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WORK TITLE: St. Louis Rising
WORK NOTES: with Sharon K. Person
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1938
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE:
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http://www.illinoisauthors.org/authors/Carl_J._Ekberg
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1938, in St. Paul, MN.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Historian, professor, and writer. Illinois State University, Normal, IL, professor emeritus of history.
AWARDS:Kemper and Leila Williams Prize for best book on Louisiana history for French Roots in the Illinois Country.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Carl J. Ekberg and Sharon K. Person have collaborated on the historical academic book St. Louis Rising: The French Regime of Louis St. Ange de Bellerive, which tells an alternative version of St. Louis’ founding. Born in 1938, Ekberg is a historian and writer, and is professor emeritus of history at Illinois State University. He specializes in Upper Louisiana in colonial times before Lewis and Clark arrived in the Mississippi River Valley. Ekberg has published numerous books on French settlement in Illinois and the Mississippi frontier, including French Roots in the Illinois Country: The Mississippi Frontier in Colonial Times, which discusses Illinois country, populated by French Creole communities, as having its own ethnic, economic, and cultural identity. Ekberg presents unique social and agrarian practices including medieval-style open-field farming, flour trade between Illinois and New Orleans, and different values between French Creoles and Anglo-Americans. He also wrote the award-winning Colonial Ste. Genevieve: An Adventure on the Mississippi Frontier in 2014. The book explores colonial life in the old French frontier town located south of St. Louis. Ste. Genevieve was populated by French Creoles and American Indians in the Mississippi Valley.
Based in St. Louis, Missouri, Person is a professor of English specializing in English as a Second Language at St. Louis Community College. She holds a master’s degree in history from the University of Missouri-St. Louis and a master’s degree in teaching English as a second language from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. In 2010, she published Standing Up for Indians: Baptism Registers as an Untapped Source for Multicultural Relations in St. Louis, 1766-1821, which utilizes baptism records to document the persistence of Indian slavery in early St. Louis. She also discusses the prevalence of interbreeding between French, American, African American, and Native people at the time.
Ekberg published the 2007 Stealing Indian Women: Native Slavery in the Illinois Country. The book draws on original source material and colonial depositions from America, France, and Spain to detail slavery of Indian women who were captives of Illinois tribes and the role of a mixed-blood woodsman named Céladon in race and gender relations. Writing in Journal of Southern History, F. Todd Smith commented that Ekberg completes his study of the region by “providing a much fuller understanding of colonial life in the upper Mississippi Valley.”
In 2015, Ekberg and Person collaborated on St. Louis Rising, in which they use new source materials and archival documents to correct history and place less emphasis on the roles of fur traders Pierre Laclède and Auguste Chouteau in the founding of St. Louis and more focus on French government officials at the settlement and military commandant Louis St. Ange de Bellerive for shaping early city society. The authors trace the history of the area from the first arrival of the French on the Mississippi. “Ekberg and Person’s thorough, well-researched monograph illustrates a more complete picture of the settlement of St. Louis than previously available,” declared M.W. Quirk in Choice.
The authors also describe how in Illinois country in the 1776 census, widows were considered heads of households, which highlights the roles of women in addition to the famous Madame Chouteau. Writing in Michigan’s Habitant Heritage, reviewer Suzanne Boivin Sommerville remarked: “This emphasis on individuals and families is a welcome feature throughout the book, enabling readers to see day to day lives in the settlements on the Mississippi River.” Although decrying the lack of attention to the region’s Native people in the book, Jacob F. Lee commented in Journal of Southern History, “Like Ekberg’s best work, St. Louis Rising combines exhaustive research in French-language sources with a detailed understanding of colonial society in the Illinois Country to challenge received wisdom and misconceptions about the region.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Choice, October, 2015. M.W. Quirk, review of St. Louis Rising: The French Regime of Louis St. Ange de Bellerive, p. 307.
