Overview

A richly detailed transoceanic history of the early French Empire, illuminating how it became bound by a common legal culture of race-as well as how enslaved and free people critically shaped the development of the colonies. From the beginning of the seventeenth century, French colonies and trading posts sprawled across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In the first pan-imperial history of the early French Empire in the English language, Mélanie Lamotte shows how an increasingly cohesive legal culture came to govern the lives of enslaved and free people of African, Malagasy, South Asian, and Native American descent. She also illuminates the important role played by these populations in the development of the empire, from Louisiana to Guadeloupe, Senegambia, Madagascar, Isle Bourbon, and India. The early French Empire has often been portrayed as a fragmented conglomerate of isolated colonies or regions. Yet Lamotte shows that racial policies issued by the metropole, as well as by officials in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, significantly influenced one another. Rather than focusing on the actions of administrators, however, Lamotte also reveals the extensive influence of people on the ground-especially those of non-European descent. Through their sexuality and their labor, along with their socio-economic and political endeavors, they played a critical role in building the empire and setting its limits. As they sought justice for themselves, strove to protect their kin, and aimed to improve their social conditions, these individuals also pushed against the advancement of white dominion in unexpected ways. Archivally rich and rigorously documented, By Flesh and Toil illuminates the transoceanic connections that united the French colonial world-and recasts people of African, Malagasy, South Asian, and Native American descent as key actors in the story of empire-building.

Full Product Details

9780674272835

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Reviews

Essential reading for every scholar of French colonial history. This monumental study brings together, for the first time, the early history of France's imperial project in both the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. By Flesh and Toil weaves local histories of work, sex, family, and identity into a vast tapestry, showing how French policy shifted from assimilation of indigenous peoples within French Catholic culture to hierarchical policies of privilege and exclusion based on race, gender, and the exploitation of enslaved laborers. -- Sue Peabody, author of <i>Madeleine’s Children: Family, Freedom, Secrets, and Lies in France’s Indian Ocean Colonies</i>

Author Information

Mélanie Lamotte is Assistant Professor of History at Duke University.

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