Wild Frenchmen and Frenchified Indians : material culture and race in colonial Louisiana / Sophie White.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

White, Sophie.

Series:

Early American studies.

Early American studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Clothing and dress--Social aspects--Louisiana--History--18th century.

Clothing and dress.

French--Louisiana--History--18th century.

French.

Indians of North America--Louisiana--History--18th century.

Indians of North America.

Material culture--Louisiana--History--18th century.

Material culture.

Race awareness--Louisiana--History--18th century.

Race awareness.

Louisiana--Race relations--History--18th century.

Louisiana.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

First edition

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2012]

Summary:

Based on a sweeping range of archival, visual, and material evidence, Wild Frenchmen and Frenchified Indians examines perceptions of Indians in French colonial Louisiana and demonstrates that material culture-especially dress-was central to the elaboration of discourses about race. At the heart of France's seventeenth-century plans for colonizing New France was a formal policy-Frenchification. Intended to turn Indians into Catholic subjects of the king, it also carried with it the belief that Indians could become French through religion, language, and culture. This fluid and mutable conception of identity carried a risk: while Indians had the potential to become French, the French could themselves be transformed into Indians. French officials had effectively admitted defeat of their policy by the time Louisiana became a province of New France in 1682. But it was here, in Upper Louisiana, that proponents of French-Indian intermarriage finally claimed some success with Frenchification. For supporters, proof of the policy's success lay in the appearance and material possessions of Indian wives and daughters of Frenchmen. Through a sophisticated interdisciplinary approach to the material sources, Wild Frenchmen and Frenchified Indians offers a distinctive and original reading of the contours and chronology of racialization in early America. While focused on Louisiana, the methodological model offered in this innovative book shows that dress can take center stage in the investigation of colonial societies-for the process of colonization was built on encounters mediated by appearance.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Illustrations

Introduction

Part I. Frenchification in the Illinois Country

Chapter 1. “Their Manner of Living”

Chapter 2. “Nothing of the Sauvage”

Chapter 3 “One People and One God”

Part II. Frenchified Indians and Wild Frenchmen in New Orleans

Chapter 4. “The First Creole from This Colony That We Have Received”: Sister Ste. Marthe and the Limits of Frenchification

Chapter 5. “To Ensure That He Not Give Himself Over to the Sauvages”: Cleanliness, Grease, and Skin Color

Chapter 6. “We Are All Sauvages”: Frenchmen into Indians?

Epilogue: “True French”

Abbreviations

Notes

Bibliography

INDEX

Acknowledgments

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780812207170

0812207173

OCLC:

859162323