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Assimilation and Racialism inSeventeenthand

Eighteenth-CenturyFrenchColonial Policy

SALIHABELMESSOUS

Ploughing,when it ishonoured,hassoftenedsavagepeoples.

Fenelon.'

ALTHOUGHTHE IDEA OF RACEis increasingly being historicized, itsemergencein the context ofFrenchcolonizationremains shadowy.? This isdespitethe factthat colonizationwascentralto theemergenceofrace inFrenchculture.> TheFrench areeithercreditedwith agenerousvision andtreatmentofAmerindiansor they are kept in limbo.'ThepublicationofRichardWhite'sMiddleGroundin 1991shook up theseconventionalideas by showingthatFrenchconciliation toward indigenous peopleshad to be explained byparticularpolitical and economic factorsratherthan

bynationalcharacter.> Yet the issue of race hasremainedalmostuntouched,andMy deepgratitudeis due to AndrewFitzmaurice,John A. Dickinson, Jean Heffer, and theAHR's

anonymous reviewers for their comments onearlierversions of thisessay-enfrancais comme en anglais, mille mercis atous. IFrancoisde Fenelon,Dialogues des morts: Composespourl'education d'un prince(Paris, 1718), dialogue 10. 2 On discussions of race in French thought, see Andre Devyer,Le sang epure:Les prejugesde race chez lesgentilhommesfrancais del'AncienRegime,1560-1720 (Brussels, 1973);ArletteJouanna,L'idee de race en France au XVI e et debut duXVIl e siecle(Montpellier,1981); and Sue Peabody,"There Are

No Slaves in France": The Political Culture

ofRace and Slaveryin theAncienRegime(New York, 1996). On race in French colonization, see Tony Chafer and Amanda Sackur, eds.,Promoting the Colonial

Idea: Propaganda and Visions

ofEmpire in France(Basingstoke, 2002); Sue Peabody and Tyler Stovall, eds., The ColorofLiberty: HistoriesofRace in France(Durham,N.C., 2003).

3Peabody and Stovall,ColorofLiberty,4-5.

4On French "colonial genius," seeeighteenth-centuryJesuit historianPierre-Francois-Xavierde

Charlevoix who wrote, "Only our Nation knows the secret of winning theAmericans'affection."

Charlevoix,Histoire et description generale de la Nouvelle-France,6 vols. (Paris, 1744), 1: vij. See also

FrancisParkman,

The Jesuits in NorthAmericain the Seventeenth Century(Boston, 1898), 44; Mason Wade, "The French and the Indians," in Howard Peckham and Charles Gibson, eds.,

Attitudesof

Colonial Powers toward theAmericanIndian(Salt Lake City, 1969), 61-80; GilIesPaquetand Jean-PierreWallot,"Nouvelle-France/Ouebec/Canada:A World of LimitedIdentities,"in Nicholas Canny and Anthony Pagden, eds.,Colonial Identity in theAtlanticWorld(Princeton,N.J., 1987), 98; CorneliusJaenen, "Frenchand Native Peoples in NewFrance,"in J. M. Bumsted, ed.,

Interpreting

Canada's Past,

2nd edn., 2 vols.(Toronto,1993), 1:80. For skepticism of thishistoriographictradition,

seeRobertBerkhofer,Jr.,

The WhiteMan's Indian: ImagesoftheAmerican

Indian fromColumbusto the

Present(New York, 1978), 116; Bruce Trigger,Natives and Newcomers: Canada's "HeroicAge"Re considered (Montreal,1985), 299-300; John A. Dickinson,"Frenchand BritishAttitudesto Native

Peoples in Colonial North America,"

Storia Nordamericana4, nos. 1-2 (1987): 41-56.

5RichardWhite,The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the GreatLakesRegion,

1650-1815

(Cambridge, 1991).

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Assimilationand Racialism323

French America has still not taken its place in thecurrentdebateabout race, color, andcivility." Thepresentessay is an empiricalcontributionto the discussion on the origins ofEuropeanracialism as applied to colonial situations.

Itarguesthatracial

prejudice in colonialCanadaemerged onlyafteran assimilationistapproachhad been tried for almost a century and had failed.

