New France Research Articles

Marie Guyart de l’Incarnation (1599–1672): le singulier parcours d’une ursuline missionnaire de Tours à Québec. Par Vincent Grégoire

In this slim volume, Vincent Grégoire undertakes to tell the story of Marie de l’Incarnation, renowned seventeenth-century mystic and founder of the Ursulines in French North America, as a ‘femme forte’ who surmounted obstacles both social and religious to become ‘la première missionnaire française en Amérique du nord’ (p. 14). Organized around the theme of obstacles, Grégoire’s book advances an interpretation of Marie de l’Incarnation as an active woman, an agent determined not to shrink before challenges but to overcome them. Adversity, argues Grégoire, was Marie’s daily bread, but ‘l’obstacle a fait Marie, n’ayant pu la défaire’ (p. 23). Following an introductory chapter in which he locates Marie and the Ursulines within the context of post-Tridentine Catholicism and early modern missionary movements, Grégoire proceeds to interrogate five different sorts of obstacles that gave shape to Marie’s religious vocation, each explored in its own chapter: demonic temptation; the perilous transatlantic journey of 1639; her maternal obligations towards the son she abandoned for religious life; cultural and linguistic barriers to teaching in New France; and conflicts with her male ecclesiastical superiors. Throughout, Grégoire gives due attention to Marie’s agency, her determination in the face of challenges, her persistence in surmounting them, and her creativity in refiguring them as opportunities to suffer in imitation of Christ. Given the ways in which Marie (as Grégoire affirms in the chapter on ‘Le Fils sacrifié’) interpreted her own life as one lived in subordination to the uncompromising will of God, one does wonder whether Marie would recognize the portrait constructed here — not that it matters to the validity of Grégoire’s interpretation. Readers both new to Marie de l’Incarnation and familiar with her will find much in Grégoire’s study of interest, including a provocative analysis of Marie’s live sense of demonic presence (which is often elided in studies of this Ursuline mystic) and a thorough analysis of her conflicts with Jesuit Father Vimont and Bishop François de Laval over the rules governing the Ursulines of Quebec. Unsurprisingly, given the brevity of the study, Grégoire passes over some aspects of Marie’s biography too quickly and leaves open and unresolved some promising lines of enquiry. For instance, he tantalizingly notes (as have many before him) that, once in New France, Marie no longer experienced demonic assaults and her mystical experiences waned in intensity, while at the same time acknowledging that for Marie, and others of her time, New France was considered ‘une terre essentiellement sous l’influence du diable’ (p. 49) and the Iroquois believed to be instruments of the devil. ­Exactly how — and to what degree — Marie (and her French, Catholic counterparts in New France) assimilated Indigenous Americans to the devil is worth more analysis than Grégoire gives it here, but perhaps one of the yields of a book like this is to stimulate future research.

