History Book Club
Wednesday,
November 30, 2016
Colonization in
America
Life
in Plimoth Plantation, 1627
Wednesday, November
30, 2016: Colonization in America. Jamestown, Plymouth, Gloucester, St. Augustine, Junipero
Serra, Roger Williams, Quebec, Nieuw Amsterdam, more.
White, Sophie, Wild
Frenchmen and Frenchified Indians:
Material Culture and Race in Colonial Louisiana; Philadelphia,
PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013. 360 pp.
Voyageurs
at dawn, Upper Mississippi
The
author of Wild Frenchmen, Sophie White of Notre Dame University, takes a
unique approach to describing the French colonization of America. She did a great deal of research in how
Indians and French women and men dressed in settlements in Upper Louisiana, the
land of the Illinois, and Lower Louisiana, the Mississippi River territories
south to New Orleans.
She
also tells the story of race, as Frenchmen picked brides from the local Indian
tribes, and African slaves had children by Frenchmen and by Indians, and, by
the way they dressed, affected the perception of these mixed-breed new
Americans.
If
people are not able to leave a written record, history is often lost. Sophie White’s method of examining whatever
was available from the early days of French voyageurs discovering new lands,
meeting Indians, learning to trade with them, and eventually marrying their
women. In addition to written records,
there were bits of fabric or a deerskin moccasin, shards of pottery, and early
photographs of French and Indian people, their cabins, tents, cooking
equipment, blankets, weapons. All of
this helps to produce a multi-dimensional picture of life in these times and
places.
For
many Americans, “colonization” in our early history means Pilgrims and Plymouth
Colony, and Jamestown. However, the
story of how the French colonized America is also important. The French arrived early (the 16th
century) in what is now New England and eastern Canada, with fishermen and fur
trappers. In the 17th century the Habitants arrived, and families
began to put down roots. French Roman Catholic missionaries were among the
first to arrive, and they did a marvelous job of converting whole tribes of
Indians to Christianity.
The
Catholic missionaries taught Indians French agricultural techniques, introduced
Indians to the plow, showed them how to raise pigs, chickens and keep cattle. Indians
learned to cultivate wheat and the missionaries built flour mills, helping to
build a thriving agriculture. They
shipped the flour down river to New Orleans and environs, where the
semi-tropical climate prevented growing wheat.
If
you look at a map of North America you see how the French put their brand on
the country, from Quebec, down through the Great Lakes, down the Mississippi,
and along the rivers that fed it. You
see St. Louis, MO and Louisville, KY named for the King, Des Moines, IA, named
after “River of the Monks”, Fond du Lac, WI, Montpelier, VT, Boise, ID, Terre
Haute, IN. Illinois is named after the French name for the Illini tribe, and
they also named the Sioux, the Nez Perce, Pied Noir, Algonquin, and more. French Colonization extended all the way down
the Mississippi to Nouvelle Orleans, or New Orleans, which also was strongly
connected to French colonies in the Caribbean.
French
law in 17th and 18th century America encouraged Frenchmen
to marry Indian women, and with Catholic missionaries along on the trip,
convert them to Christianity. Part of
this process was “Frenchification”, which included dressing the newly married
Indian wives in French clothing.
Much
of Sophie White’s story centers on the records of the Ursuline nuns in their
convent in New Orleans, which was in Lower Louisiana, as it was called in the
17th and 18th centuries. It’s interesting to see how New
Orleans became a meeting place for the Canadian French and Indian tribes in
Upper Louisiana, and French Colonials and Africans both free and slave, coming
from Haiti, French Guiana and elsewhere.
Missionaries
in Upper Louisiana, in the land of the Illinois, sent prospects to become nuns
down the Mississippi to the nearest convent, in New Orleans. White spends a great deal of time writing
about the convent, and the life of the nuns, particularly since some Indian
women joined the order.
The
French were particularly astute at concentrating education on girls,
recognizing that by teaching girls French, writing, and childrearing and
housekeeping skills, they were preparing the next generation of loyal,
well-adjusted French citizens. In the
colonies, Indian girls, who elected to leave the tribe and become “Frenchified”
would be washed to remove the coating of grease that Indians wore, then given
French clothing to wear. After that,
they were treated the same. Indian girls
were even given a cow as dowry to encourage Frenchmen to marry them.
Kickapoo
woman, Ahteewatomee
Marie
Rouensa was the daughter of a powerful Illini chief of the Illinois
Confederation. She was a faithful convert to Catholicism. The chief offered
Marie in marriage to a Frenchman in order to cement an alliance. Marie
objected, declaring that she wished to
give herself to God. She obeyed her father, however, and married, bearing two
sons. When her husband died, she married another Frenchman, and bore another
six children. After the second husband
died, she became a nun. By then she had
acquired significant wealth in the town of Kahokia, on the banks of the
Mississippi. Kahokia was an ancient home of the Illinois tribes, at one time
had a population of over 7,000. The
French built their homes apart from the Indian camp. Today the population of Kahokia numbers 14.
Marie
provided an excellent example of the adaptability of Illinois women to the
French life and ways. Her life as documented by French priests to give us a
glimpse into life in a French colonial village in Illinois territory, and how
French and Illinois cultures intermingled.
Sophie
White gave me a much greater appreciation for the many ways that the French put
their unique brand on Les Etats-Unis.
HISTORY BOOK CLUB TOPICS FOR 2017
Wednesday,
January 18 (vice 25), 2017: History of Cape Ann. Read
about the history of Gloucester, or Rockport, or about how Gloucester became
famous as a fishing port, or how Rockport gained fame with granite quarrying.
Read about Cape Ann as an art colony. Read about the Revolutionary War and
privateers off Cape Ann, or the Royal Navy attacking in the War of 1812. Read about
how the Sicilian, Portuguese, and Scandinavian immigrants joined the original
English settlers here.
Wednesday,
March 29, 2017: What made America powerful? Was it our
geography, size, natural resources, protection of two oceans, our choice of
immigrants, our leaders? [Suggested by Janos
Posfai]
Wednesday,
April 26, 2017: History of Class in America
We’ve often bragged that Americans started out
resisting the class structure, but our Founding Fathers included men like
Thomas Jefferson, owners of much land and slaves. At the same time, indentured
servants arrived in young America, to fill the bottom rungs of society. [Suggested
by Sam Coulbourn]
Wednesday,
May 31, 2017: Famines in the World [Suggested by Linda
Burkell and Walt Frederick]
Wednesday,
June 28, 2017: History of English/British Colonialism It
started in the latter part of the 15th Century with plantations in
Ireland. Read how the United Kingdom grew to become the greatest Empire in the history
of the world. If you wish, home in on
British slave trade, and how the U.K. colonized the New World, bringing slaves
to grow sugar and cotton. Then Napoleonic Wars and Britain’s seizure of French
Colonies. America and Canada.
Colonization of Asia in Hong Kong, Malaya, Australia, New Zealand,
India, Burma. Africa, and more for you to discover. [Suggested by Richard
Heuser]
Wednesday,
July 26, 2017:
Treasure Hunts in History. This
is your opportunity to find a treasure and discover the hunt for it, whether it
is the quest for gold in California, diamonds in Africa, the hunt for the
pharaohs buried in the pyramids, the hunt to discover a cure for polio or
yellow fever, the terracotta army buried with Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor
of China, the search for the source of the Nile, the discovery of Neanderthal
man… This topic is for you to imagine!
[Suggested by Walt Frederick].