Journal of Southern History, 2004 C. David Rice, review of François Vallé and His World: Upper Louisiana before Lewis and Clark, p. 416;2008, F. Todd Smith, review of Stealing Indian Women: Native Slavery in the Illinois Country, p. 947; 2016, Jacob F. Lee, review of St. Louis Rising, p. 656.
Reference & Research Book News, November, 2007, review of Stealing Indian Women.
ONLINE
Illinois Authors Web site, http://www.illinoisauthors.org/ (March 1, 2017), biography of Carl Ekberg.
Michigan’s Habitant Heritage, http://habitantheritage.org (March 20, 2017), review of St. Louis Rising.*
Carl Ekberg is a professor emeritus of history at Illinois State University. His many books include A French Aristocrat in the American West: The Shattered Dreams of Delassus de Luzières and Stealing Indian Women: Native Slavery in the Illinois Country, and he is a two-time winner of the Kemper and Leila Williams Prize.
Carl J. Ekberg
Contents
1 General Information
2 Illinois Connection
3 Biographical and Professional Information
4 Published Works
5 Titles at Your Library
6 Literary Awards
7 Speaking Engagements and Upcoming Appearances
8 External Links
9 Editing
General Information
File:Ekberg Carl J.jpg
Name: Carl J. Ekberg
Pen Name: None
Born: 1938 in St Paul, Minnesota
Website: N/A
Email: cekberg@IllinoisState.edu
Illinois Connection
Ekberg is a professor emeritus at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois.
Biographical and Professional Information
Carl J. Ekberg is a professor emeritus at Illinois State University and an expert on the French in colonial Illinois. He is the author of many books, including the award-winning Colonial Ste. Genevieve and French Roots in the Illinois Country: The Mississippi Frontier in Colonial Times. He has also edited An Account of Upper Louisiana and Early Modern Europe: A Book of Source Readings.
Published Works
The Failure of Louis XIV's Dutch War, 1979
A Cultural, Geographical, and Historical Study of the Pine Ford Lake Project Area, Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and St, Francois Counties, Missouri, 1981 - written with Edward P. Jelks and Joan I. Unsicker
LaSalle and his Legacy: Fenchmen and Indians in the Lower Mississippi Valley, 1982
Colonial Ste. Genevieve, French Roots in the Illinois Country, Patrice Press, 1985 - reprinted 2014
Excavations at the Laurens Site: probable location of Ford De Chartres, 1989 - written with Edward B. Jelks and Terrance J. Martin
The Legacy: A Survey of the Historical Architecture of the Town of Normal, 1998 - written with Ann Patton Malone and William D. Walters
French Roots in the Illinois Country: The Mississippi Frontier in Colonial Times, University of Illinois Press, 1998
Francois Valle and His World: Upper Louisiana Before Lewis and Clark, University of Missouri Press, 2002
Louis Bolduc: His Family and His House, 2002 - written with Anton J. Pregaldin
Code Noir: The Colonial Slave Laws of French Mid-America, 2005 - written with Grady Kilman and Pierre Lebeau
Stealing Indian Women: Native Slavery in the Illinois Country, University of Illinois Press, 2007
A French Aristocrat in the American West: The Shattered Dreams of De Lassus De Luzières, University of Missouri, 2010
The Failure of Louis XIV's Dutch War, University of North Carolina Press, 2011
St. Louis Rising: The French Regime of Lois St. Ange de Bellerive, University of Illinois Press, 2015 - written with Sharon K. Person
LC control no.: n 82012230
Personal name heading:
Ekberg, Carl J.
Found in: Rowen, H. H. Early modern Europe.
Colonial Ste. Genevieve, c1996: t.p. (Carl J. Ekberg) p.
[517] (b. 1938, St. Paul, Minn.)
