Standing Up For Indians: Baptism Registers as an Untapped Source for Multicultural Relations in St. Louis, 1766-1821

The work of Sharon Person is crucial for a more nuanced understanding of the métissage of the Saint Louis area in the last half of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. She provides insight on a theme until recently too often ignored by scholars of the Mississippi Valley. General histories of Missouri and Saint Louis mention Indian slavery but do not treat the subject in depth. The specialized literature stretches back thirty-five years, but only recently have scholars begun to integrate the story of Indian slavery into the larger historical narrative. The author forces us to reconsider the existence and role of Indian slaves in a society in which French and Americans increasingly intermixed. The baptism records analyzed by Sharon Person document the indisputable existence and persistence of Indian slavery in early Saint Louis.