Intheseventeenthcentury, French

policy toward the indigenous peoples of NewFrancerelied on the assimilation of the natives to French religion and culture. The aim was to mixcolonial and native peoples inordertostrengthenthe nascent New France. This policy of francisation (sometimestranslatedas"Frenchification")was based on apaternalisticvision of cultural difference: the French officials viewed theAmerindiansas "savages," socially,economically, and culturallyinferiorto theEuropeans."As such, they had to beeducatedandbroughttocivility.This policyremainedthe official "native policy" employedthroughoutthe period of the French regime inCanadadespite theinternaltensions andcontradictionsdisplayed by French officials.Historians have traditionally emphasized theimplementationof this policy by missionaries and, consequently, have neglected or, at best, diminished the significance of francisationfor civilauthorities,"The conversion ofAmerindiansto Christianity was undoubtedlyanimportantpartof the policy oifrancisation,but thatimportancehas been overstated: francisationwas more a political program than a religious one. An understandingof thecentralrole played bythe state in thepromotionof the policy of assimilation hasprofoundconsequencesfor ourcomprehensionof the relations between the French and Amerindians.

6A few exceptions must be acknowledged:CorneliusJ.Jaenen,'''LesSauvagesAmeriquains':

Persistenceinto theEighteenthCentury ofTraditionalFrenchConceptsandConstructsfor Compre hendingAmerindians," Ethnohistory29, no. 1 (1982): 43-56; Olive P. Dickason,TheMythoftheSavage and theBeginningsofFrenchColonialismin the Americas(Edmonton,1984); AllanGreer,"Colonial

Saints:Gender,Race andHagiographyin NewFrance,"

Williamand MaryQuarterly3rd ser., 57, no. 2

(2000):323-48;JenniferM. Spear,"ColonialIntimacies: Legislating SexinFrenchLouisiana,"

William

andMaryQuarterly3rd ser., 60, no. 1 (2003): 75-98;GuillaumeAubert,"'TheBlood ofFrance':Race and Purity of Blood in theFrenchAtlanticWorld,"

Williamand MaryQuarterly3rd ser., 61, no. 3

(2004): 439-78;FredericRegent, Esclavage,metissage,liberte:La RevolutionfrancaiseenGuadeloupe,

1789-1802(Paris, 2004).

7On the use of thewordfranciser(to Frenchify), see, for example,GovernorGeneralLouis de

Buade deFrontenacto Minister,November13, 1673,

Rapportdel'archivistede la provincede Quebec

pour

1926-27(Quebec,1927), 34. According to thegovernorgeneralit would be wiser "to try to

franciserthe Savages and to teach them our language and our customs" within the existing Jesuit missions instead ofcreatingnew ones (alltranslationsare mine unless otherwisenoted).Frontenac added,"I hope I will be a good missionary, and maybe I will be able to franciserthe Savages as well as anyone else," 43; see alsoFrontenacto Minister,October20, 1691, ArchivesNationalesdeFrance (hereafter,AN), Paris (microfilms), serie C llA, vol. 11,fol. 234; andIntendantJacquesDuchesneauto

Minister, November 20,1679, lines 10, 12:AN, C

llA, vol. 5, fol. 49.Thesewords were occasionally still used in theeighteenth century-seeSr de Lino,procureurdu roi de Quebec, au Conseil de la Marine, c. 1717, AN, C llA, vol. 38, fol. 210.

8GeorgeF. G. Stanley,"ThePolicyof'Francisation'asAppliedto theIndiansduring the Ancien

Regime,"

Revued'Histoirede l'AmeriqueFrancaise3, no. 3(December1949):333-48;CorneliusJ.

Jaenen,

FriendandFoe:AspectsofFrench-AmerindianCulturalContactin theSixteenthandSeventeenth Centuries(New York, 1976) is right tounderlinethat"Frenchpolicy towards theAmerindians...was based onassimilationistconcepts,"but he fails to analyze theconsequencesof the policy cifrancisation, James Axtell,TheInvasionWithin:TheContestofCulturesin ColonialNorthAmerica(New York, 1985),

23-70, dealsparticularlywith theJesuitmissionaries'activity, and hispresentationof the civil policy of

francisationis both descriptive and very brief;moreover,colonialauthoritiesareconsideredinrelation totheiroppositionto the Jesuits.