A French aristocrat in the American West, c2010: t.p. (Carl
J. Ekberg) jkt. flap (Carl J. Ekberg; professor emeritus
of history at Illinois State University)
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St. Louis Rising: The French Regime of Louis St. Ange de Bellerive
Jacob F. Lee
Journal of Southern History. 82.3 (Aug. 2016): p656.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Southern Historical Association
http://www.uga.edu/~sha
Full Text:
St. Louis Rising: The French Regime of Louis St. Ange de Bellerive. By Carl J. Ekberg and Sharon K. Person. (Urbana and other cities: University of Illinois Press, 2015. Pp. [xvi], 326. Paper, $29.00, ISBN 978-0-252-08061-6; cloth, $95.00, ISBN 978-0-252-03897-6.)
In 1804 fur trader Auguste Chouteau penned a famous narrative of the establishment of St. Louis, which, according to Chouteau, he and his stepfather, Pierre Laclede Liguest, had cofounded forty years earlier. With great foresight, Laclede and the teenage Chouteau identified a prime location, cleared and surveyed the land, and set the city on its course to become the hub of the Missouri River fur trade. In St. Louis Rising: The French Regime of Louis St. Ange de Bellerive, Carl J. Ekberg and Sharon K. Person argue that Chouteau's reminiscences were an exercise more in mythmaking and self-promotion than in history. Moving beyond Chouteau's oft-cited account, Ekberg and Person tell a richer story of St. Louis's founding and its emergence as the commercial center of Middle America.
Divided into two halves, St. Louis Rising is a study of the Grotton-St. Ange family in the Illinois Country from 1720 to 1770 and a social history of early St. Louis. In the first part, Ekberg and Person document the careers of French officer Robert Grotton-St. Ange and his son, Louis St. Ange de Bellerive, two of the most capable and longest-tenured French officials in the Illinois Country. In 1765 the son transferred the Illinois Country to Great Britain and then administered St. Louis until Spain took possession in 1770. The second half provides an in-depth look at early St. Louis with thematic chapters on architecture, law, slavery, material culture, and the fur trade. Most histories of St. Louis emphasize the centrality of the fur trade to the town's founding and growth, but drawing on underused St. Louis notarial archives, Ekberg and Person uncover the world that existed beyond the commerce in peltries. Particularly compelling is their analysis of the effects of the Coutume de Paris on social life and business endeavors in St. Louis.
Like Ekberg's best work, St. Louis Rising combines exhaustive research in French-language sources with a detailed understanding of colonial society in the Illinois Country to challenge received wisdom and misconceptions about the region. In highlighting the Grotton-St. Ange family, Ekberg and Person demonstrate the importance of two little-known officials. Additionally, the authors provide a skilled examination of the everyday life of French colonists in early St. Louis. The book reveals an orderly colony that was governed according to French laws and customs. It was a far cry from the stereotypical lawless frontier outpost.
Unfortunately, Ekberg and Person fail to apply the same level of acuity to the region's Native peoples. In this book, Indian nations serve as little more than pawns in an imperial struggle between France and Great Britain. Rather than pursuing their own ambitions and interests, in this analysis Native nations were merely "provoked," "sometimes led," and "incited by" Europeans (pp. 30, 40, 69). Recent scholarship has shown the array of factors that influenced Native decisions and actions, but those insights are absent here. Additionally, beyond enslaved Indians living in colonial households, Native peoples are largely missing from Ekberg and Person's exploration of early life in St. Louis. Indians from throughout the region regularly visited the town for commercial and diplomatic purposes. A town of Peoria Indians even sat across a small stream from the fledgling village. These and other Indians rarely appear in St. Louis Rising, which instead depicts St. Louis as "the most thoroughly French community in the Mississippi River valley" (p. 217). These omissions diminish the overall success of St. Louis Rising, but anyone interested in the Illinois Country or early St. Louis will find much of value in this book.
