Songs Upon the Rivers: The Buried History of the French-Speaking Canadiens and Metis from the Great Lakes and the Mississippi across to the Pacific

Before the Davie Crockets, the Daniel Boones and Jim Bridgers, the French had pushed far west and north establishing trade and kin networks across the continent. They founded settlements that would become great cities such as Detroit, Saint Louis, and New Orleans, but their history has been largely buried or relegated to local lore or confined to Quebec. In this seminal work, Foxcurran, Bouchard, and Malette Scrutinize primary sources and uncover the alliances, organic links and metissage, or mixing, between early French settlers and voyageurs and the indigenous nations. It began with the founding of New France by Samuel de Champlain in the early 1600s and continued well into the 19th century long after France was no longer a force in North America. The authors’ keen and accessible story telling, combined with vintage maps, forgotten documents (such as the little known writings of Alexis de Tocqueville), and old photos or paintings propel the account of the peoples engendered and still thriving, their French lingua franca, and their ways of life back into the heart of the narrative of North American history where they belong. Songs Upon the Rivers also challenges historical orthodoxies regarding the Canadien Metis. These descendants of the French with mixed ancestry developed a hybrid culture with close kinship ties with indigenous peoples across the continent. They kept their French songs and language, which effectively made French the lingua franca of the American and Canadian West well into the 19th century.