Grey Cloud Woman (Dakota: , born c. 1793; died 1850) was the woman for whom Grey Cloud Island in Washington County, Minnesota was named. She was born around 1793 at the village of Prairie du Chien to a Dakota mother, also named Grey Cloud Woman, and a Scottish fur-trading father, James Aird. Grey Cloud lived through the final years when the fur trading economy was dominant in the region around the northern Mississippi River. She married her first husband, English-Canadian fur trader Thomas Gummersall Anderson, while just a young girl of 15. Together, they lived and traveled between several trading posts, including those at Patterson's Rapids and Pike Island. The couple had two children who survived infancy, Angus and Jane. Grey Cloud Woman was directly affected by the War of 1812, when her husband, who fought on behalf of the British, chose to return to Canada rather than live under American rule. Rather than follow him, Grey Cloud Woman separated from him and returned to her parents' home.
Grey Cloud later sent both her young children to live with their father in Canada. She remarried to another fur trader from New York, Hazen Mooers, in about 1825. Grey Cloud Woman's family connections facilitated trading relationships for both her husbands, and she and Mooers built a new trading post called Little Rock. During the negotiations for the Treaty of 1837, Grey Cloud was a signatory to a letter arguing on behalf of people of mixed Dakota ancestry and later was a beneficiary of the treaty settlement. The marriage produced three daughters, Mary, Jane Anne and Madeline. Later, she and her family lived approximately 15 miles south and east of modern-day St. Paul, Minnesota on the Mississippi River island that would come to bear her name from 1838 to 1846. She was one of the first people to farm wheat on the island, representing a larger shift away from dependence on the regional fur trade and greater economic power of farming. Grey Cloud died in 1850.
Name meaning Maḣpiya Ḣota in the Dakota language means "Grey Cloud". With the addition of "Wiŋ" (woman), the English translation of her name is Grey Cloud Woman. She also had an English name, Margaret Aird (sometimes spelled Ayrd). Grey Cloud Woman was named after her mother, also called Maḣpiya Ḣota Wiŋ, and thus she is sometimes referred to as Grey Cloud Woman II.
Parents Grey Cloud Woman was the daughter of James Aird and Grey Cloud Woman I, for whom she was named. Aird (born 1757) immigrated to Canada in 1783 from Ayrshire, Scotland. He was employed by the Hudson's Bay Company. He was reportedly a cousin of the Ayrshire poet Robert Burns. Grey Cloud Woman I was the daughter of Wabasha I, a chief of the Mdewakanton band of the Dakota people. She was born in the mid- to late-1770s in the village of Wapaha Sa Prairie, near modern-day Winona, Minnesota. Wabasha's band had established French kinship ties, but later aligned themselves with the British during the French and Indian War of 1756–1763. Wabasha was commissioned as a British army officer and fought against Americans and in defense of the village of Prairie du Chien. She had at least one brother, Wabasha II, who also became a leader of the Mdewakanton.
Early life Grey Cloud Woman was born around 1793 in the village of Prairie du Chien, a settlement in modern-day Wisconsin bounded by the Mississippi and Wisconsin rivers on land of the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago), Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, and Sauk and Meskwaki. Her first language was Dakota and she also spoke French and learned some English. Prior to her birth, her parents had used Prairie du Chien as an operating base, but traveled widely in the trading business. After she was born, they settled more permanently on the first street in the main village, although her father continued to travel extensively for his work. In 1805, Aird spent several years leading a trading expedition in North Dakota. Most of the families in town supported themselves with a combination of farming and engagement in the fur trade. In 1811, a visitor to the village noted that the town produced a surplus of crops, including corn, wheat and vegetables. In the early 1810s, fruit trees were planted, producing plums and cherries, though these may not have been available during Grey Cloud's earlier childhood.
At the time, the houses were mostly made of logs plastered with mud, though a few frame houses were built by 1805. Grey Cloud likely grew up in relative comfort. Her father became successful in business and by 1810 he was the largest property owner in Prairie du Chien. At its height, he owned multiple farm lots, a grain mill and several lots in the village. Grey Cloud was an only child, but grew up surrounded by a large extended family. Four of her mother's sisters had also married White men and lived in the village with their families. Their immediate environs consisted of about 18 other households, and their next-door neighbors were Joseph Rolette and his wife Margaret and their children. Margaret Rolette was Grey Cloud's maternal aunt.
There was no school in the village and no record of what kind of education Grey Cloud Woman might have received. Grey Cloud Woman likely knew her future husband, Thomas Anderson, in passing as a child, as he came through the village multiple times each year from 1800 to 1808. Anderson described the villagers as "kind and hospitable, and prided themselves on their honesty and punctuality in paying their debts, and keeping their engagements." Grey Cloud was only about 15 years old when she married for the first time.
