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Interwoven Lives

Indigenous Mothers of Salish Coast Communities

Candace Wellman

$27.95

In this companion work to Peace Weavers, her previous book on Puget Sound’s cross-cultural marriages, award-winning author Candace Wellman depicts the lives of four additional intermarried indigenous women who influenced mid-1800s settlement in the Bellingham Bay area. She describes each wife’s native culture, details ancestral history and traits for both spouses, and traces descendants’ destinies, highlighting the families’ contributions to new communities.

“Wellman demonstrates that to erase or simplify the contributions of Native women and their intermarried families is to leave major gaps in Western history.” —Western Historical Quarterly

“Wellman has ably demonstrated the critical importance of biographical studies. She has placed Native women at the center of Whatcom County history as well as that of Washington State and the Pacific Northwest… and helped reweave their stories and their contributions into the larger public memory.”—Oregon Historical Quarterly

Finalist, 2020 Willa Literary Award, scholarly nonfiction
2020 Washington State Historical Society WOW selection

Illustrations / maps / notes / bibliography / index / 310 pages (2019)

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Description

In this companion work to Peace Weavers, her previous book on Puget Sound’s cross-cultural marriages, author Candace Wellman depicts the lives of four additional intermarried indigenous women who influenced mid-1800s settlement in the Bellingham Bay area. She describes each wife’s native culture, details ancestral history and traits for both spouses, and traces descendants’ destinies, highlighting the families’ contributions to new communities.

Jenny Wynn was the daughter of an elite Lummi and his Songhees wife, and was a strong voice for justice for her people. She and her husband Thomas owned a farm and donated land and a cabin for the first local school. Several descendants became teachers. Snoqualmie Elizabeth Patterson, daughter of the most powerful native leader in western Washington married a cattleman. After her death from tuberculosis, kind foster parents raised her daughters, who ultimately grew up to enhance Lynden’s literary and business growth. Resilient and strong, Mary Allen was the daughter of an Nkla’pamux leader on British Columbia’s Fraser River. The village of Marietta arose from her long marriage. Later, her sons played important roles in Southeast Alaska’s early history. The indigenous wife of Fort Bellingham commander Captain George W. Pickett (later a brigadier general in the Civil War) left no personal name to history after her early death, but Mrs. Pickett gifted the West with one of its most important early artists, James Tilton Pickett.

Candace Wellman won the 2018 WILLA literary award for scholarly nonfiction from Women Writing the West, a national organization, for Peace Weavers. She attributes much of her success to the generous assistance of mentors and over 200 contributors.

Illustrations / maps / notes / bibliography / index / 310 pages (2019)

ISBN 978-0-87422364-4

Recognition

Selected for Washington State Historical Society’s favorite collection of books and publications all about Women of Washington (WOW) State

“These Native women demonstrated fortitude and perseverance as well as economic foresight and entrepreneurialism. The women from Coast Salish communities in the region harnessed the political acumen and strategic thinking of their elders to advance the interests of their bicultural families and Native communities in Whatcom County, all in the face of settler efforts to marginalize both groups…Wellman has ably demonstrated the critical importance of biographical studies. She has placed Native women at the center of Whatcom County history as well as that of Washington State and the Pacific Northwest… and helped reweave their stories and their contributions into the larger public memory.”—Melinda Marie Jetté, Franklin Pierce University, Oregon Historical Quarterly

“Wellman demonstrates that to erase or simplify the contributions of Native women and their intermarried families is to leave major gaps in Western history.” —Western Historical Quarterly

Additional information

Dimensions 6 x 9 in
Format

eBook, Paperback