JACOB F. LEE
Indiana University, Bloomington
Lee, Jacob F.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Lee, Jacob F. "St. Louis Rising: The French Regime of Louis St. Ange de Bellerive." Journal of Southern History, vol. 82, no. 3, 2016, p. 656+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA460447759&it=r&asid=8bef81d70b16e05996ae8aacd95e6e68. Accessed 24 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A460447759
Ekberg, Carl J.: St. Louis rising: the French regime of Louis St. Ange de Bellerive
M.W. Quirk
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. 53.2 (Oct. 2015): p307.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2015 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
Full Text:
Ekberg, Carl J. St. Louis rising: the French regime of Louis St. Ange de Bellerive, by Carl J. Ekberg and Sharon K. Person. Illinois, 2015. 326p index afp ISBN 9780252038976 cloth, $95.00; ISBN 9780252080616 pbk, $29.00; ISBN 9780252006938 ebook, contact publisher for price
53-0936
F544
2014-31907
CIP
Ekberg (enter., history, Illinois State Univ.) and Person (English, St. Louis Community College) seek to correct what they see as one of the worst fallacies of scholarship surrounding the settlement of St. Louis--the importance placed on the roles of Pierre Laclede and Auguste Chouteau. For students of historiography, this is a classic scholarly "who done it." Through incredibly thorough archival research, Ekberg and Person are able to paint a more accurate picture of the actions of prominent officials in the settlement of St. Louis. Their research reveals a lesser-known figure in the city's early history, who, according to archival sources, was a central figure in the French settlement: Louis St. Ange de Bellerive, a military commandant responsible for many of the policies and decisions that allowed St. Louis to prosper. As interesting as Bellerive's role are the historiographic decisions, traceable to the early 20th century, that resulted in his diminution in the story of St. Louis's development. Ekberg and Person's thorough, well-researched monograph illustrates a more complete picture of the settlement of St. Louis than previously available. Combined with Robert Michael Morrissey's Empire by Collaboration (2015, Choice review forthcoming), this book marks a significant advancement in the history of French colonization in Illinois. Summing Up: *** Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.--M. W. Quirk, Rock Valley College
Quirk, M.W.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Quirk, M.W. "Ekberg, Carl J.: St. Louis rising: the French regime of Louis St. Ange de Bellerive." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Oct. 2015, p. 307. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA431198523&it=r&asid=57767f0d7accc696a8a2e50c4f52813d. Accessed 24 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A431198523
Stealing Indian Women: Native Slavery in the Illinois Country
F. Todd Smith
Journal of Southern History. 74.4 (Nov. 2008): p947.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2008 Southern Historical Association
http://www.uga.edu/~sha
Full Text:
Stealing Indian Women: Native Slavery in the Illinois Country. By Carl J. Ekberg. (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, c. 2007. Pp. [xviii], 236. $38.00, ISBN 978-0-252-03208-0.)
In three prior works Carl J. Ekberg, through mastery of colonial archives and superior analysis, has proved himself to be the unchallenged expert on the Illinois Country, an area where people of French, Indian, and African descent established communities such as Kaskaskia, Ste. Genevieve, and St. Louis on both banks of the Mississippi River during the eighteenth century. Whereas Ekberg has previously focused on the French and French-Creole (American-born) settlers of Illinois, in the work under review he investigates the enslavement of Native Americans in the region, thus adding valuable insights to the burgeoning topic of Indian servitude throughout North America and providing a much fuller understanding of colonial life in the upper Mississippi Valley.
