Source: http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/transactions/3/sarahballenden.shtml
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 18:57:04+00:00

Document:
The Foss-Pelly scandal of 1850 is an event in Red River history which most historians would like to ignore.  For those who would construct a rosy picture of racial harmony in the early days of Red River, it presents an embarrassing obstacle.  Certainly a distasteful episode (and one that should not be resurrected simply because of its sensational aspects), the Foss-Pelly scandal is, nevertheless, worthy of serious investigation because of the insights it provides into Red River society in the mid-19th century. The case of Foss v. Pelly created a furor in the settlement; it was particularly serious because it threatened to divide Red River irrevocably along racial lines-mixed-blood versus white. In the words of a contemporary historian, “Probably no case ever brought before the Recorder’s court ... has given rise to so much bad feeling, and such deplorable sequences, as did this cause celebre.”  This paper will examine both the causes of the scandal and its social repercussions.
In essence, the Foss-Pelly scandal was an attack on an English mixed-blood woman (Mrs. Sarah Ballenden) for alleged immoral behaviour. It can be seen as the culmination of the social and racial tension that had been building up in Red River for several decades. In attempting to determine why the scandal had such a serious impact, three factors seem to be of prime importance. The first was Red River’s penchant for gossip. In most small, isolated communities, gossip is an important social force. In Red River, which became the focus of fur trade society, gossip flourished because of the widespread social connections resulting from decades of intermarriage. In its formative decades, Red River was also very much a community in flux, particularly with regard to societal values. A second cause of the Foss-Pelly scandal can be traced to the attempts of the Protestant clergy to enforce their strict concepts of morality upon a fur trade society whose values they considered hopelessly lax. Thirdly, and most importantly, the scandal was precipitated by a bitter struggle between mixed-blood and white women for social dominance in the elite of Red River.
The monotonous routine of life not only in Red River but in the fur trade at large, especially during the long winter months, may help to explain why the affairs of one’s contemporaries were of such all-absorbing interest. That there was not much else to talk about can be discerned from the private correspondence of the fur traders-through the medium of the twice-yearly letter packet all the latest gossip concerning one’s acquaintances in Red River and elsewhere was relayed in detail throughout Rupert’s Land.
Such a remark in itself indicates the extent to which Victorian concepts with regard to female propriety were taking hold in fur trade society. This changing attitude in a society which had endeavoured to develop its own moral code by blending the very different mores of Indian and white society was to result in the victimization of native women. It was the intention of the recently-arrived missionaries to impress upon native women that they could be guilty of no greater sins than unchastity and adultery. That men, however, should deviate from the Christian moral code was seen at worst as a regrettable inevitability. When it is remembered that European concepts of virginity and marital fidelity were not held as virtues in Indian society,  the confusion that this double standard created in the minds of native women is understandable.
This attitude had been reinforced by the missionaries’ attack on “the custom of the country” which had previously been acknowledged in fur trade society as a valid marriage rite.  According to old fur trade custom, if a man formed a liaison with a woman she was considered to be his wife, entitled to the recognition and support that a marital relationship implies. Now, with the insistence of the missionary that only a church marriage had validity, the woman taken a la facon du pans was reduced to the status of a mistress-someone with whom to gratify one’s passions but never actually marry. Fur trade mores were thus in a state of flux in the decades after the coming of the missionaries - a few old traders insisted that their long-standing country marriages did not need the sanction of the Church, but many submitted to the church rite when it was available. A small but prominent group of traders, however, exploited this confused situation for their own selfish purposes. Governor Simpson was, unfortunately, the classic example of a man who took a succession of Indian “mistresses” but reserved the sacred position of wife for a white woman.
The dominance of white women in the social hierarchy of Red River was not to be complete, however, largely owing to the inability of white women to adapt themselves to life in the colony. The select circle which was forming around Frances Simpson in the early 1830s collapsed when she and several others left Red River within a few years. Those who were left, especially the school teachers, were forced to come to some accommodation with the aspirations of the English mixed-blood women. The first break in the racial barrier which Governor Simpson seems to have hoped to erect came with the appointment of Alexander Christie as Governor of Assiniboia in 1833. This esteemed chief factor was the best man for the job, but he had initially been discounted by Simpson because he had a native family a la facon du pays.  Christie’s wife was Anne Thomas, a daughter of the former Company governor Thomas Thomas and his Indian wife Sarah. Although Mrs. Christie does not appear to have assumed the social leadership one might have expected of a “Governor’s lady,” her reluctance to leave the settlement when her husband wanted to retire to Scotland indicates that she must have found it congenial.
