain was trying to obtain the agreement of the mistress of the house first before winning over her husband. Or he may have assumed responsibility for a plan designed by Courtemanche to get it more readily accepted by the wife. Both hypotheses can be put forward.
In the autumn of 1716 Courtemanche met some Inuit and urged them to return the following year to trade furs. They came on May 25, 1717, faithful to the rendezvous, and camped within gunshot of the fort. With 18 men (French and Montagnais), Courtemanche went to the Inuit camp and was threatened with ill-treatment. While he was exhorting the chief, the others took to their shallops; the women, first in, were quickly joined by the men, who began to shoot arrows at the French. Courtemanche then intercepted a shallop occupied by 12 persons, and managed to sixteen a woman, two girls, and a small boy. The latter died shortly after being duly baptized.
After Courtemanche’s death in June 1717, his step-son Brouague directed the fur-trading post on Baie de Phélypeaux. During the next two years nothing more was seen of the Inuit. Brouague’s letters no longer mention the woman, but only the two girls, particularly the elder of the two, Acoutsina, who was 18 or 20 years old. Both girls were still living at the post in 1719.
Meanwhile Brouague (letter dated September 9, 1718) was applying himself to the task of learning Inuktitut from Acoutsina, who was living with Madame de Courtemanche. She “still has a strong desire to return to her nation,” wrote Brouague in September 1718. “I consoled her by giving her the hope,” he added, “that she would be returned to her parents.”
What French she had learned enabled Acoutsina to convey information to her captors concerning Inuit customs, mythical ideas, and legends. She likewise told them how certain Europeans had settled among them, one being a shipwrecked sailor whom they apparently called “good old Nicolas,” and with whom the administration at Quebec tried to get into contact. Raudot’s correspondence contains a letter, written after 1717, to “good old Nicolas,” seeking his collaboration in the task of bringing the two peoples together. We have no idea whether the letter reached its destination, the more so because we do not know whether this person really existed.
In September 1719, having become commander “of all the shore of Bras d’Or with power to settle disputes there,” Brouague reported the following: his scouts, who were constantly on the watch, informed him of the presence of Inuit on Île aux Bois, an opportunity he had long been waiting for. Leaving his men at a distance, he advanced unarmed, accompanied only by Acoutsina, who made herself known. Her father, chief Ouibignaro, was with the group. At sunset he went with Brouague to the fort, whom he agreed to leave his daughter with him, saying that he would bring her back the next day. Some 30 Inuit then came to join them and feasted at the fort. Ouibignaro recognized Acoutsina’s young companion as a relation of his and begged to have both girls, to which Brouague readily agreed. To the eager expressions of gratitude addressed to Madame de Courtemanche, who under the circumstances had treated the girls well, a pessimistic note was added. Camerlique, one of their principal chiefs despite his foreign origin (if Acoutsina’s information was correct), declared that they must all be killed, including Madame de Courtemanche. Acoutsina began to cry, but she was reassured instantly, and the Inuit even promised to stop burning the shallops of the French fishermen. During the meeting the chaplain, Lair—no doubt Acoutsina’s French teacher—handed her a book so that she could give her kindred a demonstration of her knowledge. After the exchange of gifts the two parties separated, and thus ends the story of Acoutsina, who was not heard of again.
The Inuit did not return; they continued their depredations against the French fishermen, then against the English and carried on in this manner until the Moravian Brethren, Protestant missionaries from central Europe and the spiritual descendants of John Huss, came 50 years later to settle on the coast of Labrador.