Female pioneers, Good Indians, and Settler Nostalgia: Colonial Ambivalence in Sally Armstrong’s The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor

Abstract

The paper focuses on the Canadian novel The nine lives of Charlotte Taylor, published in 2007 by renowned Amnesty International reporter Sally Armstrong. Acclaimed immediately as a national bestseller, the novel depicts, according to the author herself, “Canadians’ fascination with their roots and their pride in an unwavering pioneering ethics”. Seen in this Eurocentric light, Charlotte Taylor (a real life pioneer of the late 18th c. Canada) becomes “everyone’s ancestor”. My analysis focuses on the dynamics of gender, race, and land acquisition, as depicted in the novel. The paper demonstrates how Armstrong rewrites the pioneer experience from a woman’s perspective; I approach the protagonist as a boundary crosser, emphasizing women’s liminal position in the early stages of colonization in Canada and their ambivalent relationship to settling the land. I also show, however, that Armstrong fails to recognize the complex dynamics of race relationships in early Canada. While the feminist intention of the novel is therefore (at least partly) realized, the figures of First Nations and their relationship with the white pioneers remain highly stereotypical.