Name Aramepinchieue Aramepinchieue | ||
Aramepinchieue (c. 1677 – 1725) (also Aramepinchieue Rouensa, Marie Rouensa, Marie Philippe, Marie Accault, Mary Aco, Aramepinchone) was the daughter of a Kaskaskia chief who helped spread Catholicism and French-Indian cooperation in New France along the Mississippi River. She was particularly influential in the area near the former Fort St. Louis. She married a French trader; the children they had were among the earliest examples of the emerging Metis in New France.
Life
Aramepinchieue was born in 1677 to a Kaskaskia chief called Mamenthouensa. At a young age, she and other Kaskaskia women in her village were drawn into Christianity, as preached by the Jesuit missionary Jacques Gravier. Jesuits at this time stressed the Virgin Mary, emphasizing chastity and virginity. Aramepinchieue became a Roman Catholic and took her First Communion on the Feast of the Assumption.
As Aramepinchieue grew older, her father hoped she would marry in a way that would be politically advantageous for him. He wanted Michel Aco to be Aramepinchieue's husband, but she was not interested. She said she had given "all her heart to God and did not wish to share it" Her father, furious with her daughter’s loyalty to Christianity over her family, threw her out of his home. Aramepinchieue sought refuge with Father Gravier.
Eventually, at seventeen years old, Aramepinchieue found a compromise with her parents: she would marry Aco if he would convert to Catholicism. Aco and the chief agreed: Aco converted to Catholicism, which a contemporary observer described as an impressive change to the rough trader from the frontier: "The first conquest [Aramepinchieue] made for God was to win her husband, who was famous in this Ilinois country for all his debaucheries. He is now quite changed..." As a married and devoted Catholic woman, Aramepinchieue took as "special patronesses… the Christian Ladies who have sanctified themselves in the state of matrimony, — namely, St. Paula, St. Frances, St. Margaret, St. Elizabeth, and St. Bridget."
Aramepinchieue's marriage helped build an alliance among the French traders, the Jesuit missionaries, and the Kaskaskias. The children of Frenchmen and Kaskaskia women were among the first Metis people in the Americas. Aramepinchieue later moved from Fort St. Louis to Cahokia, then closer to the present day town of Kaskaskia. Her husband died, and she remarried a French trader named Michel Philippe. Altogether, she had eight children: two with Aco and six with Philippe. She died in 1725, leaving a "considerable estate to her children."