Marriage to Thomas Anderson Grey Cloud Woman married Thomas Gummersall Anderson (born 1778, died 1874), around 1808. Anderson was born in Canada. In 1800, at twenty, he traveled by birch bark canoe from Montreal to Mackinac Island, in modern-day Michigan. He was outfitted as a trader and navigated the Fox River to arrive at Grey Cloud Woman's home village of Prairie du Chien, in present-day Wisconsin, a few weeks later. He stayed several days before moving on to his winter post downriver, however he passed through the village approximately twice annually over the ensuing years. He began working with the Santee Dakota in 1806 and became acquainted with James Aird, Grey Cloud Woman's father, for whom he worked for a period.
When Grey Cloud Woman and Thomas Anderson married, she was about 15 years old and he was about 30. Her reasons for marrying Anderson are unknown. A native English speaker, he did not speak her first language, Dakota, and perhaps spoke little French either. Marriages between White fur traders and Dakota women were common in the village and were seen as mutually beneficial. Dakota women were generally not forced to marry and such marriages were not necessarily seen as permanent lifetime commitments. In a memoir written by Anderson in the late 1800s, he wrote of his marriage: "following the custom of the country, which I had hitherto resisted, I took to live with me a little half-breed." Anderson may have been motivated to marry Grey Cloud to forge business connections with both her father, Aird, and her mother's family among his Dakota trading partners.
Grey Cloud bore a son, Angus Malcolm, around 1809. From 1810 to 1814, the young family would visit James Aird at a northerly summer trading post called Patterson's Rapids, near the mouth of the Yellow Medicine river. It was here that Grey Cloud Woman gave birth to a daughter, likely in August 1810. The baby's English name was Jane and her Dakota name translated as Daybreak Woman. Grey Cloud bore one additional child with Anderson, a baby girl named Mary or Marion, who did not survive infancy.
The couple spent the winter of 1810 together, trading at a location on the St Croix River, before Anderson was reassigned in the spring of 1811 to Pike Island. The family maintained a trading post there for the following three years. Grey Cloud Woman planted a garden, which included corn and potatoes. The island was well-suited to access and trade with Dakota villages that lined both rivers and the family socialized with the travelers passing through. In summers, they would join Dakota friends in hunting parties. Grey Cloud and her children also frequently visited her parents in Prairie du Chien, remaining with them when Anderson was traveling for work.
Separation In 1814, the couple separated. In his memoir, Anderson claimed that Grey Cloud Woman took their children and left him in March of that year, after which he never saw her again. However, Anderson lived for the next 14 months at the fort, next-door to the village at Prairie du Chien, where Grey Cloud and the children lived, making it highly likely he continued to have some contact with them. His journal from this time contains records of meeting with James Aird, her father. In May 1815, following the end of the war, Anderson was ordered to return to Canada. While Anderson's journal implied that Grey Cloud Woman left him for no reason, the story passed down by their descendants is more forthcoming: after Anderson resolved to return to Canada permanently, he asked Grey Cloud Woman to come with him. According to the story, she declined, refusing to leave Mni Sota Makoce, her homeland.
War of 1812
Wartime activities The build-up and war began to effect trading patterns and the relationships that supported the fur traders and their families. Both Grey Cloud's father and husband were involved in wartime activities. James Aird was technically an American citizen, having declared his nationality around 1805 after discovering while in St. Louis, Missouri that foreign traders were banned from the fur trade in regions covered by the Louisiana Purchase. He was able to establish citizenship by a mechanism provided for in Jay's Treaty, which allowed those who had lived in the country prior to 1796 and had not explicitly declared themselves British citizens, to claim American citizenship. However, he served as a British agent during the war, encouraging Native people to fight on behalf of the British. In 1810, Anderson participated in blockade-running to move goods past an American installation at Fort Mackinac. In August 1814, a letter from a fur trader and friend of Aird and Anderson indicated the difficulties in continuing to conduct trade and travel freely, writing:"What greaves me the most is that I am prevented from Seeing you & my other friends Mr Aird & anderson & all those that I have ben so many years living in friendship with in that country. I Shall remain at york till late in the fall in hopes of being able to get in to Mackinac with my old friends if it does not fall and if in case that it unfortunately Should fall in the americans hands I shall be obliged much against my will to go Back to montreall."
In 1814, Anderson learned that Americans had built a fort directly next to Prairie du Chien, a strategic site in the control of the fur trade, while traveling to Mackinac on business. He received a commission while visiting the British commander at Mackinac and led a group of volunteer fur traders back to Prairie du Chien. He made efforts to persuade the Dakota to fight against the Americans and picked up additional native warriors along the way back. Anderson's volunteers were able to take the fort during the siege of Prairie du Chien and defended it successfully against subsequent attack. Anderson became commander of the fort, which was renamed Fort McKay, until May 1815, when he was ordered to surrender it following the British defeat.
Aftermath