Edge of Empire: Documents of Michilimackinac, 1671–1716 (review)

"In the late 1600s and early 1700s," writes José Brandão, "few places were more important to the French than Michilimackinac" (xxvii). This book is a valuable new collection of sixty-two carefully edited documents—most previously unpublished—concerning this important outpost of empire in the heart of the pays d'en haut. Focusing on the fur trade, which dominated life for the French voyageurs, Ottawa and Wyandot Indians, and military commanders who spent time here in this period, these expert translations make this complex time and place accessible to an English-speaking audience.

The book opens with an overview of the place of Michilimackinac in the history of French colonial activity in North America. José Brandão's efficient introduction orients the reader to the setting and characters—Native and European—in this history. Especially helpful, the introduction contains a succinct overview of the legal system of New France as background for understanding the contracts, depositions, testimonies, and petitions that comprise the bulk of the collection.

The documents are presented in simple chronological order. Each is introduced only by a short title and presented without detailed summary or context. To be sure, this choice sometimes creates difficulty, and the reader occasionally wishes that more thorough introductions had been provided for the individual documents, since most deal with unfamiliar characters and mundane events whose significance is not immediately apparent. However, the editorial comments contained in the endnotes to each document solve most problems and are thoroughly helpful. Reflecting Brandão's mastery of the period, they range from detailed biographical information on nearly every person mentioned in the documents, to geographical orientation, to helpful notes on translations and unfamiliar aspects of fur trade and law referenced in the documents. The only minor fault is that the notes are placed at the end of each document; they would be even more convenient at the foot of the page.

The translations were the work of Joseph L. Peyser. As in his other translations, Peyser worked to preserve as much of "the flavor" of the originals as possible (xvii). This brings the reader as close to the original French documents as possible, and the approach makes sense. At the same time, the reader should not expect a smooth and easy read in Edge of Empire. Since one potential use of this book will be in undergraduate classrooms, professors will need to help students with what remains a pretty "foreign" language from the colonial past.

For the most part, these documents are not about big or dramatic events, and one does not emerge from this collection with a clear narrative about Michilimackinac in these years. What these documents do extremely well, however, is reveal details of everyday life in the fur trade. They reveal texture, such as the complexity of a fur trader accounting for his packets of furs. Or a wayward son gambling away his father's furs in a Michilimackinac tavern. Or a contractual agreement disrupted by an Indian war. Rather than events, these documents valuably give us themes, including hierarchy and social class in the fur trade world, gender relations, violence, and Indian-French relations. And in a larger sense, they reveal New France's effort to extend legal order and administration over a distant hinterland and its self-interested inhabitants. They shed new light on the ways French imperialism was improvised at the periphery.

Edge of Empire is a collaboration among Mackinac State Historic Parks, the French Michilimackinac Research Project now directed by Brandão, and the late Peyser. This is the first of several volumes planned; future works will concern diplomacy and other aspects of history and culture. Here's hoping the project continues—these document translations are extremely valuable for scholars and researchers and may prove useful in classrooms, too.