In Part 1 Ekberg demonstrates that the French settlers of Upper Louisiana, unlike the British in South Carolina, did not instigate the traffic in Indian slaves but instead accepted Missouri Valley native captives from the nearby Illinois tribes as a means of cementing a military and economic alliance. Most of the captives were women, many of whom formed relationships with solitary Frenchmen, resulting in a number of metis (mixed-blood) women who were deemed acceptable marriage partners during the second generation of French settlement. Despite the availability of Indian captives, the French settlers preferred African slaves to work the European-style open fields, and blacks were worth about twice as much as their native counterparts. Thus, by the mid-eighteenth century black slaves composed nearly one-third of the total population of Illinois, while Indian slaves made up only about one-tenth of the people living in the French communities; black males outnumbered black females, but the opposite was true among the native slaves. Following the Seven Years' War, Spain obtained Louisiana west of the Mississippi, and the Bourbon officials abolished Indian slavery throughout the colony. Many French settlers, uneasy with the British rulers now in charge of the east bank, moved across the river, leading to the expansion of St. Louis and Ste. Genevieve. While most of Lower Louisiana--already dominated by black slavery--accepted the new Spanish laws without much complaint, Ekberg shows how traders in St. Louis, a town dependent on the Indian traffic in furs and captives, circumvented the Bourbon rules by classifying their slaves by skin color rather than by "racial rubrics" (p. 91).
In Part 2 Ekberg employs detailed colonial depositions to tell the story of Celadon, a metis born of an Indian woman and a French father. Celadon crossed from Spanish Ste. Genevieve to British Kaskaskia with a party of revelers in the spring of 1773. Soon after the party returned to Ste. Genevieve, he went back to Kaskaskia and kidnapped an Indian slave woman, intending to take her with him to a hunting camp in the Missouri outback. After she died under mysterious circumstances, Celadon made off with another slave woman--who, the author demonstrates, was actually an Indian, though unclassified by Spanish officials--owned by a Ste. Genevieve widow. Ekberg then concludes that Francois Valle, the Frenchman in charge of Spanish Ste. Genevieve, did not fully pursue the case partly because of his own involvement in the dubious practice of Indian slavery. Ultimately, Ekberg uses the Celadon affair to demonstrate that colonial Illinois was an inclusive frontier where transracial socializing was viewed as neither unusual nor reprehensible. He also uses the case to reinforce the point he has made in his previous works, that society in the Illinois Country "was a good bit more civilized than that of the immediate trans-Appalachian frontier, if civilization means rule of law, respected civil authorities, established churches, comprehensive civil and religious records, and creature comforts ... reflecting a fairly elevated standard of material existence" (p. 187).
Regrettably, Ekberg claims that this is his final book on the Illinois Country. One wishes that he would investigate the remaining unexamined group in Upper Louisiana, the black slaves. Then his fine work on the colonial upper Mississippi Valley would be complete.
F. TODD SMITH
University of North Texas
Smith, F. Todd
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Smith, F. Todd. "Stealing Indian Women: Native Slavery in the Illinois Country." Journal of Southern History, vol. 74, no. 4, 2008, p. 947+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA189703329&it=r&asid=32418869e6861ada1f3e755e2d5c37d3. Accessed 24 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A189703329
Stealing Indian women; native slavery in the Illinois Country
Reference & Research Book News. 22.4 (Nov. 2007):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2007 Ringgold, Inc.
http://www.ringgold.com/
Full Text:
9780252032080
Stealing Indian women; native slavery in the Illinois Country.
Ekberg, Carl J.
U. of Illinois Press
2007
236 pages
$38.00
Hardcover
E98
Focusing specifically on the French regime in North America, up to 1763, Ekberg (emeritus history, Illinois State U.) describes Indian slavery in Upper Louisiana during the 100 years between the late 17th and late 18th century. In addition to the economic and political conditions and the cultural context of French and Spanish expansion and domination, he discusses the personal experiences of native women slaves along the Mississippi River.
([c]20072005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Stealing Indian women; native slavery in the Illinois Country." Reference & Research Book News, Nov. 2007. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA172604190&it=r&asid=16a29f49d3ce5db12ee3df2ac9da051a. Accessed 24 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A172604190
Francois Valle and His World: Upper Louisiana before Lewis and Clark
C. David Rice
Journal of Southern History. 70.2 (May 2004): p416.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2004 Southern Historical Association
http://www.uga.edu/~sha
Full Text:
Francois Valle and His World: Upper Louisiana before Lewis and Clark. By Carl J. Ekberg. Missouri Biography Series. (Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, c. 2002. Pp. [xx], 316. $44.95, ISBN 0-8262-1418-5.)
