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French Africans in Ojibwe Country: Negotiating Marriage, Identity and Race, 1780-1890

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French Africans in Ojibwe Country: Negotiating Marriage, Identity and Race, 1780-1890 French Africans in Ojibwe Country: Negotiating Marriage, Identity and Race, 1780-1890 by Mattie Marie Harper A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnic Studies and the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Thomas Biolsi, Chair Professor Beth Piatote Professor Brian DeLay Fall 2012 Abstract French Africans in Ojibwe Country: Negotiating Marriage, Identity and Race, 1780-1890 by Mattie Marie Harper Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnic Studies and the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality University of California, Berkeley Professor Thomas Biolsi, Chair This project explores changing constructions of identity for African Americans and Native Americans in the Western Great Lakes region from 1780-1890. I focus on the Bonga family, whose lineage in the region begins with the French-speaking African slaves Jean and Marie Jeanne Bonga. Their descendants intermarried with Ojibwe Indians, worked in the fur trade, participated in treaty negotiations between the Ojibwe and the U.S. government, and struggled to preserve Ojibwe autonomy in the face of assimilation policies. French Africans in Ojibwe Country analyzes how the Bongas’ racial identities changed over four generations. Enmeshed in a network of Ojibwe kin ties, yet differentiated from their Ojibwe kin by their status as a family of mixed-ancestry fur traders, the Bongas gained political and social influence in both Indian and white circles. In addition to their social and legal status as Indians, at various times the labels “white,” “negro,” “half- breed,” and “mulatto” were also applied to them. I investigate the social, cultural and political meanings of these fluctuations, situating them within the region’s history of cultural contact. By comparing the Bongas’ experiences to the incorporation of African Americans into Indian families in the southeast, I forefront the contrasting fluidity of the northern categories of identity. I ask, How did fur trade culture, Ojibwe culture, and intermarriage practices contribute to this regional fluidity? Which factors in the late nineteenth century led to a burgeoning tension between competing notions of race and identity, and had a direct and startling impact on the Bongas’ lives? And finally, How were the Bongas’ leadership roles related to their ability to manipulate the fluid nature of identity and to exercise agency as they navigated often clashing and changing notions of race, culture and gender? 1 For John George Harper i Contents Introduction iii Acknowledgments xi 1 French Africans Among Indians: Race, Identity, and Cultural Contact in the late 18th Century 1 2 A Family of Fur Traders: Intermarriage and Trade in Ojibwe Country 31 3 French-African Indians: Interpreters of 19th Century Minnesota Ojibwe Politics 67 4 “Civilizing” the Pillagers: Identity, Race, and Domesticity in Ojibwe Country, 1830-1890 97 Conclusion 136 Bibliography 141 ii Introduction At an 1898 meeting of the Minnesota Historical Society, Judge Charles Flandrau publicly recounted a visit he made in 1856 to upper Minnesota. He had been a guest for two weeks at the house of George Bonga, a well-known and prosperous fur trader who had married into the Ojibwe tribe. Flandrau said of his experience staying with Bonga: He was a thorough gentleman in both feeling and deportment, and was very anxious to contribute to my pleasure during my stay with him. He loved to dwell upon the grandeur of the chief factors of the old Fur Company, and, to show me how royally they traveled, he got up an excursion on the lake, in a splendid birch bark canoe, manned by twelve men who paddled to the music of a French Canadian boat song, led by himself. George was very popular with the whites, and loved to relate to the newcomers his adventures. He was about the blackest man I ever saw, so black that his skin fairly glistened, but was, excepting his brother Jack, the only black person in the country. Never having heard of any distinction between the people but that of Indians and white men, he would frequently paralyze his listeners when reminiscing by saying, ‘Gentlemen, I assure you that Jack Banfil and myself were the first two white men that ever came into this country’.1 Flandrau probably intended to amuse and educate an audience interested in Minnesota history, but his story actually does Bonga a disservice. Although Flandrau says Bonga had never “[heard] of any distinction between the people but that of Indians and white men,” it is highly unlikely that a man like Bonga, who was educated in Montreal, worked as an interpreter for Lewis Cass, Governor of the Michigan Territory, and interacted with numerous traders and Indian agents, was not aware of the racial concept of “black.” Even though slavery was legally prohibited in Minnesota with both the passage of the Northwest Ordinance in 1789 and the 1820 Missouri Compromise, there was a small black slave community in the 1830s at Fort Snelling, which lay