Anauta Blackmore (–1965), also known as Lizzie Ford Blackmore, was an Arctic author, memoirist and lecturer. She is best known for her 1940 autobiography, ''Land of the Good Shadows'', which may be the first book-length autobiography of an Inuk. Blackmore claimed to have

Inuit Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories ...

ancestry, although it's unclear if this was true.

Early life

She was born Sarah Elizabeth Ford on

Baffin Island Baffin Island (formerly Baffin Land), in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, is the largest island in Canada and the fifth-largest island in the world. Its area is , slightly larger than Spain; its population was 13,039 as of the 2021 Canadia ...

in about 1890. Her father was George (or Yorgke) Ford, who worked for the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business div ...

as an interpreter. In Blackmore's recounting, her mother was an Inuit woman, although company archives suggest her mother was from

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

and died around 1905. She married her cousin, trading-post manager William R. Ford, with whom she had two daughters, but was widowed in August 1913 when Ford drowned. After this she spent some time in

Halifax, Nova Scotia Halifax is the capital and largest municipality of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the largest municipality in Atlantic Canada. As of the 2021 Census, the municipal population was 439,819, with 348,634 people in its urban area. The ...

, Montreal, Quebec, and

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

, before settling in

Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Mari ...

, around 1920. Here she married construction contractor Harry Blackmore.

Career in America

In Indianaopolis, she met ''

Indianapolis Star Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion ...

'' cartoonist Chic Jackson who, around 1929, helped her establish herself on the

lecture circuit The "lecture circuit" is a euphemistic reference to a planned schedule of regular lectures and keynote speeches given by celebrities, often ex-politicians, for which they receive an appearance fee. In Western countries, the lecture circuit has bec ...

. She embraced her Inuit name, Anauta, was advertised as "the only

Eskimo Eskimo () is an exonym used to refer to two closely related Indigenous peoples: the Inuit (including the Alaska Native Iñupiat, the Greenlandic Inuit, and the Canadian Inuit) and the Yupik peoples, Yupik (or Siberian Yupik, Yuit) of eastern Si ...

woman on the American platform", and spoke about her life experience in the eastern Arctic. In 1940, Blackmore collaborated with American children's writer Heluiz Chandler Washburne to write an autobiography, ''Land of the Good Shadows: The Life Story of Anauta, an Eskimo Woman'', published by

John Day Company The John Day Company was a New York publishing firm that specialized in illustrated fiction and current affairs books and pamphlets from 1926 to 1968. It was founded by Richard J. Walsh in 1926 and named after John Day, the Elizabethan printer. W ...

. The story was certainly embellished for a white audience, with Blackmore claiming to have been adopted and raised by an Inuk woman. She would go on to write two more books, ''Children of the Blizzard'' (1952), a collection of stories of Inuit children, and ''Wild Like the Foxes: The True Story of an Eskimo Girl'' (1956), a biography of her mother. Blackmore died of a heart attack on 13 January 1965 in Ashland, Kansas, where she had been engaged to lecture.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blackmore, Anauta 1890s births 1965 deaths Writers from the Northwest Territories Writers from Indianapolis Inuit writers Lecturers 20th-century Canadian memoirists 20th-century American memoirists 20th-century Canadian women writers 20th-century American women writers Canadian people who self-identify as being of Indigenous descent