Empire by Collaboration: Indians, Colonists, and Governments in Colonial Illinois Country by Robert Michael Morrissey (review)

Book Reviews 121 norms (by swearing, for example). Additionally, black men, traditionally relegated to the worst jobs or used as strikebreakers, had their own ideas about manliness that factored into racial conflicts that played out on the shop floor as they ascended into previously all-white departments and later organized “RUMs” (revolutionary unions). Meyer’s account flattens out by the 1960s, as he concludes that rough working-class masculinity survives into our present–although in an increasingly dysfunctional manner–even as the remnants of respectability (good union wages and benefits) have been severely undercut by deindustrialization. This account is an incredibly rich social history that creatively taps sources like union grievance proceedings and which includes forays into topics like prostitution and the Ku Klux Klan’s role in World War II “hate strikes.” At the outset, Meyer acknowledges “working class masculine identity had many roots” stemming from social relations not just at work but also in homes and neighborhoods, and with women as well as men (p. 2). While extensively documenting men’s behaviors, and while placing the critical lens squarely on the topic of masculinity, his analysis could further benefit from an increased focus on the underlying mindsets and values that also shaped working-class masculine identity in this particular time and place. Todd M. Michney University of Toledo Robert Michael Morrissey. Empire by Collaboration: Indians, Colonists, and Governments in Colonial Illinois Country. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. Pp. 326. Illustrations. Index. Notes. Cloth: $45.00. Robert Michael Morrissey begins Empire by Collaboration with a fascinating anecdote: in 1772, during a time of revolutionary turmoil, a colonial pamphlet called on the British to provide more government to the borderlands territory that changed hands as a result of the Seven Years’ War. To Morrissey, this idiosyncratic appeal highlights much of Illinois’ history as a region where Indians, colonists, slaves, and imperialists hoped to collaborate and form pragmatic compromises tailored to their unique situations and opportunities. These key Illinois values of “flexibility, pragmatism, and opportunism,” reappear throughout this excellent work (p. 226). 122 The Michigan Historical Review The chapters progress chronologically, and each opens with an anecdote representative of the collaborations necessitated by borderlands situations. The first meetings between the French and Illinois, during the 1673 Marquette and Jolliet expedition, highlight the willingness of the Illinois to shed or adapt lifeways to embrace bison hunting, slaving, and eventually Christianity. The opening vignette in the third chapter regarding the first mixed marriage—the 1694 union of fur trader Michel Accault and Marie, daughter of the Illinois Chief Rouensa—provides the touchstone for a chapter on “an interracial Christian community, around which an idiosyncratic colonial culture would soon develop” (p. 65). Individuals openly flaunted imperial prerogatives by settling in Illinois and marrying Indian women despite the ambiguities regarding the jurisdiction of New France and Louisiana. At other times, they actively pushed to change imperial rulings, examine military rule, and co-opt symbols of authority, often molding these forces to their benefit, as seen in Morrissey’s fascinating examination of the construction of a new garrison called Fort de Chartres in the 1750s. In keeping with recent historiographical contributions from Kathleen du Val and Pekka Hämäläinen, Native American agency and dominance are prevailing themes throughout Empire by Collaboration. The Illinois’ actions and aims frequently either molded or derailed imperial schemes during both the Beaver and Fox wars; such actions were so effective that Illinois chiefs often found allies in Jesuit priests and prominent fur traders and farmers who advocated for the Illinois vision and alliance system rather than plans promoted from New France or Paris. In the fifth chapter, Morrissey aptly demonstrates how the Illinois considered the 1716 peace agreement with the Fox disastrous to their slaving endeavors and forced officials to capitulate on efforts to end the slave trade. In 1725, Illinois chiefs boldly moved to sway official policy against the Fox during a visit to Paris and audience with Louis XV. Such a brief review can hardly do justice to a rich and thoughtprovoking monograph. Though specialists might qualify Morrissey’s insistence on the uniqueness of Illinois history with other regional and historical examples, Empire by Collaboration is...