Conference Agenda

Firmly ensconced within the annals of angiocentric New England, the state of Maine is known more for its rugged coastline and fresh lobster than for Franco-descended culture. In fact, Maine is currently one of only two states where French surpasses Spanish as the second most spoken language. Following initial exploration and colonization, two additional distinct Franco-descendant populations have inhabited Maine, one originating in the 18^th century and the other in the turn or the 20^th century. This paper discusses previously excavated archaeological evidence of these communities as well as current research into the movement of Franco-American populations across the landscape and through time to understand how the Franco-American experience has helped to shape the modern State of Maine.

Located on the Richelieu River, Fort Saint-Jean served as a key supply depot for the French forts along the Lake Champlain corridor beginning with the construction of Fort Saint-Frédéric (1731–1734). Fortified in 1748 to protect critical provisioning routes, the site was destroyed in 1760. Archaeological excavations conducted since the 1980s have uncovered artifacts related to both daily life (munition de bouche) and military operations (munition de guerre). This talk examines the material culture in relation to both official archival sources (intendancy records, notarial documents) and unofficial materials (personal correspondence), shedding light on the interplay between formal and informal supply systems that sustained the region. These findings provide valuable insight into the logistical strategies that supported the French military presence in a remote, strategically significant frontier, and reveal how locally based networks complemented official transatlantic supply chains to ensure the forts’ survival and effectiveness during times of war and instability.

Since the 1734 construction of Fort St. Frederic in New York’s southern Champlain Valley, Anglophone sources focused on the military threat posed by this imposing stone fortification located sixty-miles closer to Albany than its predecessors. This martial focus animated antiquarians and archaeologists into the mid-20^th century, as they sought to uncover large militaria easily presented as civic relics for public display. My research continues the reassessment of region, focusing instead on quotidian socioeconomic relationships. Documentary and archaeological evidence links this fort-community into vast networks of exchange and mobility, creating a unique community distinct from St. Lawrence settlements and from outposts in the Pays d'en Haut. Despite benefiting from this mobility, the frontier’s relative free-trade directly contrasted with Versailles’s ideal mercantilist colony and Quebec’s dream of monopolizing fur-trade profits. Fort St. Frederic’s construction represented a conscious attempt to restrict transit between New France and New York, to questionable success.

Zooarchaeological studies of eighteenth-century French heritage sites in the midwestern United States reveal considerable variation in the importance of domesticated animals that were standard fare in Europe. This presentation will discuss factors that may account for this variability, including mobility of the colonizers, conduct of the fur trade, impact of local agriculture, site administrative complexities, geographical sources of domesticated animals, and transportation routes to various places. Besides more detailed documentary research, innovative studies of the animal specimens themselves may provide more insights on the roles of domesticated animal species at many of these remote locations.

The River Raisin archaeological site in southeastern Michigan, best known for its role in the War of 1812, was also a long-term settlement shaped by mobility, exchange, and shifting subsistence systems. Strategically located along major transportation corridors, the site was embedded in a colonial landscape where French and Indigenous interactions transformed foodways and daily life. Excavations by the University of Michigan-Dearborn have uncovered stratified layers from the precolonial through modern periods, yielding a robust faunal dataset. This study uses zooarchaeological analysis of over 2,500 specimens, integrated with collagen stable isotope analyses (δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N) from key taxa, including deer, pig, sheep/goat, and cattle, to trace transitions from hunting and aquatic foraging to formalized livestock use and provisioning systems. These material traces reveal how animal economies were entangled in broader colonial processes, illuminating how mobility of foodways reshaped landscapes, social relations, and identities at River Raisin.

For almost thirty years, archaeological investigations at Fort St. Joseph have provided insights on trade, daily life, and the identities of those who once occupied this eighteenth-century mission, garrison, and trading post located in southwest Michigan. To glean more information about the people living at the post, a comparison of artifacts found within the six identified structures has begun. The symbols and icons on lead cloth seals has proven to shed light on interactions and interpersonal connections between New France merchants and textile producers in France. Here, we consider the movement of cloth and potential relationships discovered from the lead seals found in each of the buildings.

