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Nahovway (Margaret Sinclair)
c.1770 - 1863

Nahovway was born near Churchill, Manitoba around 1770 or 1780. Later in life she was baptised as Margaret Sinclair.

Sources offer conflicting information about her childhood. According to some histories her parents were a chief factor with the Hudson's Bay Company named George Holt and a Metis woman named Thucotch Jacobs. Other sources identify her father as an infamous "evil" factor named Moses Norton, and say that her mother was part of the "Homeguard" Cree people, who worked closely with the HBC traders and lived near their fort.

One source even suggests that she was orphaned as a child outside the fort following a French attack, and was adopted by a trader named William Sinclair. When she reached her teens, Sinclair married her.

What is known is that around 1890, Nahovway was country-wed to William Sinclair - an Orkneyman and HBC employee.

One family tradition states "Nahouway was beautiful; she was skilled in the crafts of her mother`s people; and she had been brought up in the camp of her grandfather, a Swampy Cree chief, with whom Sinclair traded advantageously."

In 1798, Nahovway helped her husband establish a trading post at Oxford House, Manitoba. They remained there for 14 years as William rose through the ranks, eventually taking charge of the Inland District and York Factory.

Note: This photo is commonly presented as Nahovway. It was found in the Seven Oaks House Museum collection and identified based on intuition by descendant and author, Donna Sutherland.

Unfortunately a historical analysis of the photo's context indicates that it likely dates from the late 19th or early 20th century -- meaning it could not be of Nahovway.

Facial recognition software suggested that this may be a photo of Marak Inkster (Nahovway's granddaughter) near the end of her life (c.1900-1912)

Gail Konantz (member of a descendant family), has stated that the photo is of Jane Inkster Tait (sister to Marak). "She notes that a number of people have mistakenly assumed this was a picture of Janes’ grandmother, Margaret Nahoway Sinclair."

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Nahovway and William would have 10 children together.
Sources suggest that William was a polygamist who fathered at least three other children with different women. One source also indicates that Nahovway gave birth to at least one child with another man while William was away in Europe.

In 1824, following William's death, she moved to the Red River Settlement with her daughter Mary and son Thomas. In 1827 she was married again to an Irishman named John Forbes.

She later lived at Seven Oaks with her daughter's family. Nahovway died in 1863 at Seven Oaks and was buried at St. John's Cathedral.

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Almost nothing is known about her life beyond details about her father, husband, and children. Her large family led to diverse oral traditions developing in different parts of the world. Some are more reliable than others. 

Writers have offered various creative explanations for the meaning of her name. The most common is that "Na-Hov-Way" translates to "Echo" or "A Distant Voice", but to our knowledge this has not been reliably verified by a language expert.

Several of her descendants are known to have been artists, noted for their fine beadwork and embroidery. One writer also associates birch-bark baskets with her descendants. These traditional skills were passed down through the generations, and we speculate that the Sinclair family style originated with Nahovway.

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Captain Colin Robertson Sinclair
1816 - 1901

Captain Colin Robertson Sinclair (1816-1901) was the youngest brother of Mary Sinclair Inkster. He spent much of his life sailing around the world as a captain: He traded in South-East Asia and later joined the California Gold Rush. He spent his last years living at Seven Oaks. It’s said that he slept in a hammock to imitate his bed on the ship.

Colin Robertson Sinclair was the youngest child of Nahovway and William Sinclair. He was born in Oxford House, Manitoba in 1816. Nahovway was a Cree-Metis woman born near Churchill. His father, William, was from Orkney, Scotland and came to work for the Hudson Bay Company at a young age.
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Colin’s father died when he was only two years old. In William’s will, he stated that he wanted his sons to be educated in Scotland. Colin remained with his mother and his sister Mary until the age of six or seven. At that time, he was separated from his mother and sent away to Orkney, Scotland to further his education. Colin travelled to Europe aboard the Prince of Wales; the very same ship that brought John Inkster to Red River two years earlier. Nahovway would never see her son again.

Colin arrived in Scotland and attended school for about four years while living with his aunts and uncles. This side of his family worked as sailors, and Colin apprenticed as a "Ship's Boy" around the age of 11 or 14. Life at sea was extremely difficult: Food was limited, disease was rampant, and breaking discipline often meant a whipping. Colin advanced in the ranks, eventually  becoming captain and owner of his own ship. He sailed around the world to China and India  trading spices. He also lost his teeth to scurvy at a young age.

Meanwhile, Nahovway had moved to Seven Oaks to live with her daughter, Mary. During the 1840s, newspapers reported that a “Captain Sinclair” had died in a shipwreck in the St. Lawrence River. Believing this to be their Colin, his family had a memorial erected. Family histories say that Nahovway spent many days sitting along the river bank, dreaming that her lost son might return home.

In 1849, Colin arrived in San Francisco, where his crew deserted him to join the California Gold Rush. His own prospecting resulted in a find of $1,700 in gold bullion ($14, 451 in 2017). He would meet his brother, James Sinclair in port that same year. He lived in San Francisco while working on various ships, married an English woman whose name is unknown, and did not have any children.

In the 1870s, Colin met Charles MacKay, a man from the Red River Settlement who told him that he was still being mourned by his family. Colin reportedly wrote letters home.

In 1897, at the age of 81, Colin decided to return to Red River to reunite with his family. His mother and sister were both long dead, but his niece, Marak Inkster, took him in. Colin lived the rest of his days at Seven Oaks, allegedly sleeping in a hammock to mimic the motion of a ship.

Immediately after his return, Colin erected this monument to his mother at St. John’s Cathedral. They were finally reunited when he died in 1901 and was buried next to her. His moving poem shows how deeply he regretted his choice not to return home sooner.

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SACRED
To the memory of my mother
Margaret Nahovway Sinclair
This last token of love and affection is erected by her wandering boy Colin
-1897-
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Eyes of my childhood days shall meet me,
Lips of mothers love shall greet me,
On the day I follow.
Oh!! what hosts of memorys rise,
Saddening dims an old mans eyes.

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There are conflicting interpretations of Colin's story, and we will never know the personal details of his life. Some sources who knew Colin described him as a bitter and unpleasant man, while others describe him jumping until his false teeth fell out to entertain children.

While it was common for prominent fur traders to send their Metis sons to Europe for schooling, they were typically returned in a few years with an education. Colin’s lifelong separation has led some historians to speculate that other forces could have been at work. In 'Nahoway, A Distant Voice' author and descendent Donna Sutherland indicates that Nahovway did not want her son to leave. As an Indigenous woman she would have had few legal rights, and it appears that William’s business partners were appointed as the executors of his will.

There were few schools in a place like Red River, so there were practical reasons to send children away for an education. At the same time, we need to consider what this practice tells us about the way Indigenous knowledge and ancestry was viewed. The writer Alexander Ross articulated the common belief that his own Metis children needed a Christian education to separate them from their mother’s culture, so that they would develop into “respectable” men. It was considered very important that boys like Colin grow up in the image of their European fathers, and period sources make many disparaging comments about the appearance and manners of traders' Indigenous wives.

These schooling practices were about both education and the suppression of Indigenous identity and culture within their children. In some respects we can see these attitudes and practices as a fore-runner to the later use of Residential Schools by the Canadian government to “kill the Indian in the child” and destroy Indigenous cultures.

We will never know the specifics, but it seems clear that Colin and his mother both suffered some trauma from their separation.

This photo was found in a family album at Seven Oaks House. It shows Jessie Sinclair Copely, Colin's niece, whose family lived in Oakland California.