A Troubled Marriage: Indigenous Elites of the Colonial Americas

Intermarriage between Europeans and Natives was not an uncommon sight across the colonial Americas, as Sean F. McEnroe shows in his lively exploration of Indigenous elites within post-Conquest societies. Beyond these literal marriages, however, the broader metaphor of the troubled or unequal marriage works in this book in two central ways. On a surface level, it refers to the “marriage of cultures and continents” that the lives and families of Indigenous elite individuals came to embody and on which their position as brokers of all sorts came to depend, from Canada down to Chile (164). On a deeper level, it refers to their role in the production of the colonial order, alongside European settlers and empires eager to expand and consolidate their New World possessions. Some of the best pages in this intercontinental tale of opportunities lost and fulfilled recount the roles of Indigenous “co-conquerors” and “co-colonists” who spearheaded the advance of the colonial frontier, especially in North America (186). Successfully placing these historical subjects in a global context, McEnroe further illustrates how Native groups carved out political and economic autonomy not only by promoting imperial designs—which were in some cases partially their own—but also by pitting empires and European colonists against one another.McEnroe is a capable storyteller. A series of biographies carry this book forward with ease, covering an arc of some three hundred years. Some are devoted to well-known individuals who “marr[ied] across cultures,” such as the Powhatan Matoaka, also known as Pocahontas or Lady Rebecca (16–19). Others introduce lesser-known characters (unfamiliar even to specialists) whose lives, like that of the Native Andean Jesuit Fray Roderigo de la Cruz, are woven into the narrative using multiple archival threads (53–55, 70). The book successfully presents these privileged individuals both as unique in their circumstances and as representatives of “emerging social types,” which scholars have identified across colonial regimes in the Americas (xx). While societies of the time conceived of nobility—and by extension elite status—as inherent to certain individuals, McEnroe shows that these characters’ roles and positions depended as much on their performing as such, sometimes through carefully planned and executed intergenerational actions.Given the author’s main interest, a tilting of the narrative toward elite sectors seems inevitable, leaving less room for assessing Indigenous commoners, the dramatic impact of colonial regimes on them, and the roles Indigenous elites themselves played in that process. Admittedly, this is not what the book is about. Nonetheless, some of the strategies and motivations of the less privileged in their dealings with imperial powers—and in fact of the larger groups that incorporated them, such as the Iroquois and the Guaraní, among many others—do emerge from the study of their leaders and notable members, about whom McEnroe’s retelling has plenty to offer. While the fluid nature of the elite/commoner dichotomy during this period could have been explored further, widespread patterns for achieving, performing, and preserving elite status among the Indigenous across the continent clearly emerge from the start. Chapter 1, for instance, is devoted to elite individuals who, like the Tlaxcalan envoys sojourning at the Spanish court in the 1520s, went across the ocean to negotiate their place within the empire, setting important precedents. Subsequent chapters shed light, always with a keen eye for comparisons and relevant case studies, on other practices and spaces besides marriage and diplomacy, where colonial regimes opened multiple opportunities for Indigenous elites old and new, including art, literacy, religion, education, state formation, commerce, and military service.Perhaps the main virtue of the book is its comprehensive approach, which brings together decades of scholarship on North, Central, and South American Indigenous elites during the colonial and early national periods. By bridging these historiographies, McEnroe introduces a series of topics that, though familiar to colonial Latin Americanists, are perhaps less so for its North American, nonspecialist audience. Conversely, he shows that this now-common frame for the study of people considered “in between”—elite and nonelite—in colonial Latin America draws heavily from earlier contributions by scholars of Indigenous peoples in British, Dutch, and French North America. In that sense, A Troubled Marriage is, first and foremost, an invitation for scholars of the colonial Americas to read each other across national and hemispheric boundaries.

Bronwen McShea. Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and New France.

Bronwen McShea’s book proposes multiple reading angles. It can be regarded as an in-depth analysis of the Jesuit mission to New France—the area that France colonized in North America—the first covering its entire period from the early seventeenth century to the late eighteenth century. It also tells the story of the long relationship between the Society of Jesus and the French Crown from the time of Henry IV until Louis XV’s suppression of the society in France. McShea’s study also explores the expansion of the Bourbon-era French empire from some of its fringes (French North America, in this case), giving prominence to—according to the author—a so far scholarly neglected pre-Revolutionary French colonialism. All these possible readings find connecting threads, the main being the “apostles of empire,” that is, the Jesuit missionaries in New France, and the Jesuit series Relations des Jésuites de la Nouvelle-France, published annually in Paris from...

Brasseaux, Ryan A. French North America in the Shadow of the Conquest. New York, Routledge, 2021, 305 p.

Brasseaux, Ryan A. French North America in the Shadow of the Conquest. New York, Routledge, 2021, 305 p.. An article from journal Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française (Volume 75, Number 4, Spring 2022, pp. 1-159), on Érudit.

Investigating individual migration life histories: An isotopic case study from 17th to 18th century Nouvelle France.