Fort Ouiatenon was established in 1717 along the banks of the Wabash River in present-day West Lafayette, IN. Fort Ouiatenon was constructed, in part, to help connect the two territories of New France: Canada and Louisiane. Historical French colonial records show that the Miami granted permission to the French to construct Fort Ouiatenon on the opposite side of the river from their community, with the promise that a blacksmith would reside there upon its completion. Blacksmiths played a crucial role in the cross-cultural interactions between these Indigenous groups and Europeans involved in the fur trade due to their technical skillset, which helped make metal a highly valued commodity distributed during the Fur Trade. This paper focuses on how metal was transported throughout the Fur Trade economic system, from France to French Fur trade posts, such as Fort Ouiatenon, and how it was utilized upon arrival at these trade posts.

Musket balls were used by military personnel, settlers, and traders for hunting, warfare, and exchange throughout New France. These small artifacts can help trace firearm use and highlight patterns of mobility and resource availability across different areas. This paper compares musket balls from Fort St. Joseph (Niles, Michigan), the Defense Privateer Shipwreck, and the Norridgewock mission village (both in Maine) to explore how they reflect mobility in New France. Notably, Fort St. Joseph lacks larger musket balls over .60 inches in diameter, while both Maine sites contain similar quantities of these larger sizes. This difference may indicate variation in firearm types or local preferences. Through examining these patterns, this study demonstrates how musket balls can serve as tangible markers of movement and exchange.

Although the Great Lakes were themselves highways in the eighteenth century, facilitating travel and the fur trade, movement into the region for people and cargo was more complex. Before the Erie Canal, trade routes to the “Old Northwest” were varied and difficult. Material could come part of the way on ships up the St. Lawrence and across Lake Erie (when not frozen), but in between there was a process of unloading, portage, and reloading that made heavy, delicate materials like glass and ceramics difficult to transport. This paper reports on finds from the River Raisin site that are likely to pre-date the canal and considers travel and trade in the eighteenth century Great Lakes region. In the process, it reports on experimentation with new measurements of glass fragments that may correlate with age.

The last colonial outpost established La Louisiane, Fort Tombecbe was meant to secure relations with Choctaw people and buffer against English encroachment. Drawing from central flow theory, or the movements between economic and political networks, this paper explores the trade and cultural relationships resulting from the placement of Tombecbe within the Choctaw homeland. As evidenced from period maps, documents, and excavated artifacts, the fort became a significant regional diplomatic center.

In this paper, I explore the theme of mobility in terms of the movement of industrially-produced ceramics from mainland France to overseas colonies in the Americas, specifically the colony of Cayenne in South America. While objects moved with relative freedom, they were destined for sites of coercive immobility (i.e., for use among communities of captive Africans in plantation settings). Using the assemblages from the Habitation la Caroline, a nineteenth-century spice plantation, as a case study, I interrogate how the associations attached to “French” ceramics may have changed in relation to various subjectivities coexisting within colonial contexts.

This paper examines how early French expeditions into the Northern Plains navigated thriving Indigenous networks of trade, diplomacy, and movement. Archaeological reinterpretations, including the redating of a long-assumed contact site, reveal a complex story that upends simple notions of European advance. Instead, mobility emerges as a shared, dynamic process rooted in Native landscapes that guided, constrained, and transformed colonial ambitions. By pairing material evidence with historical accounts, this paper highlights how encounters unfolded along corridors of trade, reminding us that the first Europeans moved on roads already well traveled.

The fur trade is a leading legacy of the French colonial settlers in the northern part of New France, who primarily used the Great Lakes and river systems for movement of people and goods. In the decades leading up to the War of 1812, the territory of Michigan experienced a large amount of social, political, and environmental change. Transitions between French, British, and American economic and political priorities, as well as environmental changes from over-hunting ultimately brought about the end of this trade. This paper combines faunal data from the 18th and early 19th century French colonial sites with new data from the River Raisin to chart the changes to the fur trade and their implications for the region’s population.