Les missions du Minnesota: Catholicisme et colonisation dans l’Ouest américain, 1830–1860 by Tangi Villerbu (review)

In the three decades from 1830 to 1860 Minnesota was a microcosm of the American West. Mostly peopled by Natives—Dakotas, Ojibwas, and Winnebagoes (Ho-chunk)—Minnesota moved from being a mostly French-speaking region to a territory (1849) and a state (1857) where Irish and German-speaking newcomers came to represent the majority of the population. The Manitoba multiethnic community also included a large Métis population, although this was never institutionally recognized as it was in neighboring Manitoba. Catholicism in Minnesota—and in most of the West—went from being the dominant religion of a well-established flock served by very few missionaries to a more structured reality that included a bishop in St. Paul (Joseph Cretin, arrived 1851), a number of parish priests, and religious communities both male and female (see map no. 4, clearly designed by Pascal Brunello). Tangi Villerbu is a French cultural historian and the author of a book on the Lewis and Clark expedition (Neuilly, 2006) and of another on the French view of U.S. western expansion (Rennes, 2007). His new book represents an ambitious attempt to document Minnesota’s “transition . . . through the lens of Catholicism” (p. 19).

In Villerbu’s view, U.S. historians have so far shown an “astonishing” ignorance of documents relating to or originating from western Catholic dioceses managed by French clergy—from St. Paul to New Orleans (pp. 19–20). Consequently, during the past decade he has systematically combed a number of archives in France and the American Midwest. With regard to frontier historiography, he assesses at length such trendy concepts as middle ground, borderland, common and contested ground, divided ground, and settler colonial studies, and shows an uncommon grasp of western Métis historiography. Conversely, he makes little reference to previous Catholic literature, except for criticizing Maura Jane Farrelly’s Maryland-centric approach (p. 21). He also relegates French historian Charles Lemarié, who trod on similar ground, to the bibliography and overlooks U.S. historian Robert F. Trisco, who in his book (Rome, 1962) documented Rome’s role in the development of the western church. (It might be that he simply wanted to distance himself from what he considers traditional ecclesiastical history.) In fact, in his book frontier and Catholic historiographies proceed along parallel but separate paths. In Villerbu’s narrative, only American historian Jay P. Dolan seems to provide the bridge between the two when he shows the impact of immigration and frontier conditions on the development of the American Church (pp. 187, 226). While reading Les missions du Minnesota, this reviewer often found himself wondering whether Villerbu’s book was about Minnesota or Catholicism.

From a documentary point of view, Villerbu’s research is impressive. One would wish that he had also looked north of the border—to Red River, for example, or all the way to Rome. But one cannot do it all, and as far as this reviewer can tell, available documentation in those archives does not run counter to any of his arguments. Of course, even a carefully written and edited book such as this could not avoid a few inaccuracies. The Dominican priest Samuel (Samuele) Mazzucchelli went to the United States in 1827, not 1828, and the latest study on Mazzucchelli is Mary N. McGreal’s biography (Notre Dame, 2005), not his Memoirs edited by Archbishop John Ireland (Chicago, 1915). David J. Silverman’s Faith and Boundaries was published in 2005, not 2007. Works by Jennifer H. S. Brown, Michel Pasquier, and Susan Sleeper-Smith are titled incorrectly.

Perhaps contrary to the author’s intention, given his initial emphasis on methodology, ultimately this book is most valuable for the evidence on which its several conclusions are based. The following are a few examples. The debate on mixed marriages has been ideologically marred, and its results must be reassessed by...