This isotopic study explores the mobility patterns of a growing urban population from Notre Dame's Catholic cemetery (1691-1796), located in Montreal (Canada). The site offers a unique opportunity to investigate early colonial settlement in Nouvelle France through individual life patterns. Stable oxygen isotopic compositions (δ18O) were measured on the enamel of 32 individuals from the Notre Dame collection. Premolars and third molars were selected, as they reflected the δ18O of the drinking water during childhood (2.5-5.5 years) and pre-adulthood (9.5-15.5 years). Firstly, premolars from three children (4-8 years of age) allowed us to provide a mean δ18O for the water consumed locally (22.7 ± 1.0 ‰ vs. VSMOW). Then, our δ18O were compared with published data from various geographical regions in North America (Eastern Canada and the United States) and Europe (France and the British Isles) to highlight mobility patterns of each individual. Forty-eight percent of our sample (14 out of 29 individuals) did not reflect any long-distance mobility, as all their δ18O reflected Montreal's variation during their lifetime. The remaining (15 out of 29 individuals) experienced mobility within (n=8) and outside (n=7) North America and at different phases of their life (five at pre-adulthood, six at adulthood and four during both phases). Their migration patterns were analyzed according to age, sex, diet and possible ancestry in order to propose some "biographies." This study highlights high population diversity in early colonial Montreal. Historians wrote that the city was growing, not only with the arrival of Europeans (e.g., young male workers, sailors), but also other groups (e.g., Indigenous people, slaves from North America). Additional analyses (e.g., ancient DNA) will be needed to explore further this phenomenon.

The wild card: colonial paper money in French North America, 1685 to 1719

Abstract We use the first French experiment with playing card money in its colony of Quebec between 1685 and 1719 to illustrate the link between legal tender restrictions and the price level. Initially, the quantity of playing card money and the government’s poor fiscal condition appears to have had little effect on prices. After 1705, however, the playing card money became inflationary. We argue that this was caused by the government’s increased enforcement of the legal tender laws and the adoption of a redemption plan intended to remove the notes from circulation.

New France Beyond the Atlantic Turn

New France Beyond the Atlantic Turn

Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and New France. Bronwen McShea.

<i>Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and New France</i>. Bronwen McShea.

On ginseng and Iroquois

This study is dedicated to 2 texts written by French Jesuit father Joseph-François Lafitau (1681–1746), created in the context of his missionary stay in Nouvelle France: Mémoire concernant la précieuse plante du gin-seng de Tartarie (1718) and Mœrs des Sauvages amériquains comparées aux mœrs des premiers temps (1724). Both texts permit a multi-level analysis of material dimensions of culture and knowledge in the history of knowledge, the first dealing with a botanical subject, the second an anthropological one. They convey a meta-reflective discourse on material-specific epistemological problems that is realized through narrative textual structures. These texts enable a structural view point of systemic functions of the materiality of knowledge in historical epistemological orders. Finally, they show exemplary and significant transmedia representation techniques and the associated textualization and visualization strategies.

The Genome Sequence of the Jean-Talon Strain, an Archeological Beer Yeast from Québec, Reveals Traces of Adaptation to Specific Brewing Conditions.

The genome sequences of archeological Saccharomyces cerevisiae isolates can reveal insights about the history of human baking, brewing and winemaking activities. A yeast strain called Jean-Talon was recently isolated from the vaults of the Intendant’s Palace of Nouvelle France on a historical site in Québec City. This site was occupied by breweries from the end of the 17th century until the middle of the 20th century when poisoning caused by cobalt added to the beer led to a shutdown of brewing activities. We sequenced the genome of the Jean-Talon strain and reanalyzed the genomes of hundreds of strains to determine how it relates to other domesticated and wild strains. The Jean-Talon strain is most closely related to industrial beer strains from the beer and bakery genetic groups from the United Kingdom and Belgium. It has numerous aneuploidies and Copy Number Variants (CNVs), including the main gene conferring cobalt resistance in yeast. The Jean-Talon strain has indeed higher tolerance to cobalt compared to other yeast strains, consistent with adaptation to the most recent brewing activities on the site. We conclude from this that the Jean-Talon strain most likely derives from recent brewing activities and not from the original breweries of Nouvelle France on the site.

