"Madame" Marie Aioe Dorion Venier Toupin (ca. 1786 – September 5, 1850) was the only female member of an overland expedition sent by

Pacific Fur Company The Pacific Fur Company (PFC) was an American fur trade venture wholly owned and funded by John Jacob Astor that functioned from 1810 to 1813. It was based in the Pacific Northwest, an area contested over the decades between the United Kingdom of ...

to the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

in 1810. Like her first husband, Pierre Dorion Jr., she was

Métis The Métis ( ; Canadian ) are Indigenous peoples who inhabit Canada's three Prairie Provinces, as well as parts of British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and the Northern United States. They have a shared history and culture which derive ...

. Her mother was of the

Iowa people The Iowa, also known as Ioway, and the Bah-Kho-Je or Báxoje (English: grey snow; Chiwere: Báxoje ich'é) are a Native American Siouan people. Today, they are enrolled in either of two federally recognized tribes, the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma and ...

and her father was

French Canadian French Canadians (referred to as Canadiens mainly before the twentieth century; french: Canadiens français, ; feminine form: , ), or Franco-Canadians (french: Franco-Canadiens), refers to either an ethnic group who trace their ancestry to Fre ...

. She was also known as Marie Laguivoise, a name recorded in 1841 at the Willamette Mission and apparently a variation on ''Aiaouez'', later rendered as ''Iowa''.

Missouri

It is likely that Dorion and Sacajawea knew one another. Peter Stark notes the similarities between the two women in his book ''Astoria'': both women were originally based in the then-small settlement of

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

, and they were both wives of interpreters in the burgeoning Missouri fur trade.

Pacific Northwest

Her first husband Pierre Dorion Jr. was hired by the

to join

Wilson Price Hunt Wilson Price Hunt (March 20, 1783 – April 13, 1842) was an early pioneer and explorer of the Oregon Country in the Pacific Northwest of North America. Employed as an agent in the fur trade under John Jacob Astor, Hunt organized and led the great ...

and a group on an overland expedition to

Fort Astoria Fort Astoria (also named Fort George) was the primary fur trading post of John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company (PFC). A maritime contingent of PFC staff was sent on board the '' Tonquin'', while another party traveled overland from St. Louis. T ...

. Also present were their two young boys, who were probably two and four years old. Dorion gave birth to another child near what is now North Powder, Oregon, who died several days later. After reaching Fort Astoria, Dorion and her family returned with a

trapping Animal trapping, or simply trapping or gin, is the use of a device to remotely catch an animal. Animals may be trapped for a variety of purposes, including food, the fur trade, hunting, pest control, and wildlife management. History Neolithi ...

party to the

Snake River The Snake River is a major river of the greater Pacific Northwest region in the United States. At long, it is the largest tributary of the Columbia River, in turn, the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean. The Snake ...

area. While at a trading post in January 1814, Dorion learned from a scout that her husband and a small trapping party were about to be attacked by a band of

Bannocks The Bannock tribe were originally Northern Paiute but are more culturally affiliated with the Northern Shoshone. They are in the Great Basin classification of Indigenous People. Their traditional lands include northern Nevada, southeastern Oreg ...

.Shirley (1998), pp. 10-13. After traveling three days alone with her two infant children, she found the scene of the attack. Only one of the trappers, LeClarc, was alive, and was moved away from the area on a horse. Despite Dorion's medical attention for LeClarc, he died that evening. There were several horses left by the Bannock warriors and were promptly taken by Dorion back to the small fur trading post. However, upon reaching the post, she discovered the few staff had been killed and scalped. Attempting to reach another safe fur trading station in the Pacific Northwest, one of Dorion's two horses collapsed in the Blue Mountains. She supported her two infants for 50 days during winter. Dorion created

snare trap Animal trapping, or simply trapping or gin, is the use of a device to remotely catch an animal. Animals may be trapped for a variety of purposes, including food, the fur trade, hunting, pest control, and wildlife management. History Neolithic ...

s out of the horse manes to provide a supply of mice and squirrels for her family. She additionally smoked the horseflesh, collected frozen berries, and later gathered the inner flesh of trees to prevent her family starving. Near the end of March, Dorion was able to progress west, eventually reaching a Walla Walla village, exhausted and short of food. The village leadership provided material support and aided her in getting back to Fort Astoria. Dorion married twice more and had three more children. Her second husband was Louis Venier. With her third husband, Jean Toupin, she settled near Saint Louis, Oregon, on the

French Prairie French Prairie is located in Marion County, Oregon, United States, in the Willamette Valley between the Willamette River and the Pudding River, north of Salem. It was named for some of the earliest settlers of that part of the Oregon Country, F ...