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324SalihaBelmessous

Moreover,it is necessary tounderstandthe civil basis of the policy of assimilationto discern theconsequencesof the civilgovernment'srecognitionin theeighteenthcenturythatthe policy had failed. Theawarenessof this failure was acrucialstep from theperceptionof nativepeoplesintermsof aculturalprejudice to aperceptionby the civilgovernmentofAmerindiansthroughracialprejudice. The history of the civilauthorities'experimentsand failures withassimilationis, therefore,no lessthanthe history of the inclusion of race in thelanguageofFrench colonialgovernmentpolicy. Familiaritywith mostly well-known andoften-quotedsourcesfrom theCorre spondanceGenerale,the Serie C 11A of the Archives desColonies(thesourcesof civilgovernment)especially, haspreventedscholarsfromquestioningthe signifi cance ofthosesourcesover the issue of race.Indeed,familiarity seems to have engenderedtediousnessandreluctanceto go beyond what thesesourceshave alreadytold us-orseem to have toldus-aboutrelatedordifferentissues. Yet thesesourcesstill have a lot to sayaboutthe significance offrancisationand its racialoutcomes. Itis mainlythroughthemajorissue ofmetissage(miscegenation)-interethnic cohabitationandintermarriage-thatI will examine thisquestion."AlthoughI am well awarethatmuch can be saidabouthybridity ingeneral(abouthybrid places, artifacts,practices,peoples,andlanguages),this essay willnonethelessfocus on mixedneighboringandcoupling.'?

Otherrelatedandimportantissues-suchas

intermarriageand the (re)constructionofgenderrelations;miscegenationin the peripheralFrenchsettlements;thecolonialexperienceof nativepeoples;the involvementof thechurchin [rancisation;and the significance of West African slavery in theconstructionof racialboundariesinFrenchAmericaas well as in France-areaddressedeven if they are not myfocus.'!Attitudestomiscegenation in theheartof NewFranceinform us of officials'opennessor anxiety toward natives.Indeed,the choice ofwhetheror not to mix with theindigenouspeoples was a choice of inclusion or exclusion; and the firstconsequenceof theemergence of racialprejudiceinCanadawas adreadof mixeddescendants.P

9Althoughthe wordmetissagedid notappearin theFrenchlanguagebefore1834, I have chosen

to use it, even if it may be seen asanachronistic,to refer to asituationit best describes. On the importanceofmiscegenationin colonial policies, see thecomparativestudy of Patrick Wolfe,"Land,

Labor, andDifference:ElementaryStructuresofRace,"

AHR106, no. 3 (2001):866-905.

10On hybrid places, see White,Middle Ground;on hybridartifacts,see NicholasThomas,

Entangled Objects: Exchange, Material Culture, and Colonialism in the Pacific(Cambridge,Mass., 1991) and SergeGruzinski, La pensee metisse(Paris, 1999); on hybridpeoples,see DanielK.Richter, "CulturalBrokersandInterculturalPolitics: NewYork-IroquoisRelations,1664-1701,"

Journalof

AmericanHistory75, no. 1 (1988):40-67.

11Onintermarriageandgenderrelations,see Peggy Pascoe,"Race,Gender,andIntercultural

Relations:The Case ofInterracialMarriage,"

Frontiers12, no. 1 (1991):5-18;onmiscegenationin the peripheralFrenchsettlements,see Spear,"ColonialIntimacies";and Carl

J.Ekberg,French Roots in

the Illinois Country: The Mississippi Frontier in Colonial Times (Urbana,Ill., 1998); on colonial experienceswith nativepeoples,see especially Trigger,

Natives and Newcomers;and White,Middle

Ground;

on the action of the church infrancisation,see mainlyCorneliusJaenen,The Roleofthe Church in New France (Toronto,1976), andFriend and Foe;see also Axtell,Invasion Within;on the constructionof racialboundariesinFrance,see Peabody, "ThereAre No Slaves in France";and Peabody and Stovall,

ColorofLiberty.

12Olive P. Dickason hasstudiedintermarriagesin"From'OneNation'in theNortheastto 'New

Nation'in theNorthwest:A Look at theEmergenceof the Metis," inJacquelinePetersonandJennifer

S. H. Brown, eds.,

The New Peoples: Being and Becoming Metis in North America(Winnipeg,1985),

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Assimilationand Racialism325

Itistruethatin thenineteenthandtwentiethcenturieson theNorthAmerican continent,miscegenationwasencouragedas a means ofeliminatingNative Americans,and this policy was partlymotivatedby racialprejudice.PThislater periodof officiallysanctionedmiscegenationwasunderpinnedby the overwhelming Itwas confidentlypredictedthatAmerindianblood would bedilutedto thepointof disappearanceinEuropeanblood. Thecontrastwith thislaterperiodunderlines one of the most strikingfeaturesof the policy ofmiscegenationinseventeenth centuryNewFrance:theFrenchcolonizers were a very small minority of the populationof theterritoryover which they claimed sovereignty, and they were overwhelmingly numericallydominatedby NativeAmericans.

