Picture of Robert Englebert

Robert Englebert PhD & MA - University of Ottawa, BA - York University (Glendon College) Associate Professor

Office
Arts 723

Research Area(s)

  • French Colonial History
  • French-Indigenous Relations
  • Early Canadian History
  • Fur Trade
  • Métissage
  • Early American History

About me

Dr. Englebert is an associate professor in the department of history at the University of Saskatchewan. His work examines the colonial history of francophone communities in North America with a focus on migration, cultural mobility, and French-Indigenous relations. He is co-editor of the award-winning book French Connections: Cultural Mobility in North America and the Atlantic World, 1600-1875 (LSU Press, 2020), as well as French and Indians in the Heart of North America, 1630-1815 (MSU Press, 2013). In addition, Dr. Englebert has published articles and chapters in the areas of legal history, the history of métissage, and political history. He is currently working on a history of francophone migration and demography in Illinois Country (the American Midwest) and the history of social networks and mobility in post-Conquest (1763) French North America.

Publications

Current Projects:

Grants

SSHRC Partnership Grant, 2019-2026. "Webs of Kinship: Migration Patterns and Community Building in Illinois Country, 1730-1815," with Yves Frenette, Trois siècle de migrations francophones en Amérique du Nord (1640-1940).

SSHRC Insight Grant, with Nicole St-Onge, 2019-2023. Fur Trade Kinscapes: Lapointe, Wisconsin and the rise of a Great Lakes-St. Lawrence watershed, 1650-1850.

Publications:

Books

With Andrew Wegmann, eds. French Connections: Cultural Mobility in North America and the Atlantic World, 1600-1875. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2020.

-  Wilson Book Prize, 2020

With Guillaume Teasdale, eds. French and Indians in the Heart of North America, 1630-1815. East Lansing & Winnipeg: Michigan State University Press & University of Manitoba Press, 2013.

Articles

With Bronwyn Craig. "La conquête, la liberté et l'adaptation franco-américaine au Pays des Illinois, 1778-1787. Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française 73, no. 1-2 (Summer/Fall 2019): 45-69.

"Colonial Encounters and the Changing Contours of Ethnicity: Pierre-Louis de Lorimier and Métissage at the Edges of Empire." Ohio Valley History 18, no. 2 (Spring 2018): 45-69.

"The Legacy of New France: Law and Social Cohesion between Quebec and the Illinois Country, 1763-1790." French Colonial History 17 (2017): 35-65.

With James Trepanier. "Shaping the 'Bilingual Incubator': Student Attitudes Towards Bilingualism at Glendon College, 1965-1971." Historical Studies in Education (Spring, 2014): 26-47.

"Merchant Representatives and the French River World in North America, 1763-1803. Michigan Historical Review 34, no. 1 (2008): 63-82.

"Diverging Identities and Converging Interests: Corporate Competition, Desertion, and Voyageur Agency, 1815-1818." Manitoba History 55 (2007): 18-23.

Chapters

"Between Obligation and Opportunity: St. Louis, Women, and Transcolonial Networks, 1764-1800." In eds. Peter Kastor, Jay Gitlin and Robert Micheal Morrissey, French St. Louis: Landscape, Contexts, and Legacy, 35-66. Lincoln: Nebraska University Press, Forthcoming 2021.

With Andrew Wegmann, "Patchwork and Pathways in French Colonial History." In eds, Robert Englebert and Andrew Wegmann, French Connections: Cultural Mobility in North America and the Atlantic World, 1600-1875, 1-10. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2020.

"Making Indians in the American Backcountry: Récits de voyage, Cultural Mobility, and Imagining Empire in the Age of Revolutions." In eds, Robert Englebert and Andrew Wegmann, French Connections: Cultural Mobility in North America and the Atlantic World, 1600-1875, 193-220Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2020.

"Gabriel Cerré: marchand canadien." In Gaston Deschênes and Denis Vaugeois (eds.), Vivre la Conquête, tome 2, 48-57. Sillery, QC: Septentrion. 2014.

With Nicole St-Onge. "Paddling into History: French-Canadian Voyageurs and the Creation of a Fur Trade World, 1730-1804." In Denis Combet, Luc Côté, and Gilles Lesage (eds.), From Pierre-Esprit Radisson to Louis Riel: Voyageurs and Métis, 71-103. Winnipeg: St-Boniface Press, 2014.

Online and Non-Refereed

"Regime Change, Law, and Borders in the Heart of French North America during the Eighteenth Century" Beyond Borders: The New Canadian History thenewcanadianhistory.com (Apr. 3, 2018)

"Colonial History in the Age of Digital Humanities." Boreal earlycanadianhistory.ca (Jan. 12, 2016)

"Where has pre-Confederation history gone? The CHA and the changing contours of a discipline." ActiveHistory.ca (Jun. 2015).

"Much ado about nothing: the Royal Proclamation and French Socio-economic Continuity on the Edge of Empire." Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies (Fall, 2013): 23-24. Also posted on ActiveHistory.ca (Oct. 2013).

"Rethinking French North America in the Eighteenth Century." Le Journal: Journal of the Center for French Colonial Studies 28, no. 4 (2012): 1-9.