. It was here that she began to be known as "Madame" or "Madame Iowa". One of her two eldest sons, Jean Baptiste, joined the Oregon Rifles and fought in the

Cayuse War The Cayuse War was an armed conflict that took place in the Northwestern United States from 1847 to 1855 between the Cayuse people of the region and the United States Government and local American settlers. Caused in part by the influx of disease ...

Death and legacy

Dorin lane st louis oregon by andrew parodi lec

After Dorion Venier Toupin died on September 5, 1850, she was buried inside the original

log Log most often refers to: * Trunk (botany), the stem and main wooden axis of a tree, called logs when cut ** Logging, cutting down trees for logs ** Firewood, logs used for fuel ** Lumber or timber, converted from wood logs * Logarithm, in mathem ...

Catholic church in Saint Louis. When the church burned down in 1880 and the current church built, the location of Dorion's grave was forgotten and remains unknown to this day. It was only when the

church register A parish register in an ecclesiastical parish is a handwritten volume, normally kept in the parish church in which certain details of religious ceremonies marking major events such as baptisms (together with the dates and names of the parents), ma ...

was translated from French into English many years after the original church burned down that it was learned that Dorion had been buried there. There is no record of why she received this honor instead of being buried in the nearby cemetery, but church burial requires special dispensation and may have indicated that Dorion was especially devout. Among the places memorializing Dorion are two parks: Madame Dorion Memorial Park at the mouth of the Walla Walla River near Wallula, Washington, and Marie Dorion Park, a

Milton-Freewater, Oregon Milton-Freewater is a city in Umatilla County, Oregon, United States. The city received its current name in 1951 when the neighboring rival cities of Milton and Freewater voted to merge. The population was 7,151 at the 2020 census. It is part of ...

city park near the foothills of the Blue Mountains. The Dorion Complex residence hall at

Eastern Oregon University Eastern Oregon University (EOU) (officially designated as Oregon’s Rural University) is a public university in La Grande, Oregon. It was formerly part of the Oregon University System, since dissolved. EOU was founded in 1929 as a teacher� ...

is in La Grande. There is a plaque noting the place near North Powder where she likely gave birth. Hers is also one of the 158 names of people important to Oregon's history that are painted in the House and Senate chambers of the

Oregon State Capitol The Oregon State Capitol is the building housing the state legislature and the offices of the governor, secretary of state, and treasurer of the U.S. state of Oregon. It is located in the state capitol, Salem. Constructed from 1936 to 1938 ...

. Her name is in the Senate chamber. St. Louis, Oregon, has a street named after her, Dorion Lane. Oregon author Jane Kirkpatrick wrote the ''Tender Ties'' trilogy of

historical novel Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting related to the past events, but is fictional. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to other ty ...

s based on Dorion's life. The individual titles in the series are ''A Name of Her Own'', ''Every Fixed Star'', and ''Hold Tight the Thread''. On May 10, 2014, the

Daughters of the American Revolution The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) is a lineage-based membership service organization for women who are directly descended from a person involved in the United States' efforts towards independence. A non-profit group, they promot ...

held a service at Saint Louis Catholic Church dedicating a historical marker in Dorion's honor.

References

Works cited

* * *

External links

* *
"Marie's Descendents"
from the ''Brooks Historical Society Newsletter'' April 2011

from Oregon Pioneers {{DEFAULTSORT:Dorion, Marie 1780s births 1850 deaths 19th-century Native Americans Burials in Oregon Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Iowa tribe American Métis people People from Marion County, Oregon Year of birth uncertain