The Catholic Calumet: Colonial Conversions in French and Indian North America by Tracy Neal Leavelle (review)

148 The Michigan Historical Review incomplete. For example, while Leary specifically addresses Cook’s antiSemitism , she fails to discuss his antipathy toward African Americans. Cook believed that blacks represented “a reproach to the nation, a menace to the Republic, an impassable class barrier, an injury to the character of the Southern white himself” (American Institutions, 1: 193). Industrialization in the South would be the “opening wedge for a new social and industrial reorganization, eliminating the negro” (American Institutions, 2: 196). Incapable of factory work, blacks would disappear. Clearly defensive about Cook’s racism, Leary cautions against judging him by today’s standards but fails to heed her own advice. She hails Cook’s gifts for making Michigan Law “strong enough to lead the nation in creating a diverse education environment that welcomes students of all races, nationalities, and economic circumstances” (p. 230). Yet Cook would have been horrified by that legacy. Had he known what was in store, he would not have given a dime to his alma mater. It is a good thing that he lacked prescience. Mark E. Steiner South Texas College of Law Tracy Neal Leavelle. The Catholic Calumet: Colonial Conversions in French and Indian North America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. Pp. 255. Appendix. Illustrations. Index. Notes. Cloth, $39.95. Tracy Neal Leavelle’s The Catholic Calumet navigates readers through a world of physical and metaphorical waterways, where the crossing of European and indigenous spiritualities created both mutual understanding and tempestuous conflict. Leavelle pushes beyond the traditional focus on seventeenth-century Jesuit missions to the Huron by moving into the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and studying Native groups in the pays d’en haut: the Ottawa, Illinois, Wyandot, Peoria, and other Native Peoples who inhabited the dynamic lands surrounding the Great Lakes. The author offers a more nuanced understanding of religious interaction by rejecting the simple binaries of total conversion and violent resistance and exploring the wide range of responses to Christianity in the region that Richard White famously dubbed the “middle ground.” Leavelle organizes her book thematically, with opening chapters discussing comparative origin stories, the transformation of the spiritual Book Reviews 149 landscape, and Jesuit and Indian perceptions of one another. Her final chapters, which focus on linguistic exchange, conversions, gender and generational divides, and the development of Christian Indian communities, are much stronger and more original. Some of Leavelle’s sources are familiar, most notably the Jesuit Relations, produced by Jesuit missionaries. However, she has also incorporated wonderfully rich archival material, such as prayer books and dictionaries in the Illinois language produced by Claude Allouez, Jacques Gravier, and Jean Baptiste Le Boulanger. These sources form the basis for Leavelle’s excellent chapter on linguistic translation, which explains how Jesuits tried to render the Our Father, the Apostles’ Creed, and the Hail Mary into indigenous languages. This linguistic transformation relied upon Native interpreters and idioms, producing an indigenized set of sacred prayers that spoke to the unique challenges of Illinois Christianity. Leavelle’s organizing strategy is generally effective, but she might have established clearer continuity between the themes of each chapter. In addition, although the book is eloquently written, there are instances where the prose seems laden with excessive jargon. For example, the phrase “moral geography” is used repeatedly in the chapter on spiritual landscapes, but Leavelle never specifically explains the connection between geography and morality. Another weakness is the chapter on comparative origin stories. She deftly describes Indian origin stories, but then spends too much time on early Jesuit leaders rather than discussing whether Judeo-Christian origin stories paralleled Indian ones. Indian neophytes were likely much more interested in Judeo-Christian origin myths, including tales about the genesis of beasts and man, explanations of evil, and the story of Christ. These issues arise as the book progresses—Jesuits frequently referred to non-Christian Indian communities as Babylonian wastelands and Indians sometimes talked about Christ as a healer or warrior—but this chapter would have been stronger if the author had paid more attention to the ways in which Indians responded to or wrestled with Judeo-Christian origin stories rather than including early Jesuit pioneers leaders without explaining their significance to Indians. 150...