"[6] Her management of her family's economic affairs was characterized as adroit[3] and by the end of the 18th century, she had become a prominent fur trader in the region.
[4] Netnokwa led a band at L'Arbre Croche (Ojibwe: Waganagisi)[7] and attended a council at Mackinac where tribal representatives met with British agents.
[6] She was able to barter for Tanner, travelling to meet Manitoogeshik, and bringing with her many valuables, including tobacco, blankets, and a 10-gallon keg of whiskey.
Netnokwa nurtured the boy, instructing him in the ways of Ojibwa culture and teaching him how to survive in the northern woods as well as ritual and ethical traditions.
[6][8] In Tanner's narrative, Netnokwa is referred to either as his mother or "the old woman", which is likely an English translation of the Ojibwe term of respect mindimooyenh.
[4] After arriving in the Red River region (then part of the Red River Colony, now Manitoba), French-Canadian fur trader Charles Chaboillez recorded exchanging gifts with and giving credit to one "Old Courte Oreille & Two Sons", possibly a reference to Netnokwa, Tanner, and Tanner's adoptive brother.
Anthropologist Laura Peers wrote that "while Netnokwa was an exceptionally strong and charismatic woman who actually led a band, with a great deal of spiritual power backing her assertiveness and leadership, her influence was presumably neither unprecedented nor unparalleled.
"[5][4] When Netnokwa was displeased with the unwillingness to hunt and laziness of Wawbebenaisa, the husband of her niece, she threw him out of her tent, essentially divorcing him from his wife.
Drawing on Tanner's narrative, Netnokwa was fictionalized as a character in the 1836 novel Elkswatawa by James Strange French and the 1844 play Tecumseh and the Prophet of the West by George Jones.