Great Lakes Creoles: A French-Indian Community on the Northern Borderlands, Prairie du Chien, 1750–1860 by Lucy Eldersveld Murphy (review)

LUCY ELDERSVELD MURPHY’S Great Lakes Creoles is a wonderful, nuanced study of the creolization and integration of the community of Prairie du Chien into the American settler-colonial state. Murphy describes Prairie du Chien as a dynamic space, shifting from Meskwaki village to French trading center to an American outpost by the early nineteenth century. Murphy’s study is primarily concerned with the “Creole” population at Prairie du Chien. She uses the term “Creole” to describe people of mixed French–Native American ancestry. Through exhaustive archival research, Great Lakes Creoles delves deeply into the history of power, governance, and identity at Prairie du Chien.

The book’s use of footnotes allows scholars to quickly find sources and follow along with Murphy’s research. Her exploration of smaller archives, like the Prairie du Chien Historical Society, and use of genealogy in addition to the larger collections at the Newberry Library in Chicago and Wisconsin Historical Society, provides multiple lenses of analysis. The book moves quickly and Murphy’s arguments are clear.

Prairie du Chien Creoles developed a variety of strategies to maintain self-governance, wield autonomy, and integrate into the American system as their percentage of the population decreased in the face of Anglo-American settlement. Murphy’s work rests on three main points: that Creoles maintain ties to their the lands surrounding Prairie du Chien through their Native ancestry; that Creoles participated in American politics and thus “avoided being racialized because of democratic political realities”; and that American settler-colonialism affected Creole men and women differently (22).

Murphy also positions the book as a comparative borderlands history. She questions why the Prairie du Chien Creole population was able to avoid racialization when both the Hispanic populations along the Mexico–United States border and the Métis population in Canada were unable to do so. Murphy argues that the Creole population at Prairie du Chien was able to assimilate and avoid racial discrimination because of the initial small numbers of white Anglo-American settlers in the region. In order to make sure the Creole population sided with the Americans rather than their Native American kin, the Anglo-Americans incorporated the Creoles into American governmental structures through juries and democratic elections.

Power is also a major theme. As Murphy describes, power is the authority over others as well as autonomy, “the power over oneself” (21). The first four chapters analyze the changing demographics at Prairie du Chien and their effects on the power dynamics of the community. French traders married into Native families, gaining access to Native trading partners and land. While Americans recognized Frenchmen as the official titleholders of the land, Native women and children maintain their connections to the land through their Native heritage. Murphy writes, “The settlement at Prairie du Chien was both a Native place and a site of colonization; a foothold for the conquerors and but also a reserve for Native descendants” (63).

Because the American system incorporated the Creole population into the political life of Prairie du Chien, Creoles had little reason to revolt against the federal government, unlike the Métis population in Canada. Incorporating Creole men into the American system allowed the Americans to legally legitimize their claims to Native lands surrounding Prairie du Chien.

While women were positioned to be cultural and social mediators between their tribes and incoming Anglo-Americans, these women were also losing official authority over their land. The introduction of the United States shifted the social dynamics of these kinship units by further reducing legal protections of women.

Chapters 5 and 6 explore the Creole world after the Creole population became a minority population at Prairie du Chien. The Americans no longer needed the Creoles to maintain their authority. Native American kinship ties were further strained as Anglo-Americans pressured and eventually forced Native groups from Prairie du Chien. The Creole population avoided such removal...