Inthis context, the

policy ofmiscegenationalso reflectsgreat confidence-theconfidence ofcultural paternalism,thebeliefthatNativeAmericanswould assumeEuropeanways once exposed toEuropeanculture.Importantly,however, the context of this policy seems toindicatethe absence of an idea of race:thatis,despitetheirnumerical inferiority, theFrenchhad no fearthatthey could be biologically overwhelmed. On thecontrary,miscegenationwas seen as the means ofstrengtheningthe colony demographically,economically, and militarily. Althoughhistoriansandpostcolonialtheoristshave oftenstressedthatracial prejudicewas theresultof colonialexploitation,I shall argue, bycontrast,that, in eighteenth-centuryCanada,the failure of the policy of assimilating theindigenous peopleswas a catalyst in theemergenceof the idea of race. As such, in this essay, I am largelyconcernedwithpeoplewho had noconceptof race.Moreoverthe developmentof racialassumptionsshould not beequatedto"racism."Scholars have beensometimestoo quick to describeFrenchofficialstatementsabout intermarriageas"racist"whereaswe can find only theemergenceof some of the assumptionsof the idea of race ineighteenth-centuryFrenchcolonialpolicy." Because the idea of race is a sensitive issue hotlydebatedamong scholars, anyoneconductinga local study on thefoundationsofracializationneeds to avoid pitfallsrelatingto thelargeroriginsdebate.While it is largelyacceptedthatrace is ahistoricalphenomenonconstructedbyEuropeans,differencesstill exist over what wascharacteristicof the idea and when it firstemerged.

ISThe idea of race with

which I amconcernedis scientific and wasarticulatedineighteenth-centuryand particularlynineteenth-centuryscientific discourse. The scientific disciplines

19-36. The perspective chosen in this article (the creation of a metis identity) has, however,limited her

analysis of these marriages. Dickason writes correctly that they were increasingly forbidden and discusses the material conditions that justified this interdiction, but she does not look at the consequences of this decision.

13On miscegenation as a way to erase Amerindians physicallyand/or culturally in thenineteenth

century United States, see Wolfe, "Land, Labor, and Difference," 885-93.

14Such quick judgments can be found in White,Middle Ground,69-70.

15Alden T. Vaughan,RootsofAmericanRacism: Essays on the Colonial Experience(New York,

1995); IvanHannaford,

Race: The Historyofan Idea in the West(Washington,D.e.and Baltimore,

1996); Benjamin Braude, "The Sons of Noah and the Construction of Ethnic and Geographical

Identitiesin the Medieval and Early Modern Periods,"

William and Mary Quarterly3rd ser., 54, no. 1

(1997): 103-42; Joyce E. Chaplin, Subject Matter: Technology, the Body, and Science on the Anglo

AmericanFrontier,1500-1676

(Cambridge, Mass., 2001); for a comprehensive summary of these debates, see Chaplin,"Race,"in David Armitage and Michael J. Braddick, eds.,

The BritishAtlantic

World,1500-1800

(Basingstoke, 2002), 154-72.

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326SalihaBelmessous

emergingfrom theEnlightenmentsearchedfor anexplanationfordifferences betweenhumansocietiesthatlay innatureratherthanculture.This was the "discovery" of race.!" Ofcentralconcernto thisenterprisewas theidentificationof physical andmentaldifferencesbetweenhumans ofdifferentgroups. Anumberof studies haverecentlydemonstratedtheemergenceof race in discourses of physicaldifferencesin colonial America, focusingparticularlyon the experienceof thesoutherncolonies.'?The language of physicaldifferencecan be shown to haveemergedin thecolonizationof NewFrancein a fashioncomparable to the English colonies. ISFrenchofficialsidentifieda few bodilydifferences betweenEuropeansand natives: theypraisedthe height of native men,theirgood posture,theirstrength,theirendurance,andtheiragility. TheFrenchalso believed theAmerindiansto have aninextinguishablethirst for alcohol, which theystruggled to explain.'?Whatmeanings were ascribed to these physicaldifferences?According toFrenchofficials,hardshipsimposed bynaturegave the native bodyvirtuesthat thecomfortsof technology haddeniedtheEuropeanbody. Bycontrast,indigenous primitive technology did notpreparethe native body forEuropeanproductssuch as alcohol. Thus physicaldifferencewas at firstattributedtoenvironmental differenceand not intrinsic qualities. Priorto and necessary to thedevelopmentof discourses of physicaldifferences was thedevelopmentof a discoursethatexplaineddifferencethroughimmutable nature.At theheartof the scientific language of race is the ideathatgroups of humanspossessdifferentnatures.