Militaristic Visions of New France in the French Atlantic World, 1663–1763

In this historiographical article, Gregory Kennedy discusses the evolution of the military history of New France within the transatlantic perspective, in particular, concerning the Seven Years’ War. Bringing together the magisterial work of Louise Dechêne, which is dedicated to war and society in New France, with new contributions from American historians working in the field, Kennedy demonstrates that the Atlantic turn has opened new avenues of inquiry with regard to agency and military service. He situates these developments in larger debates about the nature of New France society, including reference to particular militaristic visions emanating from Versailles as well as local conditions in Acadie. Historical actors (metropolitan, colonial, and Indigenous) interpreted military objectives, victories, and setbacks in different ways. Culture and sociability emerged as key themes for the effective integration of regular, militia, and allied forces. Events in New France – in particular, the large-scale mobilization of the habitant militia – ultimately influenced Enlightenment thinking about military reform and patriotism in France. They also shaped the administration of a new British North America.

Bronwen McShea. Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and New France

Bronwen McShea. <i>Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and New France</i>

Statut social et prestige aux marges de l’Empire: Lamothe Cadillac et le Détroit du lac Érié

Abstract Detroit founder Antoine Laumet de Lamothe Cadillac is a controversial figure in the history of New France. The historiography has primarily focused on his attempts to gain wealth in the Great Lakes region by any means necessary, including illicit trade with Indigenous people. At times the literature mentions in passing that he also sought to obtain a marquisate at Detroit. However, this topic has not been fully researched. This paper argues that Cadillac aspired to use the Great Lakes region as a place where he would try to improve his social status within France’s society. More than profit, Cadillac wanted to improve his social status, for himself but also for his descendants. In both Ancien Régime France and New France money could make one’s life more comfortable. But prestige could only be achieved by owning a fief, preferably a titled fief like a marquisate.

Apostles of Empire. The Jesuits and New France, by Bronwen McShea

Apostles of Empire. The Jesuits and New France, by Bronwen McShea

« Pour instruire leurs filles » : du dépaysement au renouveau dans les écrits de Marie de l’Incarnation

Cet article s’intéresse aux œuvres de Marie Guyart, dite de l’Incarnation, fondatrice des Ursulines à Québec, arrivée en Nouvelle France en 1639 et figure incontournable de l’Amérique française. Portée par la vocation pédagogique et apostolique de la Contre-Réforme, ses écrits témoignent d'une difficile conciliation : entre un désir (devoir) de christianiser, se confondant avec une nécessité « d’instruire », c’est-à-dire d’éduquer, de changer l’autre, et la rencontre de ceux ou celles que la différence (spirituelle, morale, sociale) ne rend pas moins dignes d’amour. En m’appuyant sur la Relation de 1654 et sur sa correspondance, j’aimerais analyser la façon dont l’écriture de l’Ursuline nomme et construit cette difficulté, mais la façon aussi dont cette difficulté inquiète autant qu’elle informe l’épreuve du discours. Un tel exercice de lecture, qui fait place aux imaginaires et aux récits dans lesquels Marie de l’Incarnation a puisé ses représentations du « Sauvage », permettra peut-être de réfléchir à la façon dont on peut aborder ce corpus, si bouleversant à bien des égards, sans faire silence sur les malaises que suscitent la description de ces « pauvres gens » dont il faudrait instruire les filles.

Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and New France by Bronwen Mcshea

