France and the American Tropics to 1700

Tropics of Discontent?

Philip P. Boucher

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Year: 2008
• eBook ISBN: 9781421402024
• Edition: 0
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: French History
• Index: History

Traditionally, the story of the Greater Caribbean has been dominated by the narrative of Iberian hegemony, British colonization, the plantation regime, and the Haitian Revolution of the eighteenth century. Relatively little is known about the society and culture of this region—and particularly France's role in them—in the two centuries prior to the rise of the plantation complex of the eighteenth century. Here, historian Philip P. Boucher offers the first comprehensive account of colonization and French society in the Caribbean.

Boucher's analysis contrasts the structure and character of the French colonies with that of other colonial empires. Describing the geography, topography, climate, and flora and fauna of the region, Boucher recreates the tropical environment in which colonists and indigenous peoples interacted. He then examines the lives and activities of the region's inhabitants—the indigenous Island Caribs, landowning settlers, indentured servants, African slaves, and people of mixed blood, the gens de couleur. He argues that the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were not merely a prelude to the classic plantation regime model. Rather, they were an era presenting a variety of possible outcomes. This original narrative demonstrates that the transition to sugar and the plantation complex was more gradual in the French properties than generally depicted—and that it was not inevitable.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• List of French Colonial and Commercial Companies Discussed
• Introduction
• 1. At the Dawn of French Colonization: The Greater Caribbean
• 2. French Challenges to Iberian Hegemony in America up to 1625
• 3. Frontiers of Fortune? The Painful Era of Settlement, 1620s to 1640s
• 4. Frontiers of Fortune? The Era of the Proprietors, 1649 to 1664
• 5. Frontier-Era Free Society: The 1620s to the 1660s
• 6. Frontier-Era Society: The World of Coerced Labor
• 7. The Transformation from Settlements to Colonies Begins: The 1660s to the 1670s
• 8. The Sun King Asserts Control: The 1680s to the 1690s
• 9. Island Society from the 1660s to the 1690s: The Habitants
• 10. Island Society from the 1660s to the 1690s: The World of Coerced Labor
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Index