Inthesixteenthandseventeenthcenturies,

Frenchcolonizersassumedthatthedifferencesbetweenthem andAmerindian societieswerecultural.By theeighteenthcentury, theyconcludedthatthe differenceswere in"nature."Thisassumptionof adifferentnaturewas a fundamentalpremisefor the scientific idea of race.Naturaldifferencebetween humanscould, of course, be then subject to scientific scrutiny and fromthatscrutiny temperaments.

16GeorgeL. Mosse,Toward the Final Solution: A HistoryofEuropean Racism(NewYork,1978);

JacquelineDuvernay-Bolens,

Les Geants Patagons: Voyage aux origines del'homme(Paris, 1995);

Hannaford,

Race;KenanMalik,The MeaningofRace: Race, History and Culture in Western Society (Houndsmills,1996).

17On theconstructionof race in theBritishcolonies,see Joyce E.Chaplin,"NaturalPhilosophy

and anEarlyRacialIdiomin NorthAmerica:ComparingEnglishandIndianBodies,"William and

Mary Quarterly

3rd ser., 54, no. 1 (1997):229-52;andChaplin,Subject Matter;on race inSpanish

America,seeJorgeCafiizares-Esguerra,"NewWorld,New Stars:PatrioticAstrologyand theInvention

AHR104, no. 1 (1999):33-68;

on theAmerindianinventionand use of racialcategories,see NancyShoemaker,"HowIndians Gotto Be

Red,"AHR102, no. 3 (1997):625-44.

18CompareKarenOrdahlKupperman,Settling with the Indians: The MeetingofEnglish and Indian

Cultures in America,1580-1640

(Totowa,NJ.,1980) andKupperman,Indians and English: FacingOff in EarlyAmerica(Ithaca,N.Y., 2000).

19On theeffectsofalcoholonreligion,seeAndreVachon,"L'eau-de-viedans lasocieteindienne,"

Canadian HistoricalAssociationAnnualReport(1960): 22-32; onnatives'social use ofalcoholto solve

JohnA.Dickinson,"'C'estl'eau-de-viequi a

commiscemeurtre':Alcool etcriminaliteamerindienne

11Montrealsous leregimefrancais,"Etudes

CanadienneslCanadianStudies

35 (1993):83-94;see alsoPeterMancall,Deadly Medicine: Indians and

Alcoholin Early America

(Ithaca,N.Y., 1995).

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Assimilationand Racialism327

THECOLONIZATIONOFNEWFRANCE,firstentrustedto a fewgreatfinanciers and merchants,oftenHuguenotsorforeignersliving inFrance,developedrapidly into an essentiallyeconomicenterpriseto thedetrimentof thepopulationand developmentof the colony. Policiesregardingnativepeopleswerenevertheless officiallyportrayedin terms of religious aims, which legitimized theFrench enterpriseanddemandedits successfulprosecution.s'

Itwas only when aserious

effortatsettlementwas made along the St. Lawrence Riverafter

1632thatthe

Christianizationof the nativesbecameagenuineconcernratherthan merely royal rhetoric.TheinstallationofFrenchdwellings and thecontinentalextension of the furtradeinspiredanattempttointegratethe natives and provide them with a role within the confines ofFrenchsettlements.The sending ofmissionariesoverseas enabledboth thisproblemto beaddressedand theprotectionof civil society threatenedby thesurrounding"savagery."Despitethesepracticalmotives, in the periodofpost-Tridentinespiritualrevival, it isprobablethattheFrenchcolonial administrationsincerely sought the conversion of theAmericanpeoples.