On the other hand, however acculturated she might become, the mixed blood woman knew that her position in the Red River hierarchy was threatened by the presence of white women. Some in an effort to effect a complete assimilation into white society caused tension within their own racial group. Such was the behaviour of Margaret Christie, the English educated daughter of Governor Christie. Shortly after her return to Red River in 1845, Miss Christie became the wife of the Scottish clerk John Black. While some of Black’s contemporaries expressed surprise that he should have been “caught in that quarter,” his wife considered that her marriage had put the seal on her superiority and created much ill feeling by indicating that she considered herself “far above the rest of the native Ladies.”  One of the women she snubbed was Sarah Ballenden.
The real significance of the trial lies in the racial animosities which it engendered. Such was the excitement occasioned by the case, lamented Simpson, that “all the inhabitants thought it proper to espouse one side or the other and to regard the verdict as a personal triumph or a personal injury.”  Unfortunately, the split was along racial lines. Chief among Mrs. Ballenden’s accusers were those who championed the supremacy of white women, the Protestant clergy, particularly the Bishop and Reverend Cockran, Governor Caldwell and some lesser Company officers. On the other hand, most of Sarah’s supporters and, significantly, all of the jurors were either English mixed-bloods or else married to native women. Two of Mrs. Ballenden’s most ardent defenders were the prominent mixed-blood Dr. John Bunn and the colony’s sheriff Alexander Ross who was married to an Indian woman and had numerous daughters.
Colvile, who took over the governorship of the colony from the unpopular Caldwell, did attempt to heal the breach, however. Since Ballenden himself was convinced of his wife’s innocence, the Governor deemed it only fair that she should be re-instated into society and delighted Ballenden by admitting Sarah to the company of his wife. The wives of the lesser Anglican clergy also re-established relations with Mrs. Ballenden.  Gradually peace seemed to be returned to the settlement, although it rankled with some that Captain Foss, who was very popular with the English mixed-bloods, had not had the good grace to leave Red River.
In 1853, he became engaged to and later married a Scottish woman.
Certainly in the post-1870 period, the mixed marriage which had been a central part of the fabric of Red River society was to become an increasingly peripheral phenomenon.
1. The only published accounts of the Foss-Pelly scandal are E. E. Rich, ed., Eden Colvile’s Letters, 1849-52 (London: Hudson’s Bay Record Society, vol. 19, 1956), pp. ci-cvi and Roy St. George Stubbs, Four Recorders of Rupert’s Land (Winnipeg, 1967), pp. 36-39, 138-140. These deal only briefly with the scandal’s political and judicial aspects. The most penetrating analysis of the affair is to be found in Frits Pannekoek, “The Churches and the Social Structure in the Red River Area 1818-1870” (unpublished PhD thesis, Queen’s University, 1973), pp. 154-190. Pannekoek is principally concerned with the role played by the Anglican clergy.
2. Perhaps the most distorted picture of old Red River is to be found in W. J. Healy’s, Women of Red River (Winnipeg, 1923) which is a collection of pioneer reminiscences. Mrs. Harriet Sinclair Cowan, for example, would have known a good deal about the famous Foss-Pelly scandal, but she makes no reference to it. Such sources must be used with extreme caution for, understandably, old timers usually choose to reconstruct their past in its most favourable light.
3. J. J. Hargrave as quoted in Stubbs, Four Recorders, p. 138.
4. Public Archives of Canada (PAC), J. Hargrave to T. Simpson, 15 Feb. 1832, Hargrave Correspondence, vol. 21, Lb. 7.
5. For a detailed discussion of this episode, see Sylvia Van Kirk, “Women and the Fur Trade,” The Beaver, Winter 1972, p. 4.