Francois Valle was a major figure in the French settlement and development of upper Louisiana, and his career and contributions to the colony, particularly the town of Sainte Genevieve (later, Missouri), are well documented in this biography by Carl J. Ekberg.
Working with limited official and clerical sources and disadvantaged by an absence of documents from the hand of his "illiterate" subject, Ekberg nevertheless presents a shrewd and accommodating Valle, providing in the process another excellent example of the entrepreneur as pioneer and developer in French and Spanish Louisiana in the eighteenth century. Indeed, Valle's successes as "voyageur," fur trader, lead miner, agrarian capitalist, slave owner, and government official made him the wealthiest and most consequential figure in upper Louisiana well before his death in 1783.
Valle, of French Canadian origin, crossed the Mississippi from Kaskaskia in the late 1750s to launch a remarkable career. Constructing his fortune in commercial agriculture through the acquisition and cultivation of substantial land on the Grand Champ, he also became the largest slave owner in the region and continued his earlier interest in lead mining. As was the case with other successful entrepreneurs in upper Louisiana, Valle involved his family in his business and governmental activities. His marriage to Marianne Billeron produced a formidable partnership in itself as well as several sons and a daughter. One son, Jean-Baptiste Valle, inherited much of his father's business acumen and continued to expand the family fortunes on the foundations established by the elder Valle. Like other entrepreneurs, Valle nourished mutually beneficial trade and financial relations with other prominent French families, making the most of marriage alliances and cultural ties to enhance business opportunities.
Ekberg correctly emphasizes the importance of the official connections established by the Valles with the Spanish colonial authorities after 1764. Accepting responsibilities in the militia and for several civic functions in the area, the Valles turned government patronage to economic advantage.
Also of interest is the picture Ekberg provides of African slavery in upper Louisiana before the American period. Glimpses of Valle's considerable slave population, as reflected in census and church records, indicate a more complicated and multilayered society, black and white, than might have been anticipated in such a small community.
In an eventful career from boatman to Spanish don, Francois Valle was an agent of European civilization in upper Louisiana, if not by design, then certainly by circumstance. Students of the period will profit from Ekberg's thorough and thoughtful biography.
C. DAVID RICE
Central Missouri State University
Rice, C. David
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Rice, C. David. "Francois Valle and His World: Upper Louisiana before Lewis and Clark." Journal of Southern History, vol. 70, no. 2, 2004, p. 416+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA117423107&it=r&asid=708275ebca9cb265467603f2d52bc211. Accessed 24 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A117423107
Review of Carl J. Ekberg and Sharon K. Person, St. Louis Rising: The French Regime of Louis St. Ange de Bellerive Suzanne Boivin Sommerville, FCHSM member, s.sommerville@sbcglobal.net Every once in a while, a genealogist, an independent scholar, or a historian “upsets the applecart,” so to speak, by doing original research that challenges the perceived wisdom of published sources about an individual, an event, a place, or a period in history.1 Carl J. Ekberg and Sharon K. Person, in St. Louis Rising: The French Regime of Louis St. Ange de Bellerive, 2 succeed splendidly in disrupting the status quo and setting the record straight about influences that resulted in the founding of St. Louis, Missouri. Challenges like this are not always readily accepted, but, as Gilles Havard has written, “Error and change are part and parcel of the historian’s craft."3 The reviewer on the publisher's page gives this description: Drawing on a wealth of new source materials, Ekberg and Person reexamine the complexities of politics, Indian affairs, marriage customs, slavery, the role of women, and material culture that characterized the 1760s. Their alternative version of the oft-told tale of St. Louis's founding places the event within the context of Illinois Country society.4 What this review and other reviews I have seen do not say is that the Illinois Country society that developed on the Mississippi River was forged