As early as

1603,thefounderofQuebec,Samuel deChamplain,deemedthat

the assimilation ofAmerindianswas a necessary means ofincreasingthe colonial population.Champlainreportedlypromisedthe Ottawas and theHuronsthatwhen theFrenchwereestablished, "ouryoung men will marry yourdaughters,and we shall be one people."21Indeed,thedemographicdevelopmentof the colony was extremely slow andirregularcomparedtothatof the English colonies. Following themercantilistargumentthatacountry'spowerdependedupon the size of its population,theFrenchcrown never stronglysustainedthepeoplingofCanadafor fear of weakening the kingdom: in expressed LouisXIV'sviewthat"it would not be wise todepopulatehis kingdom inordertopopulateCanada.">The kingwantedtomaintainhis ownpopulation, which was already,thoughwrongly,perceivedas weak, tosupporthis claim for a preeminentpositioninEurope.AsopposedtoEngland,theFrenchcrown did not believe that it hadpeopletospare(the Thirty Years War from

1618-1648had been

a drain on itspopulation);nor did it try, atthattime, to get rid of marginal groups whetherthey were religious or social. The policy of grandeur,asunderstoodby the thekingdom'sclaims forpreeminencein

Europe.P

Frenchreluctanceto sendemigrantstoCanadagave,therefore,a distinctive featureto the colony:Canada'spopulationwas to begeneratedthroughthe

20Commissionsdu Roy et de Monseigneurl'Admiralau sieur de Montspourl'habitationdes terresde

l'Acadie, Canada, et autres endroits en la Nouvelle-France (1605), in Albert Duchene,Lapolitique coloniale de la France: Le ministere des colonies depuis Richelieu (Paris, 1928), 15.

21Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed.,The JesuitRelationsandAlliedDocuments,73 vols. (New York,

1959), 5: 211 for the quote, and 10: 26.

22Jean-BaptisteColbert toIntendantJean Talon, January 5, 1666,Rapportde l'archiviste de la

province de Quebec pour1930-31(Quebec, 1931),41. In the second half of theeighteenthcentury, the philosopherDenisDiderotcould still argue that "it would be going against the very purpose of the colonies to establish them bydepopulatingthe ruling country."

Encyclopedie,s.v. "Colonies," cited in

Jean Meyer

et al., Histoire de la France coloniale: I, La conquete(Paris, 1991), 19, my translation.

23On the expansionist content of the ideology ofgrandeur,see David Armitage,The Ideological

Origins

ofthe British Empire(Cambridge, 2000); on French colonial ambitions, see William J. Eccles, France inAmerica(New York, 1972); Meyeret al., Histoire de la France coloniale,38-41; Philippe

Haudrere,

L'Empiredes rois,1500-1789(Paris, 1997).

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328SalihaBelmessous

that:

To increase the colony

..., it seems to me that, instead of waiting to benefit from the new settlers who could be sent from France, the most useful wayto achieve it would be to try to civilizethe Algonquins, the Hurons, and the other Savageswho have embraced Christianity; and to persuade them to come to settle in a commune with the French, to livewith them, and educate their children in our mores and our custorns.> ThesuccessfulsettlementofthecolonydemandedthatAmerindianshadto be involvedin colonycouldnotextendthefurtrade,whichwas itsmaineconomicactivity,nor asagents warriors. Amerindians'inclusionintheFrenchcolonialprojectas keyactorsratherthan meaningunfinishedpeoplewhohadto behumanized."Toachievethisgoal,

Christians

bechallengedfor tworeasons:firstbecauseindigenouspeopleshadshowntheir legitimizedexpansionas well ascolonization:

Franceoriginallyfoundeditscolonial

titles onnatives'lackofreligionand,consequently,on itsevangelicalduty.s?

24Colbertto Jean Talon,January5, 1666,Rapport de l'archiviste de la province de Quebecpour

1930-31,45.Colbert'spromotionofinterracialmixing has been strangely overlooked in James

Pritchard,

In SearchofEmpire: The French in the Americas,1670-1730(Cambridge, 2004), 18-19.

25On the absence of racial prejudice, as opposed to cultural prejudice, see Bruce Trigger,The

Children

ofAataentsic:A Historyofthe Huron People to 1660(Montreal,1976), 274. However, intermarriageand mixed sexualrelationstaken out of their political context did not imply, as it has recently been argued, that racial and social prejudices could be overcome by the elite. For this statement,see Gary B.Nash, "A Tale ofThreeCities (and TheirHinterlands):Race Mixture in Colonial North America," in Serge Gruzinski and Nathan Wachtel, eds.,quotesdbs_dbs47.pdfusesText_47

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