Philip Marchand
French America is largely forgotten in the United States. People know about Quebec and New Orleans, but the history of the French Mississippi valley isn’t taught in our schools, neither is the story of French Indiana. For the most part French settlers lived peaceably with the Native Americans; they traded and intermarried. When Anglo settlers arrived in what is now known as the Midwest they found French towns whose inhabitants were content to farm and hunt enough to live comfortably, but who were more interested in the religion, family, and celebrations than in owning land or maximizing production. In sharp contrast to the Anglo-Saxons who came after them, the French Americans were not infected with the Protestant work ethic.
“Ghost Empire” is a mediation on French America. Philip Marchand is a Canadian of American birth and French descent. He wasn’t raised “ethnically”, but feels the pull of his French heritage; he’s unabashedly Catholic. His discursive book of history, travelogue, and memoir is loosely hung on the story of René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle’s explorations.
I enjoyed this one a lot, not least because I have many ancestors who were citizens of the Ghost Empire. I wish there were more like it.
(An interesting and better-informed review by Clark Blaise can be found here.)