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Suzanna Melendez
10/28/16
Polished Paragraph
Prior to the 1970s, American women’s history tended to be neglected furthermore, scholarship focusing on native women was non-existent. Not until the 1980s, did scholars begin to focus on interracial marriages. Throughout my paper, I will focus on French men and Native American women. The reader will differentiate my historiography from other works because my research will mainly focus on Native womens’ experiences and intentions to marry outside their own race. In addition, I will also include a variety of sources focusing on marriages between Indian women and Spanish men in Mexico. It is important to take into consideration the lack of primary sources. During the nineteenth century, majority of women were illiterate and did not record their history. As a result, I had to read around my topic and look at other kinds of interracial marriages in order to put together a robust historiography.
The historical synthesis and methods utilized by scholars are government documents, travel journals, historic maps, and manuscripts. While majority of my sources addressed topics such as gender, economics, politics, and geography the issue of race appeared in every text. In Barbara Fields essay Ideology and Race in American History she addressed how historians have approached race and racism. One of her questions is how the concept of race came to be deeply embedded into our society? The concept of race is a complicated subject matter because an individual’s physical traits did not discourage interracial marriages. In Susan Sleeper- Smith Indian Women and French Men: Rethinking Cultural Encounter in the Western Great Lakes highlights the high number of mixed-blood kinships which unified Indian women and French men. Women not only worked as brokers between two different societies but they helped connect the Great Lakes which expanded the transatlantic economy. By reading Sleeper’s narrative I identified that Indian women’s actions mainly impacted their husband’s interests. Further research by Sylvia Van Kirk in Many Tender Ties: Women in the Fur-trade Society, 1670-1870 tried to identify how native women benefited from an interracial marriage. She provided in depth details about family life among the Native Americans. During the early 18th century, marriages between French men and Native women were encouraged. But there are debates among scholars as to the date and reason interracial marriages were disapproved by French aristocrats. By the 19th century, physical traits began to be emphasized opposing differences between and discouraging French-Indian relationships. Therefore, are there other components that attributed toward the disproval of mix raced relationships? Although French men wanted political and economic alliances these correspondences began to represent a form of dishonor. Guillaume Aubert’s article The Blood of France: Race and Purity in the French Atlantic World highlights the criticism of interracial relationships. Despite economic and political gains, the social construct a racial hierarchy interfered. Overall, can an emphasis on race reveal an accurate account of native women’s experience in an interracial marriage and the lives of their multiracial children?