1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910822726303321

Autore

White Sophie

Titolo

Wild Frenchmen and Frenchified Indians [[electronic resource] ] : material culture and race in colonial Louisiana / / Sophie White

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Philadelphia : , : University of Pennsylvania Press, , [2012]

ISBN

0-8122-0717-3

Edizione

[First edition]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource

Collana

Early American studies

Disciplina

976.3/02

Soggetti

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

French - Louisiana - History - 18th century

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

Material culture - Louisiana - History - 18th century

Race awareness - Louisiana - History - 18th century

Louisiana Race relations History 18th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Introduction -- Part I. Frenchification in the Illinois Country -- Introduction -- 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 -- Introduction -- 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

Sommario/riassunto

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.