Michilimackinac, or Mackinac Island, was “an eighteenth century nexus for the Great Lakes fur trade” where many Métis families like the Langlades, Cadottes, and Nolins emerged as leading families within the emerging Métis political consciousness in the Upper Great Lakes.
Within that often male-dominated business world, Métis matriarch Madeline Laframboise was renowned for her entrepreneurial prowess and success. Laframboise was “a tall and commanding figure, and most dignified deportment”, fuelled by her “vast deal of energy and enterprise."
Madeline emerged as the successful owner of a string of trading posts around Mackinac Island, for which she was later described as being “no ordinary woman—probably for succeeding in an exclusively male trade.”
Madeline’s enduring entrepreneurial spirit and drive to succeed in a male-dominated field was likely inspired by the death of her French fur-trading father, after which she and her sisters married traders, and eventually became successful in their own right.
Madeline was an important matriarch in the Upper Great Lakes Métis world, standing as godparent to many Métis children, and recorded as a distinguished guest at a Métis wedding in 1819.
Madeline’s position both as a matriarch and a businesswoman also made her a key figure within broader Métis kinship networks throughout the Homeland. Madeline’s nephew, Joseph Laframboise, for example, later moved to Red River, where his daughters and granddaughters became matriarchs of the Fisher and Dumont families—both well-known names within Métis communities on the Prairies.
Madeline Laframboise’s entrepreneurial spirit and tireless drive to succeed have left a lasting legacy, and serve as an inspiration for Métis women from the Upper Great Lakes-westward to this day.
See Our Sources
Many roads to Red River: Metis Genesis in the Great Lakes Region
Reminiscences of early days on Mackinac Island, Elizabeth Thérèse Baird
Macdougall, Brenda (2016) Métis Families Across the Great Lakes [Unpublished report]
MARCOT, MARGUERITE-MAGDELAINE (La Framboise) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography
Brenda Macdougall, Contours of a People: Métis Family, Mobility, and History
Great Warriors Path: Great Woman: Madeline Laframboise of Mackinac Island
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