Book Reviews

MacDonald, David. Lives of Fort de Chartres: Commandants, Soldiers, and Civilians in French Illinois, 1720-1770. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2016. In Missouri Historical Review 111, no. 3 (2017): 226-227.

Ekberg, Carl, and Sharon Person. St. Louis Rising: the French Regime of Louis St. Ange de Bellerive. Urbana-Chicago-Springfield, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2015. In the Indiana Magazine of History 112, no. 2 (2016): 127-128.

Morrissey, Robert Michael. Empire by Collaboration: Indians, Colonists, and Governments in Colonial Illinois Country. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. In Borealia earlycanadianhistory.ca (May, 2016).

Cangany, Catherine. Frontier Seaport: Detroit's Transformation into an Atlantic Entrepôt. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014. In The William and Mary Quarterly, 72, no. 3 (2015): 527-531.

Crouch, Christian Ayne. Nobility Lost: French & Canadian martial cultures, Indians & the end of New France. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014. In Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 16, no. 2 (2015): https: //muse.jhu.edu/

Nester, William. The French and Indian War and the Conquest of New France. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2014. In The Canadian Historical Review, 96, no. 2 (2015): 292-294.

Cleary, Patricia. The World, the Flesh, and the Devil: A History of Colonial St. Louis. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2011. In Le Journal: Journal of the Center for French Colonial Studies 29, no. 1 (2013): 9-10.

Gitlin, Jay. The Bourgeois Frontier: French Towns, French Traders & American Expansion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010. In Histoire Sociale 44, no. 88 (2011): 419-421.

Ekberg, Carl J. A French Aristocrat in the American West: The Shattered Dreams of De Lassus de Luzières. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2010. In Le Journal: Journal of the Center for French Colonial Studies 27, no. 4 (2011): 12-13.

Morgan, M.J. Land of Big Rivers: French & Indian Illinois, 1699-1778. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2010. In Journal of Illinois History 13, no. 3 (2010): 225-227.

Calloway, Colin G. The Scratch of a Pen: 1763 and the Transformation of North America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. In Histoire Social 82 (2008): 621-623.

Devine, Heather. The People Who Own Themselves: Aboriginal Ethnogenesis in a Canadian Family, 1660-1900. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2004. In Histoire Sociale 76 (2005): 506-508.


Teaching & Supervision

Teaching:

Courses

HIST 145.3 War and Conflict in Colonial North America

HIST 210.3 France's Colonial Legacy: The Rise and Fall of a Global Empire

HIST 239.3 The Age of Revolutions in the Atlantic World

HIST 255.3 Canada from Contact to Confederation

HIST 310.3 Beavers, Booze and Bully Boys: Fur Trade Wars in North America

HIST 350.3 A War that Shaped a Continent: The Seven Years' War and the Conquest of Canada

HIST 410.3 France in the Americas 1500-1803: The Search for Empire

PhD Field Courses

Minor Field in Canadian History

Minor Field in French Colonial History

Major Field in French Colonial History

Minor Field in Colonial History

Major Field in Comparative Colonial History (co-supervised)

Graduate Students:

Completed

(2020) Scott Berthelette, PhD, Between Sovereignty and Statecraft: New France and the Contest for the Hudson Bay Watershed, 1663-1782

(2018) Nathan Cupid, MA, The Illicit Fur Trade in New France

(2017) David Seibel, MA, French Adaptation to Spanish Rule at St. Louis

(2017) Samuel Derksen, MA, The Liquor Trade and Governance in Illinois Country

(2016) Bronwyn Craig, MA, The Illinois Country and the American Revolution

(2012) Brandon Morris, MA, French - Mi'kmaq Relations at St-Pierre and Miquelon after 1763

Ongoing

Jason Locke, PhD, British Occupied Cities and Loyalism during the American Revolution

Katrina Phippard, MA, Inter-village migration in Illinois Country, 1699-1763


Selection of Courses Taught (by Year)

  • 2017 - 145: War and Conflict in Colonial North America
  • 2017 - 350 01: The War that Shaped a Continent: The Seven Years' War and the Conquest of Canada

Research

18th century Aboriginal British North America Canada Colonialism cross-cultural research French Fur Trade Governance Illinois Country Indigenous Law Louisiana Merchants Métissage Pre-Industrial Quebec United States Upper Louisiana Voyageurs

My past and current work centres on the study of colonialism and mobility in North America and the Atlantic world during the long 18th century. More specifically, I work on the socio-economic connections between Canada and the Illinois Country. This includes a number of studies regarding the fur trade, French-Indigenous relations, métissage, legal pluralism, and women's networks. More recently, I have been exploring the relationship between social networks and migration/demography in Illinois Country.

Future Research Interests:

My future research will focus on the legacy of French-Indigenous alliances in the era of American western expansion. 

 

Awards & Honours

  • Wilson Book Prize, awarded by Wilson Institute of Canadian History June 2021
  • SSHRC Insight Grant (co-applicant), awarded by SSHRC May 2019
  • SSHRC Partnership Grant (co-applicant), awarded by SSHRC May 2019
  • Marie L. and William R. Hartland Memorial Fellowship, awarded by The John Carter Brown Library USA October 2008-December 2008
  • Carl J. Ekberg Grant, awarded by The Center for French Colonial Studies USA September 2008-September 2009