Reviewed by: Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and New France by Bronwen Mcshea Christopher M. Parsons Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and New France. By Bronwen McShea. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2019. 360 pp. ISBN 978-1-4962-0890-3. $60.00 (hardcover). In Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and New France, Bronwen McShea has written a must read for scholars of early America and the early modern Atlantic world. Bringing wide reading in early modern French political and social history to the history of the Society of Jesus' missions to colonial French North America, McShea provides a necessary Atlantic perspective to what are often framed as American histories. When McShea explains in her introduction that "The Jesuits of New France, in short, were men planted knee-deep in an untidy world of politics, social pressures, and war" (p. xxvii), she succinctly announces the major thematic interests of Apostles of Empire. Indeed, as the book proceeds through chronological narrative of the Society of Jesus' mission to French North America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, individual chapters highlight moments in the mission's history where the Jesuits' attention to the social and political contexts of metropolitan France directly shaped their missionary practice in the New World. In an early chapter "Rescuing the 'Poor Miserable Savage'," for example, McShea skillfully traces out the particularly French valences of the Jesuits' conception of poverty. Only [End Page 809] by understanding how Jesuits identified "a lack of infrastructure compared to urban France" can we make sense of their deep interest in native foods and housing (p. 37). Similarly, a later chapter "Crusading for Iroquois Country" reveals how scholarly focus on Jesuit celebration of suffering has overlooked "the missionaries' primarily positive—sometimes theologically validated—posture towards offensive, not only defensive, war again those seen as enemies of French expansion and Catholicism in America." (p. 130) The focus of the book weighs towards the seventeenth century, but by including a wide range of other printed and archival materials produced by the missionaries in the eighteenth century, McShea's work is able to provide a broader temporal overview than is often the case in histories of the Jesuit missions to North America. McShea writes commandingly and beautifully and it is this focus on a readable and engaging chronological narrative that makes Apostles of Empire such a success. As somebody who spent many of their Sundays as a child at a church named Canadian Martyrs staring at stained-glass depictions of Brébeuf and Jogues, I knew precisely what she meant when she states in her introduction that "the Jesuits of New France remain trapped in iconic tableaux." (p. xx) Since those days, I have read a lot of histories of New France and these missionaries in particular, and they have never come to life for me in the way that they do here. Paul Le Jeune, in particular, jumps from the page with personality and a social history that makes so much of what he accomplished as a missionary understandable. Apostles of Empire, and particularly its earliest chapters, would make a supremely teachable book and has real crossover appeal for a broader body of readers among an interested public. Nonetheless, this commitment to a readable narrative will limit its contributions to scholars of this period. Aside from a historiographical introduction and occasionally vague gestures to a academic debate throughout the text, readers will struggle to understand Apostles of Empire's historiographical context. Some of this likely results from McShea's summaries of existing literature that simplify complex fields and do little to highlight the unique contributions of her work. The claim that discussions of French Jesuits in North America manifest a "perduring Americentrism" (p. xxii) is not entirely wrong, but overlooks and undervalues the work of scholars such as Allan Greer and Dominique Deslandres—among others—who have made good faith efforts to write Atlantic histories of Jesuit thought and practice. If the author has legitimate critiques, she should state them clearly, but to simply deny their existence does her work and its readers a disservice. Now, not every book needs to have historiographical discussions in the [End Page 810] body of its text, but McShea...

More Than Just a Missionary: The Jesuits, the Wyandot, and Colonial Crises in French Detroit, 1728-1751

