Rescue of Mrs. Gowanlock and Mrs. Delaney By a Party of Scouts (Low Res)


Title: Rescue of Mrs. Gowanlock and Mrs. Delaney By a Party of Scouts (Low Res)
Creator: Grip P. & P. Co.
Subject: Illustrated War News, 1885 Resistance, Métis, Delaney, Gowanlock
Description: This is title page to The Canadian Pictorial & Illustrated War News dated June 20, 1885 (Vol. I. No. 12). It is in a green and vertical format and includes the caption: “’Mackay (of Battleford) with ten others started to follow the trail. On Wednesday night they surprised the breeds with whom the ladies were. They galloped into camp and disarmed them.’ – Fort Pitt dispatch to the Mail”. In the image, the three Métis men around the camp fire are startled and will soon surrender to the Métis scout MacKay. One of the Métis men around the campfire is undoubtedly John Pritchard. Pritchard and several First Nations women protected Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney during their captivity by Big Bear’s band following the Frog Lake (April 2, 1885) killings. During the incident at Frog Lake both women saw their husbands, along with several others, killed. The captivity and rescue of these women captured a great deal of attention. Euro-Canadians feared the worst and thought the women would have suffered that “fate worse than death” – a euphemism of being violated at the hands of “primitive” men. Such thinking was really the subconscious fear of miscegenation (race-mixing) and the need to protect frailty and virtue of Euro-Canadian womanhood. One of the ladies seems to be crying in relief that her ordeal is over. At first, both captors said that they were fairly treated by Big Bear’s band, however, with no income to support themselves they began telling and writing of the “terrible” treatment that they suffered – which pandered to vicious stereotypes of Indians that were commonly held at the time. For further information see: Sarah Carter. Capturing Women: The Manipulation of Cultural Imagery in Canada's Prairie West. Montréal-Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1998.
Publisher: Grip P. & P. Co.
Date: July 20, 1885
Type: Image
Format: .pdf
Identifier: CPIWN121.1
Date of Copyright: March 3, 2006
GDI Media Filename: CPIWN121 (Medium).jpg

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