Abstract

Between 1660 and 1760, the colonists of New France pursued two seemingly contradictory policies toward their Indian neighbors. Through compromise, gifts, and Native-style diplomacy they negotiated the most far-reaching system of Indian alliances in colonial North America. At the same time, they also developed an extensive system of Indian slavery that transformed thousands of Indian men, women, and children into commodities of colonial commerce in French settlements. This dissertation analyzes these seemingly contradictory elements of French-Indian relations, arguing that French-Indian alliances paradoxically generated the practice of Indian slavery, and that slavery in turn influenced the structure of the alliance throughout the eighteenth century.

To demonstrate the close connections between the French practice of Indian slavery and their strategic alliance building, this study is organized as a conversation between East and West, between the core slaveholding settlements along the St. Lawrence River and the centers of trade and diplomacy in the western Great Lakes. After discussing the relationship between slavery and the western alliance system in the first chapter, I shift in chapter 2 to Montreal, Quebec, and nearby villages to evaluate the place of these slaves in New France's economy and society. This slave system required a constant supply of new Indian captives, which western allies eagerly provided. The slave supply, discussed in chapter 3, thus implicates the St. Lawrence slaveholders in the devastating western violence of the 1710s, 1720s, and 1730s. During these years, hundreds of captives came into New France, seized violently in their home villages and taken to Montreal as slaves. Chapter 4 traces the lived experience of these slaves, discussing identity and family life, race and religion, resistance and punishment. Finally, chapter 5 analyzes the effects of the Seven Years' War and Pontiac's War on the Indian slave system, assessing the ways in which the French-Indian alliances of these crucial periods responded to the demands of slavery and vice versa.