Flesh Reborn: The Saint Lawrence Valley Mission Settlements Through the Seventeenth Century(McGill-Queen's French Atlantic Worlds Series)

The Saint Lawrence valley, connecting the Great Lakes to the Atlantic, was a crucible of community in the seventeenth century. While the details of how this region emerged as the heartland of French colonial society have been thoroughly outlined by historians, much remains unknown or misunderstood about how it also witnessed the formation of a string of distinct Indigenous communities, several of which persist to this day. Drawing on a range of ethnohistorical sources, Flesh Reborn reconstructs the early history of seventeenth-century mission settlements and of their Algonquin, Innu, Wendat, Iroquois, and Wabanaki founders. Far from straightforward byproducts of colonialist ambitions, these communities arose out of an entanglement of armed conflict, diplomacy, migration, subsistence patterns, religion, kinship, leadership, community-building, and identity formation. The violence and trauma of war, even as it tore populations apart and from their ancestral lands, brought together a great human diversity. By foregrounding Indigenous mission settlements of the Saint Lawrence valley, Flesh Reborn challenges conventional histories of New France and early Canada. It is a comprehensive examination of the foundation of these communities and reveals the fundamental ways they, in turn, shaped the course of war and peace in the region.

About the Author :
Jean-François Lozier teaches history at the University of Ottawa and is a curator at the Canadian Museum of History.

Review :
"Flesh Reborn re-reads the entire process of the creation and reinforcing of Native missions in the Saint Lawrence valley. It is especially welcome as a successful attempt to inject contingency and Native agency into the shop-worn (and teleological) narrative of Native people attracted by religious and secular officials in order to bolster the colony's defences. A bravura piece of research." Thomas Wien, Université de Montréal "Jean-François Lozier's Flesh Reborn is a tour-de-force of original research and interpretation. Lozier traces the origins and evolution of the five major Indigenous communities that formed in the seventeenth-century Saint Lawrence Valley in response to the destructive forces of settler colonialism. Lozier paints a remarkably rich, three-dimensional portrait of these communities, which were always much more than missions, existing alongside rather than under French influence. Appreciating the significance of Native individuals, including women who are often left out of histories of diplomacy and politics, Lozier offers the first satisfying explanation of how these towns became key sites of persistence and creative adaptation for a range of Native peoples not only during the seventeenth century but into the present." French Colonial Historical Society Boucher Book Prize jury "Lozier's remarkable research into the enduring ties that bound the Wendat who resettled in the Saint Lawrence after the Iroquois's destruction of Huronia to relatives within the Iroquois Confederacy illustrates another strength to his approach. His emphasis on Indigenous agency and his insistence on carefully differentiating between various groups makes it possible to understand the social, cultural, kinship, and geopolitical imperatives that shaped the web of connections linking the Wendat and Iroquois in the Saint Lawrence and the Confederacy." University of Toronto Quarterly "Flesh Reborn is essential for scholars of New France and early settler-Indigenous relations throughout North America. [It] is a model of rich archival work and an important examination of the shifting politics of the seventeenth century Northeast." Canadian Journal of History "Lozier worked the well-known sources, approached them with new questions, and produced a book that expands our knowledge of the indigenous Northeast. Flesh Reborn is a signal achievement, well worth the attention of scholars interested in the history of early Canada, Iroquoia, and in general the Native northeast." Ethnohistory "Lozier's narrative demonstrates a command of ethnohistorical analysis – an interdisciplinary approach to Indigenous histories that correlates Indigenous perspectives with colonial records produced by non-Indigenous authors. He sifts through these records to uncover Indigenous worldviews and actions and his analysis both illuminates and provokes further questions." The William and Mary Quarterly « Je dois avouer que je me demandais en quoi Flesh Reborn allait augmenter notre niveau de connaissance. Surprise ! À aucun moment je ne me suis ennuyé. Bref, la lecture du volume de Jean-François Lozier m'a captivé. Ce volume se distingue de la plupart des autres ouvrages de deux manières, à savoir le regard avec lequel les sources ethnohistoriques ont été considérées et la micro-histoire des événements du quotidien, voire des individus. Cette proposition de voir les choses autrement n'en demeure pas moins originale et séduisante. Vivement que ce volume soit traduit en français pour que nos étudiants puissent en saisir toute la finesse. » Érik Langevin, Revue d'histoire de l'amérique française