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.
