Slavery in New France

[1] The institution, which endured for almost two centuries, affected thousands of men, women, and children descended from Indigenous and African peoples.

Entrenched in a culture of war, indigenous groups of the Pays d'en Haut relied extensively on warfare that focused on captive-taking, rather than killing.

The process of integration was often cruel and life-threatening and included acts such as the cutting off of fingers or other extremities, nails being torn out, nose cropping, and beatings.

[2] The ritual of captive integration was a public affair, which involved all sections of Indigenous society, including women and children, whose participation was particularly poignant in solidifying the status of the slave, often a captured male warrior, in his new community.

Those surviving being beaten and marked would then undergo humiliating acts, such as undressing and forced singing, to erase former identities further before they were reintegrated into their new community or were ritually tortured and executed.

[2] That often meant that the position of the slave was gendered in a way that pushed men to take on traditionally-female tasks, such as serving meals, providing farm labor, preparing skins, and carrying packs when hunting.

[5] Effectively, this meant Western Natives were strengthening future adversaries in the east, with their own slaves, in a struggle to preserve their land.

French settlers primarily acquired slaves through the process of ritualized gift-giving commonly used to facilitate diplomatic negotiations.

Similarly, African slaves were continuously outnumbered by the enslaved indigenous population that formed the majority of the forced-labor force in New France.

[8] There was much concern that the introduction of African enslavement in Canada would be a costly economic option, citing the major differences in climate as the main reason for its possible failure.

While Louis XIV's authorization of slave imports to New France in response to Denonville's request was granted, the start of the Nine Years' War prevented the establishment of continual trade.

The Code, moreover, extended toward "Panis" slaves in New France, but its legal application and enforcement remained limited due to the close relationship between the French and the native tribes.

[9] In practice, nevertheless, there was a huge gap between the laws written in the Black Code and reality since the large majority of French colonists ignored the existence of the document.

[10] Although newcomers to the region, the Illinois were an influential Algonquian group who were heavily engaged in slave trade practices with the French and with indigenous allies.

[10] Female slaves were delegated tedious tasks such as processing and drying the meat as well as using bison skins for decorative purposes, clothing, and diplomatic gifts.

While the French were eager to move westward and trade with the Foxes, they needed to consider their kinship alliance with the Illinois and other indigenous groups in the Great Lakes region.

After the port of New Orleans was founded in 1718 with access to the plantation colonies of the Caribbean, French colonists imported increased numbers of African slaves to the Illinois Country for use as mining or agricultural laborers.

[11] The Louisbourg in the colony of Île-Royale (Cape Breton & Prince Edward Island) is one city of New France with official records of a black slave community.

What is interesting about Ile Royale is that slaves on the island had a variety of occupations that included being servants, gardeners, bakers, tavern keepers, stonemasons, soldiers, sailors, fisherman and hospital workers.

Some slaves were sent to the Illinois Country, in Upper Louisiana, New France, a part of French North America, to work in the plantation fields and lead mines.

Thousands of people were legally held as slaves in Canada during the colonial period, used as status symbols and servants for wealthy individuals, the local government, and religious organizations including the Grey Nuns.

Yet an account from the Jesuit missionary, Father Isaac Jogues, seems to suggest that revenge and humiliation were also reasons for taking and torturing captives.

He details the ways in which his Iroquois abductors repeatedly beat him with war clubs, tore his fingernails and burned his arms and thighs.

Even though he was ceremoniously adopted by the war chief Aquipaguetin to replace his deceased son, he suffered physical abuse and ridicule from his captors until he was released.

[2] By contrast, French slave-owners did not subject their slaves to undue forms of torture as European understanding of kinship and adoption were radically different from that of indigenous peoples.

[2] The legal document mentions that Joseph spent most of his days trading and negotiating with other free slaves from his neighborhood and that he had access to his slave-owner's canoe and sometimes travelled to the Pays d'en Haut with his native friends.

For example, in 1731 a widow by the name of Marie LeRoy wrote a will expressing that her sauvagesse be given her "'habit de crepon', several 'aulnes' of white cloth with which might make 'coeffes', and a 'jupon' so that she might remember her for the remainder of her life, and live in Christian fashion".

[16] Marie-Joachim was an enslaved Meskwaki (Fox) woman who belonged to Julien Trottier dit Desrivieres, a wealthy merchant of Montreal.

[16] Marie-Marguerite was an enslaved Plains Indian who belonged to Marc-Antoine Huard de Dormicourt, a naval officer from Quebec City.

[7] A side effect of the 1763 Treaty of Paris was that Panis enslavement in North America greatly diminished and eventually disappeared at the turn of the century, most likely due to harsh economic conditions.