6. PAC, J. McMillan to J. Hargrave, 10 June 1834, Hargrave Correspondence, vol. 4, p. 801.
7. Ibid., Hargrave to J. Rowand, 2 July 1839, vol. 23, Lb. 14.
8. Ibid., Duncan Finlayson to Hargrave, 12 Aug. 1839, vol. 7, p. 1716.
9. Glyndwr Williams, ed., Andrew Grahams Observations on Hudson’s Bay, 1767-1791 (London: Hudson’s Bay Record Society, vol. 27, 1969), p. 153.
10. Ross Cox, The Columbia River, ed. by Edgar and Jane Stewart, (Norman, Oklahoma, 1957), p. 359.
11. C.M.S.A., Geo. Simpson to Rev. Jones, 14 July 1832, CCI/039.
12. Margaret A. MacLeod, ed., The Letters of Letitia Hargrave (Toronto: Champlain Society, vol. 28, 1947), p. 219.
13. PAC, T. Simpson to Hargrave, 27 Jan. 1839, Hargrave Corres., vol. 7, p. 1574.
14. “Johnstone et al. v. Connolly, Appeal Court, 7 Sept. 1869,” La Revue Legale, vol. 1, pp. 286-7.
15. Hudson’s Bay Company Archives (HBCA), W. Sinclair to E. Ermatinger, 15 Aug. 1831, Ermatinger Correspondence, Copy 23, f. 271.
16. PAC, D. Finlayson to Hargrave, 18 Dec. 1830, Hargrave Corres., vol. I, pp. 275-76; P.A.B.C., T. Simpson to D. Ross, 19 Dec. 1831, Donald Ross Papers Si 5.
17. HBCA, G. Simpson to J.G. McTavish, 10 April 1831, B.135/c/2, f.64d.
19. See Elaine Mitchell, “A Red River Gossip,” The Beaver, Spring 1961, pp. 4-11.
20. Glenbow Archives, Jas. Sutherland to John Sutherland, 7 Aug. 1838, James Sutherland Papers.
21. HBCA, Simpson to McTavish, 29 June 1833, B.135/c/2, f. 106.
22. C.M.S.A., Simpson to Jones, 14 July 1832.
23. Mitchell, “A Red River Gossip,” p. 9.
24. G. P. de T. Glazebrook, ed., The Hargrave Correspondence, 1821-1843 (Toronto: Champlain Society, vol. 24, 1938), pp. 249-50.
25. PAC, Hargrave to Mrs. T. Isbister, 23 May 1839 and Hargrave to J. Ballenden, 7 Sept. 1839, Hargrave Corres., vol. 23, Lb. 14 and 15.
26. Ibid., Ballenden to Hargrave, 30 Jan. 1841, vol. 8, p. 1891.
27. Ibid., D. Finlayson to Hargrave, 18 Dec. 1841, f. 2193.
28. Glazebrook, Hargrave Corres., p. 310-11.
29. HBCA, Simpson to McTavish, 3 Jan. 1831, B.135/c/2, f. 54;C.M.S.A., Wm. Cockran’s Journal, 13 April 1838 and 17 June 1840, CCI/018.
30. HBCA, Simpson to Rev. Dr. Alder, 4 Dec. 1848, D.4/70, f. 219.
31. Ibid., D. Finlayson to Simpson, 8 April 1845, D.5/13, fos. 395d-96; P.A.B.C., John McBeath to Donald Ross, 6 Aug. 1850, Ross Papers M12.2.
32. HBCA, Ballenden to Simpson, 30 Dec. 1850, D.5/29, f. 422; P.A.M., Records of the General Quarterly Court of Assiniboia, “Foss v. Pelly,” 16-18 July 1850, p. 218.