in the mother colony on the St. Lawrence River in the society of New France, not in France, a badly needed re-vision of the founding culture of St. Louis. After an Introduction that convincingly examines the facts “Beyond the Laclède – Chouteau Legend,” the “traditional” founding story, the book is divided into two main parts: “Part I. St. Ange de Bellerive and the Illinois Country” and “Part II. Contours of Village Life.” A Conclusion is titled “St. Louis and the Wider World,” followed by Appendix A, “St. Louis Counts,” which presents the 1766 census preceded by a discussion of the census itself. I was particularly interested in this observation. In the Illinois Country, widows were considered heads of households, and the May 1766 census
confirms this for St. Louis. The presence of such matriarchs dramatically alters traditional accounts of early St. Louis, which have generally focused only on Madame Chouteau.5 The “matriarchs” are named and precious details given about their lives. This emphasis on individuals and families is a welcome feature throughout the book, enabling readers to see day to day lives in the settlements on the Mississippi River. Included among the families of interest to relatives in the modernday Detroit River Region is that of Louis Deshêtres and his wife, Thérèse Damours de Louvières, daughter of Marie Josèphe de Tonty, 6 early residents of St. Louis. Appendix B is the Indian Slave Census of 1770.
All of Part I is fascinating reading as it presents the history of the area from the first arrival of the French on the Mississippi, with its main focus on the lives of Robert Grotton de St. Ange, his wife, and his sons, especially Louis Grotton de St. Ange and de Bellerive. Part I, Chapter 1, “Fort d’Orléans and the Grotton-St. Ange Family,” narrates the story of the voyage up the Missouri River Valley in 1714 by Étienne Veniard de Bourgmont7 and his later founding of Fort d’Orléans in 1723. Robert Grotton de St. Ange served there with his second wife, Élisabeth Chorel de St. Romain. I do not know how you imagine life in the mid-1720s in such a remote outpost of New France, but documents recently discovered allow the authors to provide this description: [Robert] lived there as lord and master of the manor. If Élisabeth wore fancy French clothes [described earlier], Robert washed down his bison steak or short ribs with red wine transported from France. Indian slaves from western tribes served Élisabeth and Robert as domestic servants. … [F]our thousand miles away [from Robert’s native France] … he was living like [an aristocrat] … and his sons Pierre and Louis were stationed there as well.8 Chapter 2 of Part I presents “The Rise of Louis St. Ange de Bellerive” with equally surprising and significant details from the primary document manuscripts instead of from the secondary sources that have been considered authoritative until now. Most importantly, the authors treat individuals and families with great humanity and respect, not using them solely as representing proof to demonstrate a preordained thesis. “The Coutume de Paris Rules,” Chapter 7 in Part II, is particularly valuable in fleshing out the lives of individuals and families. Not just a description of the legal system that had been established since 1663 in New France, this chapter mentions specific and ordinary people “going about marrying, buying and selling property, and making arrangements for old age and death.”9 That this society that became St. Louis followed the Custom of Paris is another aspect that marks it as a descendant of New France, not France, which at that time could have been governed by several different “customs”. Women, especially, profited from this legal system. I can touch on only a few wonderful aspects of this book in such a short review, but not least of its qualities is its writing style. I found myself underlining or starring passages that impressed me. Although the authors rarely indulge in speculation, this passage (avowedly a guess) rang true to me. It is entirely plausible that Louis St. Ange de Bellerive, commandant of Upper Louisiana, named the new outpost after his patron saint, St. Louis (King Louis IX), and that he did so in the summer of 1765.10 Readers will profit from spending time in careful examination of the many maps, plans, and illustrations (some of them of original manuscripts), as well as the center section of color plates, all chosen to complement the text. Thank you, Carl Ekberg and Sharon Person, for writing this important book. One reading of it has not been enough for me! I will return to it again and again.