Bonds of Alliance: Indigenous and Atlantic Slaveries in New France

Chapter Four: Most of Them Were Sold to the French

193 chapter four most of them were sold to the french In 1742 a small group of Sioux leaders accepted the invitation of Paul Marin, a French trader and minor colonial official, to negotiate an alliance with his governor in Montreal. French-Sioux relations had been turbulent over the previous half century, cycling rapidly from friendship to antipathy and back again. Having sent representatives to Montreal in each of the past two years to little effect, the Sioux were leery of French promises. But recent years had been hard on the Sioux, and an especially devastating raid the year before convinced them they had no choice but to seek French alliance. At the end of a two-month journey from their Upper Mississippi River villages to Montreal, they were introduced by Marin to the governor, Charles de Beauharnois. To underscore the distance they had traveled, the Sioux chiefs announced themselves as the “people from halfway across the world,” explaining that they were prepared to form an alliance if they could be assured protection from their enemies, particularly Crees, Assiniboines, and Monsonis, who had attacked them the previous spring. “More than 160 of our men were killed,” they complained, “not counting the women and children .” As the offending nations were allied to the French, the Sioux leaders hoped the governor could restrain them and arrange some kind of compensation for the grieving families.1 Negotiations began well. Expressing their good fortune to be received by the French governor, the Sioux chiefs offered him a calumet, which he 1. “Nous autres gens de l’autre côté de la moitié de la terre”; “plus de 160 hommes, sans compter les femmes et les enfans”: “Paroles des Sioux, Sakis, Renards, Puants de la pointe de Chagouamigon et Folles Avoines à Monsieur le marquis de Beauharnois,” July 1742, ANOM, Colonies, C11A, LXXXVII, 213–213v. 194 Most of Them Were Sold to the French smoked, “to show you how I wish peace and quiet to reign amongst the Nations of my Children.” But sometime during the next six days a startling encounter changed the tone of the discussions, sending the Sioux emissaries back home in a rage. It might have been at the home of Paul Marin’s brother-in-law, Jean-Baptiste Hervieux, a merchant whose residence on Rue Saint-Paul stood only a few blocks from the governor’s château where the council took place. Three weeks earlier, Hervieux had baptized a new slave: a seven-year-old Sioux girl he called Charlotte after his wife, Charlotte Marin. Or it might have been at the nearby residence of Hervieux’s brother, Louis, who presented his Sioux slave for baptism just a few months earlier. In either case, as the Sioux men interacted with their French hosts, they were shocked to come across Sioux children serving them as slaves. Charging back to the governor’s residence, they demanded an audience. The Sioux reminded the governor that they had come to Montreal offering more than they asked and making no firm demands, a course they would have followed “had we not found two of our children, who started to weep as soon as they saw us.”2 Having passed through a translator and through the selective disclosure of a colonial governor reporting to his superior, the surviving account provides little detail. But even through these filters the anger of the Sioux chiefs is palpable. “We hope, my father, that you will not keep them from us, and that we will be taking them back with us.” For emphasis, their spokesman said again, “I will be satisfied if you would be kind enough to give us our two children, who wept when they saw us.” He then threatened the governor by suggesting that he could not guarantee French safety from his young warriors . “Although I am a chief,” one of the Sioux warned, “the young men do not always obey my will, so I ask you to have pity on me.”3 2. “Mon Pere, nous n’aurions ôsé vous demander aucune grace, si nous n’avions pas trouvé deux de nos Enfans, qui se sont mis a pleurer lors qu’ils nous ont vûs”: “Paroles des Sioux, Sakis, Renards, Puants de la pointe de Chagouamigon et Folles Avoines à Monsieur le marquis de Beauharnois,” ibid. The first Sioux meeting with the governor occurred on July 18, the second on July 24, 1742. For the Sioux slaves, see baptism of Charlotte, “sauvagesse de la nation des...