Proud to be a Remix, Part 1: Assimilation was no Simulation

(This map depicts territories as of 1702)

This series will be a response to questions and comments I get from time to time about my background. Before reading subsequent essays in this series, please access the information contained in this essay, “Racialism and Assimilation in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century French Colonial Policy,” by Dr. Saliha Belmessous, a scholar of empires. Dr. Belmessous discusses the body of evidence for the social and political circumstances in both Old and New France in the 1600s and 1700s, when assimilation was official imperial strategy. This series will also serve as a rebuttal to the general idea that there have been no societies that systematically empower women and girls relative to men and boys, as well as the gender Jesuit claim that Europe introduced the concept of biological sex to the Americas.

I have provided a spoken version of the essay in order to provide equal access to the content to audience members with disabilities. I consider this fair use for educational purposes. I was not able to find an official audio version of this essay, and I do not personally find computer-generated screen-readers to be very memorable nor engaging. Dr. Belmessous’ chapter can also be read here and is redundantly available for free to the general public here. The content of this article is essential to establishing context for my subsequent essays in this series.