Historian to Discuss Indian Women and French Men March 1, 2009

Susan Sleeper-Smith, associate professor of history at Michigan State University, will discuss her book Indian Women and French Men: Rethinking Cultural Encounter in the Western Great Lakes (2001, University of Massachusetts Press) at 1 p.m. Sunday, March 1, at the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian, 3001 Central St., Evanston.

The author shows how Great Lakes Indian women who married colonial French fur traders “used a variety of means to negotiate a middle ground between two disparate cultures,” according to the publisher’s Web site. “Many were converts to Catholicism who constructed elaborate mixed-blood kinship networks . . . facilitating the integration of Indian and French values.”

Serving as intermediaries between the two cultures, these Indian women “helped connect the Great Lakes to a larger, expanding transatlantic economy while securing the survival of their own native culture,” the publisher says.

A book review in H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online called Indian Women and French Men “an ambitious work” whose “eloquent use of individual women’s experiences” and compelling use of a wide range of sources make it “an important addition to fur trade scholarship.”

Admission to the talk is included with an entrance donation to the museum. Suggested donation is $5 for adults; $2.50 for seniors, students, and children. Maximum suggested admission per family is $10. For information, phone (847) 475-1030. On the Net: http://www.mitchellmuseum.org.

Official Website: http://www.mitchellmuseum.org