"By Flesh and Toil: How Sex, Race and Labor Shaped the Early French Empire"

The French and Francophone Studies Department and Africana Studies Program invite you to hear Mélanie Lamotte present By Flesh and Toil: How Sex, Race and Labor Shaped the Early French Empire, a richly detailed transoceanic history of the early French Empire, illuminating how it became bound by a common legal culture of race—as well as how enslaved and free people critically shaped the development of the colonies.

From the beginning of the seventeenth century, French colonies and trading posts sprawled across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In the fi rst pan-imperial history of the early French Empire in the English language, Mélanie Lamotte shows how an increasingly cohesive legal culture came to govern the lives of enslaved and free people of African, Malagasy, South Asian, and Native American descent. She also illuminates the important role played by these populations in the development of the empire, from Louisiana to Guadeloupe, Senegambia, Madagascar, Isle Bourbon, and India.