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Biography & Autobiography Native Americans

Jemmy Jock Bird

Marginal Man on the Blackfoot Frontier

by (author) John C. Jackson

Publisher
University of Calgary Press
Initial publish date
Aug 2023
Category
Native Americans, Adventurers & Explorers, Native American

  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781773853338
    Publish Date
    Aug 2023
    List Price
    $24.99

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Description

Jemmy Jock Bird, the son of a Cree woman and an English trader employed by the Hudson's Bay Company, has become part of the mythology of the mountain man era. In this creative non-fiction account, Jackson meticulously reconstructs the life of this intriguing individual who was caught between opposing sides of a dual Métis heritage.

Closely identified with the Cree and the Peigan, Bird's trading activities and undercover work as a "confidential servant" of the Hudson's Bay Company during the competitive period of the fur trade are explored using materials from the Hudson's Bay Company Archives, the Montana Historical Society, and Bird's descendants living on the American Blackfeet Reserve in Browning. As an interpreter, Bird was later instrumental in negotiating the 1855 Blackfoot peace treaty and the 1877 Canadian Treaty 7.

Jackson steeps himself in the sparse documentation of the fur trade era to shed some much-needed light on Jemmy Jock Bird's adventurous career - one that straddled the international borders of the northern plains and mountain west and touched upon many aspects of western development.

About the author

For over twenty-five years, John C. Jackson has worked as an investigative historian assembling data and background on numerous historical figures that have been overlooked by conventional history. He has published widely on Native history.

John C. Jackson's profile page

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