The Michigan Historical Review 46:1 (Spring 2020): 1-28©2020 Central Michigan University. ISSN 0890-1686 All Rights Reserved More Than Just a Missionary: The Jesuits, the Wyandot, and Colonial Crises in French Detroit, 1728-1751 By Eric Toups Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit was perhaps the most important French outpost in the pays d’en haut from its establishment in 1701 to the British conquest of New France in 1763. The fort acted as a preeminent staging ground for the western fur trade and an important site for EuroNative alliances and negotiations far beyond immediate oversight by colonial officials at Quebec or Montreal. Hundreds of Odawa, Ojibwa, Potawatomi, and Wyandot settled along the banks of the Detroit River between Lakes Superior and Erie, near to the fort and the resident French habitants, soldiers, and missionaries. Maintaining indigenous support for, and attachment to, the French required constant diplomacy and an uninterrupted flow of gifts and supplies to grease the wheels of crosscultural alliance. Many of the alliance’s most serious crises, most notably a 1747 plan organized by Wyandot dissidents led by Nicholas Orontony to destroy the fort and expel the French, erupted from the important Native and French joint settlement. Key to Detroit’s operation as a critical nexus of diplomacy and cooperation was the presence of several Jesuit priests, most importantly Armand de la Richardie. These Jesuits played significant roles in the wideranging relationships and events that arose in the interior in the second quarter of the eighteenth century.1 Histories of the Jesuits as pivotal agents of empire are numerous and comprehensive for mid-seventeenth1 For an overview of seventeenth-century Jesuits and their actions among the Huron/Wendat, see Bruce G. Trigger, Natives and Newcomers: Canada’s “Heroic Age” Reconsidered (Montreal and Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1985), especially 226-297. For the importance of Jesuits to alliance in the seventeenth century, see Denys Delâge, Bitter Feast: Amerindians and Europeans in Northeastern North America, 1600-64, trans. Jane Brierly (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1993), 166168 . See also Kathryn Magee Labelle, Dispersed but Not Destroyed: A History of the SeventeenthCentury Wendat People (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2013), 101-102. 2 The Michigan Historical Review century New France, but relatively unexplored beyond the temporal and geographic scope of Quebec’s “heroic age.” The nature and extent of French North America changed enormously during the eighteenth century, and Jesuit actions and goals changed with it. As French military and commercial endeavors pushed into the pays d’en haut, the colonial project changed dramatically in a geographic, cultural, and political landscape far removed from the St. Lawrence River. The French increasingly committed to their role as mediators in alliances with and among the disparate sovereign tribes of the western Great Lakes. Historians examining the eighteenth-century pays d’en haut acknowledge the Jesuit presence, of course, but the Black Robes’ significance and dayto -day operations as ambassadors has not been closely analyzed. Exceptional studies have typically focused on military officials, secular diplomats, French fur traders, indigenous women, and tribal headmen while neglecting the ever-present missionaries. Jesuits adapted to political realities far removed from the St. Lawrence River as they pushed into the west. The unchallenged Jesuits of the early seventeenth century could monopolize French interactions with the Iroquois and Wendat tribes, but the presence in the eighteenth century of rivals like French military officers and an imperial program that often conflicted with the Jesuits’ priorities changed their interactions with French colonial authorities and sovereign tribes. The Black Robes’ missionary goals frequently interlocked with and often contradicted French imperial and colonial goals (themselves often at variance with one another). Jesuit engagement with indigenous groups and individuals was most important at the intersection of disjointed colonial projects.2 The Jesuits are in no danger of being forgotten or neglected in present-day historical narratives. However, historians of eighteenthcentury New France, Native history, and French colonialism elsewhere tend to narrowly assess the Jesuits as cultural arbiters due to their objections to indigenous practices and attempts to impose their moral vision onto the colonial and indigenous communities.3 The bulk of the 2 Richard White...

More Than Just a Missionary: The Jesuits, the Wyandot, and Colonial Crises in French Detroit, 1728-1751

