66 pages • 2 hours read
Kathleen GrissomCrow Mary
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Kathleen Grissom and Non-Indigenous Perspectives on Indigenous Stories
Content Warning: This section discusses racism, colonialism, and colonial violence.
Kathleen Grissom is a Canadian author born and raised in Annaheim, Saskatchewan. She is known for her historical novels The Kitchen House (2010), Glory Over Everything (2016), and Crow Mary (2023). Grissom grew up in a small Catholic community, but her parents encouraged her to discover diverse cultures and religions. Her work focuses on the conflicts and cultural transformations that defined North America in the tumultuous 18th and 19th centuries. In her novel Crow Mary, Grissom fictionalizes the life story of a real Indigenous woman named Goes First, the daughter of a Crow chief. The text illuminates Goes First’s bravery and resilience and her crucial role in the 1873 Cypress Hills massacre of the Nakota (Assiniboine) people. After visiting the historical site in Saskatchewan, Grissom was fascinated by Goes First’s life and felt compelled to write her story. Realizing her limited knowledge of Indigenous cultures, Grissom established direct communication with the Crow tribe. She found support in Goes First’s great-granddaughter, who endorsed the novel, and in Crow scholars, historians, and elders. Grissom emphasizes that the book is premised on facts but fictionalizes characters and events.
The issue of Indigenous representation remains a subject of debate in American culture and society. Indigenous people have historically struggled with cultural erasure and misrepresentation that reflect the enduring legacy of colonialism. As a white author, Grissom conducted thorough research for the book; her cooperation with the Crow nation showcases her pursuit of authenticity. Importantly, though, Indigenous people strive to tell their own stories. Indigenous activists and artists have highlighted the importance of allyship and collective endeavors in illuminating their histories. However, they also emphasize that Indigenous people are the experts of their own nuanced cultures and complex realities. To the present, they continue to claim their voices in socio-cultural spaces, emphasizing that Indigenous artists and storytellers can offer authentic and original perspectives on Indigenous lives.
Historical Context: The Fur Trade in North America and the Long Conflict Between Indigenous Nations and White Settlers
Crow Mary explores the relations between Indigenous people and white settlers during the late 19th century. The fur trade in North America was a key early driver of colonization in Canada and the United States, and Grissom offers a compelling account of that history. Indigenous people were an essential part of the fur trade, as tribes often provided animal pelts to white traders in exchange for weapons and other goods. Trading expanded interracial relations, involving cultural exchange and conflict. White traders often married Indigenous women and familiarized themselves with Indigenous traditions, while Indigenous tribes deepened their contact with Western societies. This cross-cultural exchange birthed biracial identities and people like the Métis Nation in Canada, a post-contact people who emerged as a distinct ethnic group of both European and Indigenous ancestry. The fur trade, though, precipitated environmental destruction, with the extermination of animal populations significant for the sustenance of Indigenous tribes, and attracted more white settlers into Indigenous territories, paving the way for Western expansion.
Grissom explores the 1873 Cypress Hills massacre as an indicative event of colonial violence. The massacre occurred after an altercation between wolfers and fur traders and a group of Nakoda/Assiniboine people and catalyzed the creation of the North-West Mounted Police in Canada. Grissom describes the known historical details of the massacre and Goes First’s agency in the event. However, she freely fictionalizes the circumstances to reinterpret Goes First’s experiences.
By the late 19th century, when the novel’s narrative time ends, colonization and governmental policies had devastated Indigenous nations. Through dubious treaties, the Canadian and US governments usurped Indigenous lands, promoting the tribes’ forced removals and their confinement to reservations. Cultural assimilation policies also exacerbated Indigenous people’s cultural loss. The abduction of Indigenous children and the forced attendance of residential schools remains a crucial topic in debates about colonial trauma. To this day, Indigenous people fight to reclaim their identities and their ancestral lands while celebrating their survival.
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