Bonds of Alliance: Indigenous and Atlantic Slaveries in New France

423 Pages·2012·4.26 MB·English

by  Brett Rushforth

Bonds of Alliance
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Bonds of
Alliance
Indigenous and Atlantic Slaveries in New France
BRETT RUSHFORTH
Published for the
Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture,
Williamsburg, Virginia, by the
University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill
The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture is sponsored
jointly by the College of William and Mary and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
On November 15, 1996, the Institute adopted the present name in honor of
a bequest from Malvern H. Omohundro, Jr.
© 2012 The University of North Carolina Press
All rights reserved
Designed by Kimberly Bryant and set in Miller by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rushforth, Brett.
Bonds of alliance : indigenous and Atlantic slaveries in New France / Brett Rushforth.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8078-3558-6 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Slavery—New France—History. 2. Slave trade—New France—History. 3. Indian slaves—
New France—History. 4. Indians, Treatment of—New France—History. 5. Indians of
North America—History—Colonial period, ca. 1600–1775. 6. Canada—History—To 1763
(New France) I. Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture. II. Title.
HT1051.R87 2012
306.3′6209710162—dc23
2011050215
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the
Committee on Production Guidelines of the Council on Library Resources. The University
of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003.
16 15 14 13 12(cid:25)5 4 3 2 1
for Rebecca
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is a pleasure to acknowledge the many people whose time, insight, and
support made this book more than I could have made it on my own. But I
do so with some apprehension, knowing that my debts are too numerous to
name and that no acknowledgment is equal to any of the obligations I have
accumulated.
This book began more than a decade ago as a doctoral dissertation under
the direction of Alan Taylor at the University of California, Davis. Obviously
a model scholar, Alan was also the ideal mentor, balancing his pointed in-
terpretive critiques with frequent encouragement. I have no idea where he
finds the time and energy, but his deep intellectual engagement and unfail-
ing support have made all the difference. Also at Davis, Clarence Walker
shared his vast knowledge of the literature on comparative slavery and his
unlimited capacity for interesting conversation over lunches at “the club.”
Steve Deyle’s seminars were models of form and execution. His seminar on
antebellum U.S. slavery offered my first introduction to many of the themes
I explore in this book. Chuck Walker and Arnie Bauer introduced me to the
history of Latin America and encouraged me to pursue comparative colo-
nialism. Sally McKee helped me to think more carefully about late medieval
and early modern French slavery. Among my fellow students at Davis, I’d
like especially to thank Kyle Bulthuis, Robert Chester, Jeff Davis, Kim Davis,
Kathleen DuVal, Steve Fountain, Scott Miltenberger, and Andy Young. Ken
Miller deserves special mention. He patiently listened as I worked through
every idea in this book, offering brilliant suggestions and sharp critiques. In
this and many other ways, his friendship has been invaluable.
Beyond Davis, James Brooks generously agreed to be on my disserta-
tion committee. His feedback was highly valuable, perhaps especially when
our disagreements forced me to rethink facile conclusions. Kate Desbarats
also graciously joined my committee, becoming a mentor on all things
French Canadian. In addition to lending her unparalleled knowledge of
New France, she invited me to McGill to teach and introduced me to a re-
markable group of early Canadian historians: Pierre Boulle, Sylvie Dépatie,
Tom Wien, Dominique Deslandres, Peter Cook, Denys Delâge, Laurier Tur-
geon, François Furstenberg, Léon Robichaud, and many others. I thank all
vii
of them for engaging my work and welcoming me into their intellectual
community.
Having two years as a National Endowment for the Humanities post-
doctoral fellow at the Omohundro Institute of Early American History
and Culture was essential to the development of this book. The Institute
is a scholar’s paradise. I thank the indefatigable Ron Hoffman for creating
such a rich intellectual life at the Institute, and Sally Mason and Beverly
Smith for keeping it all going. For daily conversations and careful readings
of my manuscript-in-progress, I thank my fellow fellows Wendy Bellion and
Patrick Erben. Chris Grasso’s comments—first on two William and Mary
Quarterly articles, then as he read the whole manuscript near the end—
