- 480 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
After he explored the Great Lakes and the entire Mississippi, Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was murdered by his own men when he led them on a disastrous mission to Texas. But the vast land he claimed for France in 1682 could have become—had it not been for a few twists of history—a French-speaking empire extending more than a thousand miles beyond Quebec. This alternative North America would have been Catholic in religion and granted Native peoples a prominent role. Philip Marchand probes the intriguingly flawed character of La Salle and recounts the astonishing history of the Jesuit missionaries, coureurs de bois, fur traders, and soldiers who followed on his heels, and of the Indian nations with whom they came into contact. He also reports on the ways in which the drama of this ghost empire continues to be played out in battle reenactments and in parish churches and wayside restaurants from Montreal to Venice, Louisiana. Throughout the book, Marchand draws on memories of his own Catholic childhood in Massachusetts to interpret the lingering attitudes, fears, hopes, and iconography of a people who, more deeply than most, feel the burdens and the ironies of history.
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Information
Table of contents
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Chronology
- Map of La Salle’s Texas Expedition, 1685–1687
- Map of La Salle’s Exploration, 1678–1687
- ONE The Persistence of Blood
- TWO La Salle on the Prairies
- THREE The Great Peace
- FOUR China
- FIVE Fort Frontenac
- SIX The Carrying Place
- SEVEN Fort Niagara
- EIGHT Detroit
- NINE Saint Ignace
- TEN Green Bay
- ELEVEN Kankakee
- TWELVE Sainte Genevieve
- THIRTEEN Fort Assumption
- FOURTEEN Arkansas Post
- FIFTEEN La Pointe Noire
- SIXTEEN The Devil’s Empire
- EPILOGUE The Communion of Saints
- Conclusion
- Select Bibliography
- Index