Scott Berthelette | Queen's University at Kingston (original) (raw)

Uploads

Papers by Scott Berthelette

Canadian Historical Review, 2020

Examining communication and information networks during the period of the Régence (1715-23), this... more Examining communication and information networks during the period of the Régence (1715-23), this article argues that French metropolitan ministers, imperial planners, colonial administrators, and royal cartographers relied heavily upon backcountry specialists-coureurs de bois, runaway soldiers, and veteran voyageurs-to provide ethnographic, geographic, and strategic knowledge, which informed and shaped the policies of post-Utrecht French North America. Subsequently, colonial officials believed that these French frontier diplomats and negotiators were the key to consolidating imperial control over the geographic, political, and cultural landscapes of the Hudson Bay watershed. These backcountry specialists were embedded within Indigenous information networks that criss-crossed North America and were thus important intermediaries between the French state and Indigenous peoples at the edge of empire. Although coureurs de bois and voyageurs became pivotal informants, explorers, fur traders, and military leaders, they not only were unwavering agents of imperial power but also pursued their own agendas and exercised agency in the Hudson Bay watershed. Backcountry specialists initially made it possible for French colonialism to extend into the watershed, but their own ambivalent relationships with the French colonial government and its representatives also fragmented the imperial authority of the French Empire in North America.

Early American Studies , 2016

In the eighteenth-century, France’s metropolitan authorities and colonial officials tasked the Fr... more In the eighteenth-century, France’s metropolitan authorities and colonial officials tasked the French western explorer Pierre de La Vérendrye to integrate the Indigenous peoples of the Petit Nord – Cree, Assiniboine, Monsoni, Anishinaabeg, and Dakota – into the network of French-mediated alliances emanating from the Great Lakes. The governor-general of New France, known as Onontio by the Natives, sought to ensure the symbolic subjugation of all Indigenous peoples of the Great Lakes and the Petit Nord. Unlike the Great Lakes, devastated by endemic warfare and virulent diseases, the Indigenous social formations of the Petit Nord and Northern Great Plains remained politically cohesive and autonomous in the eighteenth-century. Thus, the Cree, Assiniboine, Dakota, and others, resisted creating a “middle ground” with La Vérendrye and other French newcomers, as they had little desire or need of French mediation in their territories. La Vérendrye’s ambitions for a French-mediated peace, or “Pax Gallica,” were thwarted in the overwhelmingly Native political space of the Petit Nord and Northern Great Plains.

Book Reviews by Scott Berthelette

Canadian Historical Review, 2019

Canadian Historical Review, 2020

Examining communication and information networks during the period of the Régence (1715-23), this... more Examining communication and information networks during the period of the Régence (1715-23), this article argues that French metropolitan ministers, imperial planners, colonial administrators, and royal cartographers relied heavily upon backcountry specialists-coureurs de bois, runaway soldiers, and veteran voyageurs-to provide ethnographic, geographic, and strategic knowledge, which informed and shaped the policies of post-Utrecht French North America. Subsequently, colonial officials believed that these French frontier diplomats and negotiators were the key to consolidating imperial control over the geographic, political, and cultural landscapes of the Hudson Bay watershed. These backcountry specialists were embedded within Indigenous information networks that criss-crossed North America and were thus important intermediaries between the French state and Indigenous peoples at the edge of empire. Although coureurs de bois and voyageurs became pivotal informants, explorers, fur traders, and military leaders, they not only were unwavering agents of imperial power but also pursued their own agendas and exercised agency in the Hudson Bay watershed. Backcountry specialists initially made it possible for French colonialism to extend into the watershed, but their own ambivalent relationships with the French colonial government and its representatives also fragmented the imperial authority of the French Empire in North America.

Early American Studies , 2016

In the eighteenth-century, France’s metropolitan authorities and colonial officials tasked the Fr... more In the eighteenth-century, France’s metropolitan authorities and colonial officials tasked the French western explorer Pierre de La Vérendrye to integrate the Indigenous peoples of the Petit Nord – Cree, Assiniboine, Monsoni, Anishinaabeg, and Dakota – into the network of French-mediated alliances emanating from the Great Lakes. The governor-general of New France, known as Onontio by the Natives, sought to ensure the symbolic subjugation of all Indigenous peoples of the Great Lakes and the Petit Nord. Unlike the Great Lakes, devastated by endemic warfare and virulent diseases, the Indigenous social formations of the Petit Nord and Northern Great Plains remained politically cohesive and autonomous in the eighteenth-century. Thus, the Cree, Assiniboine, Dakota, and others, resisted creating a “middle ground” with La Vérendrye and other French newcomers, as they had little desire or need of French mediation in their territories. La Vérendrye’s ambitions for a French-mediated peace, or “Pax Gallica,” were thwarted in the overwhelmingly Native political space of the Petit Nord and Northern Great Plains.

Canadian Historical Review, 2019