were more helpful and influential than he knows. Fredrika J. Teute has been
an amazing editor: smart and uncompromising but always willing to hear
my voice rather than project her own. Gil Kelly provided copy editing that
was, somehow, as insightful as it was careful. (After eight short years, L’af-
faire du “gauntlet” is officially forgotten.) Reading the entire manuscript
at various stages for the Institute, Allan Greer, Greg Dowd, and Laurent
Dubois offered learned and perceptive suggestions, allowing me to see
things I had missed and saving me from many errors.
William and Mary has been a wonderful place to work on early modern
North American and Atlantic history, both as a fellow and since my return in
2008. I thank all of my excellent colleagues, particularly Paul Mapp, Karin
Wulf, Kris Lane, and Andy Fisher, all of whom read portions of the manu-
script in its later stages. I’m also grateful to colleagues in Anthropology,
especially Katie Bragdon and Martin Gallivan, who offered helpful feed-
back on Chapter 1, and Richard Price who had good suggestions on Marti-
nique. I thank my former colleagues Rebecca DeSchweinitz, Spencer Fluh-
man, Chris Hodson, Andy Johns, Matt Mason, Jenny Pulsipher, and Neil
York, as much for their friendship as for reading drafts of several chapters
in our writing group. Andy applied just the right amount of pressure when
my writing stalled, not least by beating me to the finish line. Chris read the
whole manuscript as it neared completion, offering important feedback and
encouragement. It has been my great good fortune to work with him on our
coauthored book-in-progress, a massive undertaking that would be impos-
sible to imagine without his intelligence, energy, and humor.
I thank Eric Hinderaker, a generous colleague and friend who took the
time as he was finishing his own book to comment on my manuscript. Sue
Peabody also helped a great deal, especially with her detailed suggestions
on Chapter 2. Mike McDonnell helped me to trace the complicated lines of
viii Acknowledgments
genealogy for several Detroit and Michilimackinac families and provided
helpful feedback on Ottawa and métis connections across these commu-
nities. Alan Gallay and Susan Sleeper-Smith also provided valuable feed-
back on several of my articles and conference papers exploring the themes
in this book. Bryan Moll provided critical research assistance on some of
the Sioux material. I am also grateful to the linguists David Costa, Michael
McCafferty, Daryl Baldwin, and Carl Masthay for generous and perceptive
feedback as I worked through the Algonquian language material in Chap-
ter 1 and Appendix A. They have shared their passion for the Miami-Illinois
language, offered alternate translations and glosses, pointed to additional
words and phrases, and clarified many points of grammar, but all linguis-
tic and interpretive errors remain my own. I also appreciate Linda Baum-
garten and Emily Williams for their help with the Native slave halter held
by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
My work has benefited from the thoughtful engagement of participants
at many conferences and seminars, especially the Champlain–Saint Law-
rence Seminar in Early American Studies, the William and Mary Quar-
terly(cid:30)/(cid:30)USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute workshop, the
Omohundro Institute’s colloquium, Princeton’s Colonial and Imperial His-
tories Colloquium, the McNeil Center’s Summer Seminar, and the Triangle
Early American History Seminar at the National Humanities Center. Por-
tions of Chapters 1, 3, and 4 appeared previously in the William and Mary
Quarterly. A portion of Chapter 6 appears in Adam Arenson, Barbara Berg-
lund, and Jay Gitlin, eds., Frontier Cities: Encounters at the Crossroads of
Empire (Philadelphia, 2012).
Conducting research in archives across Canada, France, the United
States, and the Caribbean would have been impossible without finan-
cial support from many institutions. I am grateful for the support of the
National Endowment for the Humanities, the Omohundro Institute, the
American Philosophical Society, BYU’s Kennedy Center and FHSS research
funds, William and Mary’s College of Arts and Sciences and Lyon Gardiner
Tyler endowment, and Phi Beta Kappa’s Northern California Association.
No one has given more than my family. My parents, Craig and Martha
Rushforth, inspired me with a love of books from a very young age. Across
decades, they have provided much-needed moral and material support
as well as genuine friendship. My wonderful daughters—Kaelyn, Amy,
Breanna, and Emily—gave purpose to my work and strengthened my hope
in humanity, which occasionally faltered under the weight of my subject.
My largest debt is to my best friend and partner, Rebecca Sorensen Rush-
Acknowledgments ix