The Michigan Historical Review 46:1 (Spring 2020): 1-28©2020 Central Michigan University. ISSN 0890-1686 All Rights Reserved More Than Just a Missionary: The Jesuits, the Wyandot, and Colonial Crises in French Detroit, 1728-1751 By Eric Toups Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit was perhaps the most important French outpost in the pays d’en haut from its establishment in 1701 to the British conquest of New France in 1763. The fort acted as a preeminent staging ground for the western fur trade and an important site for EuroNative alliances and negotiations far beyond immediate oversight by colonial officials at Quebec or Montreal. Hundreds of Odawa, Ojibwa, Potawatomi, and Wyandot settled along the banks of the Detroit River between Lakes Superior and Erie, near to the fort and the resident French habitants, soldiers, and missionaries. Maintaining indigenous support for, and attachment to, the French required constant diplomacy and an uninterrupted flow of gifts and supplies to grease the wheels of crosscultural alliance. Many of the alliance’s most serious crises, most notably a 1747 plan organized by Wyandot dissidents led by Nicholas Orontony to destroy the fort and expel the French, erupted from the important Native and French joint settlement. Key to Detroit’s operation as a critical nexus of diplomacy and cooperation was the presence of several Jesuit priests, most importantly Armand de la Richardie. These Jesuits played significant roles in the wideranging relationships and events that arose in the interior in the second quarter of the eighteenth century.1 Histories of the Jesuits as pivotal agents of empire are numerous and comprehensive for mid-seventeenth1 For an overview of seventeenth-century Jesuits and their actions among the Huron/Wendat, see Bruce G. Trigger, Natives and Newcomers: Canada’s “Heroic Age” Reconsidered (Montreal and Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1985), especially 226-297. For the importance of Jesuits to alliance in the seventeenth century, see Denys Delâge, Bitter Feast: Amerindians and Europeans in Northeastern North America, 1600-64, trans. Jane Brierly (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1993), 166168 . See also Kathryn Magee Labelle, Dispersed but Not Destroyed: A History of the SeventeenthCentury Wendat People (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2013), 101-102. 2 The Michigan Historical Review century New France, but relatively unexplored beyond the temporal and geographic scope of Quebec’s “heroic age.” The nature and extent of French North America changed enormously during the eighteenth century, and Jesuit actions and goals changed with it. As French military and commercial endeavors pushed into the pays d’en haut, the colonial project changed dramatically in a geographic, cultural, and political landscape far removed from the St. Lawrence River. The French increasingly committed to their role as mediators in alliances with and among the disparate sovereign tribes of the western Great Lakes. Historians examining the eighteenth-century pays d’en haut acknowledge the Jesuit presence, of course, but the Black Robes’ significance and dayto -day operations as ambassadors has not been closely analyzed. Exceptional studies have typically focused on military officials, secular diplomats, French fur traders, indigenous women, and tribal headmen while neglecting the ever-present missionaries. Jesuits adapted to political realities far removed from the St. Lawrence River as they pushed into the west. The unchallenged Jesuits of the early seventeenth century could monopolize French interactions with the Iroquois and Wendat tribes, but the presence in the eighteenth century of rivals like French military officers and an imperial program that often conflicted with the Jesuits’ priorities changed their interactions with French colonial authorities and sovereign tribes. The Black Robes’ missionary goals frequently interlocked with and often contradicted French imperial and colonial goals (themselves often at variance with one another). Jesuit engagement with indigenous groups and individuals was most important at the intersection of disjointed colonial projects.2 The Jesuits are in no danger of being forgotten or neglected in present-day historical narratives. However, historians of eighteenthcentury New France, Native history, and French colonialism elsewhere tend to narrowly assess the Jesuits as cultural arbiters due to their objections to indigenous practices and attempts to impose their moral vision onto the colonial and indigenous communities.3 The bulk of the 2 Richard White...

New France and the Hudson Bay Watershed: Transatlantic Networks, Backcountry Specialists, and French Imperial Projects in Post-Utrecht North America, 1713–29

Examining communication and information networks during the period of the Régence (1715–23), this article argues that French metropolitan ministers, imperial planners, colonial administrators, and royal cartographers relied heavily upon backcountry specialists – coureurs de bois, runaway soldiers, and veteran voyageurs – to provide ethnographic, geographic, and strategic knowledge, which informed and shaped the policies of post-Utrecht French North America. Subsequently, colonial officials believed that these French frontier diplomats and negotiators were the key to consolidating imperial control over the geographic, political, and cultural landscapes of the Hudson Bay watershed. These backcountry specialists were embedded within Indigenous information networks that criss-crossed North America and were thus important intermediaries between the French state and Indigenous peoples at the edge of empire. Although coureurs de bois and voyageurs became pivotal informants, explorers, fur traders, and military leaders, they not only were unwavering agents of imperial power but also pursued their own agendas and exercised agency in the Hudson Bay watershed. Backcountry specialists initially made it possible for French colonialism to extend into the watershed, but their own ambivalent relationships with the French colonial government and its representatives also fragmented the imperial authority of the French Empire in North America.

Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and New France, written by Bronwen McShea

Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and New France, written by Bronwen McShea