Bonds of Alliance: Indigenous and Atlantic Slaveries in New France

by Brett Rushforth

Overview

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, French colonists and their Native allies participated in a slave trade that spanned half of North America, carrying thousands of Native Americans into bondage in the Great Lakes, Canada, and the Caribbean. In Bonds of Alliance, Brett Rushforth reveals the dynamics of this system from its origins to the end of French colonial rule. Balancing a vast geographic and chronological scope with careful attention to the lives of enslaved individuals, this book gives voice to those who lived through the ordeal of slavery and, along the way, shaped French and Native societies.

Rather than telling a simple story of colonial domination and Native victimization, Rushforth argues that Indian slavery in New France emerged at the nexus of two very different forms of slavery: one indigenous to North America and the other rooted in the Atlantic world. The alliances that bound French and Natives together forced a century-long negotiation over the nature of slavery and its place in early American society. Neither fully Indian nor entirely French, slavery in New France drew upon and transformed indigenous and Atlantic cultures in complex and surprising ways.

Based on thousands of French and Algonquian-language manuscripts archived in Canada, France, the United States and the Caribbean, Bonds of Alliance bridges the divide between continental and Atlantic approaches to early American history. By discovering unexpected connections between distant peoples and places, Rushforth sheds new light on a wide range of subjects, including intercultural diplomacy, colonial law, gender and sexuality, and the history of race.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807838174
Publisher:	Omohundro Institute and UNC Press
Publication date:	06/01/2013
Series:	Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	424
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Brett Rushforth is associate professor of history at the College of William and Mary.

Table of Contents

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, French colonists and their Native allies participated in a slave trade that spanned half of North America, carrying thousands of Native Americans into bondage in the Great Lakes, Canada, and the Caribbean. In Bonds of Alliance, Brett Rushforth reveals the dynamics of this system from its origins to the end of French colonial rule. Balancing a vast geographic and chronological scope with careful attention to the lives of enslaved individuals, this book gives voice to those who lived through the ordeal of slavery and, along the way, shaped French and Native societies.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Brilliantly bringing together Native American and Atlantic History, Bonds of Alliance offers a nuanced analysis of shifting forms, meanings, and experiences of slavery. Rushforth draws on prodigious and wide-ranging research, using travel narratives, social history, and linguistic analysis to tell a rich and vivid story. A tremendous contribution to our understanding of the French Atlantic.—Laurent Dubois, Duke University

Avec Bonds of Alliance, l'histoire de l'esclavage en Amerique ne sera plus jamais la meme. Porte par une ecriture puissante et par une epoustouflante erudition, l'ouvrage de Brett Rushforth montre que non seulement plusieurs systemes serviles ont coexiste sur le continent americain a l'epoque moderne mais aussi qu'ils operaient a des echelles et a des fins bien differentes que ce qu'a retenu l'historiographie.—Dominique Deslandres, Universite de Montreal

This pioneering approach to colonial North American history traces the traffic in Native American captives from the continental heartland into slavery in French Canada and on the sugar plantations of the Caribbean. . . . A highly original and strongly argued study that will force us to rethink the received wisdom on Native-French relations.—Allan Greer, McGill University

Rushforth imaginatively uses French and Native sources to illuminate a largely forgotten but vitally important chapter of the American encounter. . . . He never loses sight of the human stories, especially of enslaved Natives, which form the larger patterns he has found. A remarkable achievement.—James H. Merrell, Vassar College

Editorial Reviews

“A brilliant, bold, and remarkable journey into the Indian slave system of New France.” — American Historical Review

“Through his exhaustive research and attention to larger connections, Rushforth provides perhaps the most compelling account yet of the significance of Indian slavery to early American and Atlantic histories. . . . A must-read for historians of slavery, early American history, French colonial history, Atlantic history, and American Indian history alike.” — William and Mary Quarterly

“A sharp and superb study. . . . This book challenges us to seriously re-think slavery’s role, and the history of race, in French colonial projects in early Canada.” — Histoire sociale/Social History

“Rushforth [drew] on an impressive body of French- and Algonquian-language research and created a database that traces nearly two thousand Indian slaves. Such careful research enables Rushforth to recover the lives of individuals: their work, their social worlds, the ways violence—including sexual violence—framed their experiences of slavery.” — Journal of American History

“A book that will spark debate, scholarship, and conversation for years to come. . . . A brilliant, bold, and remarkable journey into the Indian slave system of New France.” — American Historical Review

“Compelling . . . powerfully argued . . . brilliant . . . a landmark of historical interpretation.” — Julie Saville, University of Chicago

“The extensive use of linguistic and archaeological evidence makes this a pathbreaking work. . . . Highly recommended. Graduate students, faculty.” — CHOICE

“Slavery is at once ubiquitous and highly localized in this masterly work by Brett Rushforth. . . . Bonds of Alliance engages with the historiographies of native studies, early America, early modern Europe, and the history of slavery, and it enriches them all.” — Journal of American History

“A sophisticated analysis. . . . This academic work could also introduce a general readership to a wide range of subjects across disciplines including French colonial diplomacy, law, sexuality, race, slavery, and Latin America.” — Arkansas Historical Quarterly

“General readers and professional historians alike will enjoy and learn from Brett Rushforth’s fresh look at slavery in colonial North America and the Caribbean. . . . He successfully blends history and historiography with narratives and analysis.” — The Annals of Iowa

From the Publisher