When the Fur trade of the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company opened up what is now Canada to European Colonization, both European women and Christian Clergy were scarce. Many Company employees married Indian and Metis woman through a style of marriage known as "custom of the country." Instead of the wedding being a sacrament of the church, it was done with the consent of the parents of the bride, and an offering of dowry from the groom.
Amelia Douglas' parents Susan and William were married by just such an arrangement. They had six children in the thirty years they were together. When William took his family to Lachiene to retire from the fur trade, he introduced Suzanne as his lawful wife to the people of the town. Then suddenly Connolly left Suzanne to marry his cousin, Julia Woolrich of Montreal. He sent Suzanne to the Red River Settlement and placed her in a convent there.
When William died, his son John filed a lawsuit in Montreal (1864) against the children his father had with Julia Woolrich, who stood to inherit Williams's estate. John felt that his mother and father had been legally married, and that his mother and siblings had legal entitlement to their share.
The case became a famous and important case, but it upset Amelia, who found it painful and embarrassing.
But Amelia's mother was vindicated when in 1867 the court found "-that there was a legal marriage existing between the late Mr. Connolly and the Indian woman" and that "-a community of property existed between him and his Indian wife from 1803, the date of their marriage." This meant that all "custom of the country marriages" was now formally recognized by the courts as long as the vows were formally recognized by the brides parents.
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