Magdelaine La Framboise (1780–1846), born Marguerite-Magdelaine Marcot, was one of the most successful fur traders in the Northwest Territory of the United States, in the area of present-day western Michigan. Of mixed Odawa and French descent, she was fluent in the Odawa, French, English and Ojibwe languages of the region, and partnered with her husband. After he was murdered in 1806, she successfully managed her fur trade business for more than a decade, even against the competition of John Jacob Astor. After retiring from the trade, she built a fine home on Mackinac Island.
La Framboise founded a school on Mackinac Island for Native American children. She also supported a Sunday school and other activities at the Catholic Sainte Anne Church. She donated land for a new site for the church, and was honored by being buried beneath its altar. As one of the most prominent early businesswomen of the new state, in 1984 she was elected posthumously to the recently established Michigan Women's Hall of Fame.
Early life
She was born Marguerite-Magdelaine Marcot in February 1781 at Fort St. Joseph, near present-day Niles, Michigan. She was the youngest of seven mixed-race children of Jean Baptiste Marcot (1720–1783), a French factor or chief agent for the Northwest Fur Company, and his Odawa wife, Marie Nekesh (c.1740 - c.1790), also known as Marianne or Marie Amighissen. Her maternal grandfather was Chief Kewinoquot of the Odawa. The children's father, Jean Baptiste Marcot, was killed in 1783 by Indians at the portage between the Fox and Wisconsin rivers.
Therese (b. 1775) and Magdelaine, the two youngest children, were baptized as Roman Catholic a few years later on August 1, 1786, on Mackinac Island. They were raised in their mother's culture and learned several languages. Their father had sent the family's children to Montreal to be educated in French-language schools, but their widowed mother did not have the financial resources to do that when the girls came of age. She moved to Mackinac with Magdelaine and her sisters after the British abandoned Fort St. Joseph, ceding the area to the new nation of the independent United States in the aftermath of the American Revolutionary War.
For a time Marie lived with her youngest children in a village of the Lac Courtes Oreilles, located at the mouth of the Grand River. (This Ojibwe-speaking tribe has been federally recognized since 1854.) This area was later developed by European Americans as Grand Haven, Michigan. Therese and Magdelaine both became fluent in four languages: Ottawa, French, English, and Chippewa (also known as Ojibwe).
In later years, Magdelaine's older sisters Therese and Catherine Marcot married and also became active in the fur trade; they took over from their husbands, George Schindler and Jean Baptiste Cadotte, respectively. Although neither became as well-known as Magdelaine, they were upwardly mobile, making good lives for themselves and their descendants. The descendants of Therese Schindler became "most prominent in Wisconsin medical and social circles." The women used their family ties among the Odawa and knowledge about the varieties of regional Native American tribes and culture to build and maintain their businesses. Like Magdelaine in later years, Therese Schindler was based mostly in Mackinac Island.
Marriage and family
Marcotte married Joseph La Framboise (1765–1806) in 1794. On September 24, 1795, they had their first child, a daughter, Josette La Framboise (1795–1820). Their son Joseph La Framboise was born in March 1805. (He lived to 1856). Although the couple were married by Odawa custom (known as "the custom of the country"), they had their marriage solemnized on July 11, 1804, by a Catholic missionary at Michilimackinac (Mackinac Island). (Magdelaine/Madeline's surname has also been recorded as Laframboise, and she became known as Mme. La Framboise.)
Fur trading
Magdelaine La Framboise and her husband Joseph developed a fur trade in the Grand River Valley of west Michigan, where they established many trading posts. Every fall they would take their trade goods for business with the Odawa from Mackinac Island down to the Grand River area. They built another post at what has developed as Fallasburg, Michigan. This was the first permanent mercantile building in the west Michigan area. Every spring they returned to Mackinac Island with the furs they had acquired through the season's trading.