at the hub of the upper Mississippi River. These slaves were rented or purchased by officers and traders, many of whom George Bonga had regular contact with. Clearly, if George Bonga referred to himself as a “white man” while playing the host and storyteller, he was showcasing his sharp wit and sense of irony. It was an ironic statement to men who knew that in many other places in the U.S. Bonga would be forced into the category of blackness by rigid social, legal and political measures. Flandrau’s anecdote is one of the most repeated stories about George Bonga, probably because it portrays unexpected conceptions of race. This story is recounted in museum exhibits, historical writings, scholarly articles, and biographical portraits on fur traders that appear in documentaries, on the Internet, and in pamphlets geared towards secondary school students. This anecdote provides a wonderful glimpse into the fluid nature of the region’s categories of identity, and raises questions about the categories of “black,” “white,” 1 Charles E. Flandrau, “Reminiscences of Minnesota During the Territorial Period,” Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society Collections 9 (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1901): 198-199. iii “civilized,” and notions of belonging. When Flandrau said Bonga was “a thorough gentleman in both feeling and deportment” he identified Bonga as a “civilized” man, an important category of distinction among the “savage” Indians and fur traders living in the region. As the “only black person in the country…excepting his brother Jack,” George Bonga was not identified as belonging to any black community. Rather, he “was very popular with the whites.” This depiction of George Bonga totally obscures the fact that he had strong kin ties to Ojibwe Indians in the region, and must have felt a real sense of belonging among them. Instead, Flandrau suggests a binary system of identity was in place in which “civilized” or “white” was a category opposed to “savage” or “Indian.” However, upon looking at the records, it is evident that simple binaries were not determining identity in the region. While some members of this family had social and legal statuses as Indians, they were also at various times labeled “white,” “French,” “mixed-blood,” “mulatto,” and “black.” Moreover, these changes did not occur only over generations, but include fluctuations in individuals’ identities over the course of their lifetimes. For example, George Bonga was referred to as “white,” “black,” “mixed- blood,” and “Indian” at different points in his life. This study investigates these fluctuations over time, situating them within the region’s history of cultural contact. By looking at the categories of identity that were assigned to the Bongas, the kin networks they developed, and the status and wealth they gained, a picture emerges not only of the Bonga family, but of changing constructions of identity for African Americans and Native Americans in the Western Great Lakes through the 19th century. This research looks at the Bongas from roughly 1780-1890, a family whose lineage in the region begins with the French-speaking African couple Jean and Marie Jeanne Bonga. They arrived in northern Michigan in 1782 as slaves and were freed and married four years later. Their descendants intermarried with Ojibwe Indians, worked in the fur trade, participated in treaty negotiations between the Ojibwe and the U.S. government, and struggled to preserve Ojibwe autonomy in the face of assimilation policies. French Africans in Ojibwe Country: Negotiating Marriage, Identity and Race, 1780-1890 analyzes how the Bongas’ racial identities changed over four generations. Enmeshed in a network of Ojibwe kin ties, yet differentiated from their Ojibwe kin by their status as fur traders of mixed ancestry, the Bongas gained political and social influence in both Indian and white circles. As such, this study addresses an emerging topic in Native American Studies: the relationship between African Americans and Native Americans in a racially stratified society. When considering the various labels applied to the Bongas, the question of changing and overlapping racial binaries emerges as central to my project. I build on a considerable literature in the history of Indians and racialization in a triangulated society (Daniel Usner, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Jack Forbes, Jennifer Spear, James Brooks, and Tiya Miles), but extend this examination to a new region. While there is a significant body of literature on relations between Native Americans and African Americans, and “Black Indians,” this is largely focused on the southeast region of the United States and the so-called five civilized tribes – the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole Indians (Theda Perdue, Christina Snyder, Daniel Littlefield, Claudio Saunt, William Willis, Kathryn Braund). Thematically, this literature overwhelmingly focuses on the evolution of the institution of slavery within Indian communities, the antagonistic nature of black-Indian relations, and iv how nineteenth century plantation slavery was comparatively implemented by Indians and whites.
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