33. PAC, Letitia Hargrave to Flora Mactavish, 1 June 1850, Hargrave Corres., vol. 27.
34. Public Archies of Manitoba (PAM), “Foss v. Pelly,” pp. 202-203.
35. HBCA, Ballenden to Simpson, 29 Nov. 1848, D.5/23, f. 383.
36. P.A.B.C., Wm. Todd to Donald Ross, 20 July 1850, Ross Papers.
37. PAM, “Foss v. Pelly,” pp. 185-86, 203.
38. MacLeod, Letitia’s Letters, p. 247.
39. P.A.B.C., Robert Clouston to Donald Ross, 29 June 1849, Ross Papers C62.
40. HBCA, Adam Thom to Simpson, 5 Feb. 1851, D.5/30, f.206.
41. MacLeod, Letitia’s Letters, p. 247; see also P.A.C., Letitia to her mother, 14 Dec. 1851, Hargrave Corres., vol. 27.
42. P.A.B.C., A. E. Pelly to D. Ross, I Aug. 1850, Ross Papers P361; P.A.M., “Foss v. Pelly,” pp. 185, 196.
43. PAM, “Foss v. Pelly,” pp. 183, 193, 213-14.
44. PAC, Wm. Todd to Hargrave, 23 July 1850, Hargrave Corres., vol. 15, p. 4533; P.A.M., “Foss v. Pelly,” p. 187; MacLeod, Letitia’s Letters, p. 255.
45. PAC, John Black to Hargrave, 6 Aug. 1850, vol. 15, p. 4581.
46. PAM, “Foss v. Pelly,” p. 207.
47. P.A.B.C., Wm. Todd to Donald Ross, 20 July 1850.
48. PAM, “Foss v. Pelly,” p. 199.
49. MacLeod, Letitia’s Letters, p. 247.
50. Charges were also to have been laid against the Blacks, but these were dropped (MacLeod, Letitia’s Letters, p. 255).
51. P.A.B.C., J. Ballenden to D. Ross, 1 Aug. 1850, Ross Papers, B21; Adam Thom to Simpson, 15 Aug. 1850, D.5/28, f. 437d.
52. Foss, declaring that his sole motive had been “to clear the reputation of a Lady,” declined to collect the £100 from Davidson (“Foss v. Pelly,” 181).
53. HBCA, Simpson to J. Black, 18 Dec. 1850, D.4/71, fos. 265--266d.
54. Ibid., James Bird to Simpson, 8 Aug. 1851, D.5/31. f. 247.
55. P.A.B.C., R. Clouston to D. Ross, 17 Dec. 1850, Ross Papers C62. For a list of the jurors, see “Foss v. Pelly,” p. 182.
56. MacLeod, Letitia’s Letters, p. 256.
57. P.A.B.C., R. Clouston to D. Ross, 23 Sept. 1850, Ross Papers C62.
58. Eden Colvile had married Anne, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel John Maxwell in Montreal in 1845.
59. Rich, Colvile’s Letters, p. 193.
60. Pannekoek, “Churches in Red River,” p. 174.
61. Rich, Colvile’s Letters, pp. 195, 197.
62. Ibid., pp. 201-02. This Donald McKenzie had been a lesser officer in the Company’s service and was married to a half-breed woman, Matilda Bruce.
63. Ibid., pp. 204, 210.
64. HBCA, John Black to Simpson, 8 Jan. 1851 and Adam Thom to Simpson, 5 Feb. 1851, D.5/30, fos. 47-53, 203.
65. Ibid., Black to Simpson, 26 July 1851, D.5/31, f. 143d.
66. The Ballendens had seven children altogether. This youngest child William was born 15 June 1851.
67. HBCA, Alexander Ross to Simpson, 1 Aug. 1851, D.5/31, f. 206.
68. Ibid., Ballenden to Simpson, 5 Dec. 1851, D.5/32, f.323.
69. Ibid., Ross to Simpson, 1 Aug. 1851, D.5/31, f. 206.
70. P.A.B.C., Geo. Barnston to D. Ross, 22 July 1852, Ross Papers B27.
71. HBCA, Simpson to Andrew McDermot, 6 Feb. 1854, D.4/74, f. 212; Healy, Women of Red River, p. 195.
72. HBCA, Robert Campbell to Simpson, 3 Aug. 1853, D.5/37, fos. 458-59.
73. Ibid., Jas. Sinclair to Simpson, I 1 Dec. 1853 and John Bunn to Simpson, 16 Dec. 1853, D.5/38, fos. 342, 372d-373.
74. W. L. Morton, ed., Alexander Begg’s Red River Journal (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1956), p. 396.

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