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Book Cover
E-book
Author White, Sophie

Title Wild Frenchmen and Frenchified Indians : material culture and race in colonial Louisiana / Sophie White
Edition 1st ed
Published Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, ©2012

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Description 1 online resource (384 pages)
Series Early American studies
Early American studies.
Contents 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
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
Analysis American History
American Studies
Caribbean Studies
Latin American Studies
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (p. [282]-317) and index
Notes English
Print version record
Subject Clothing and dress -- Social aspects -- Louisiana -- History -- 18th century
Material culture -- Louisiana -- History -- 18th century
Race awareness -- Louisiana -- History -- 18th century
Indians of North America -- Louisiana -- History -- 18th century
French -- Louisiana -- History -- 18th century
Clothing and dress -- Social aspects
French
Indians of North America
Material culture
Race awareness
Race relations
SUBJECT Louisiana -- Race relations -- History -- 18th century
Subject Louisiana
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2012014401
ISBN 9780812207170
0812207173