{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/124351"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/124351","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Bvlbancha: Place and power in the early Mississippi Delta","abstract":"Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2024-09-16 without embargo terms","abstract_html":"Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2024-09-16 without embargo terms","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Toups, Eric J."],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"History","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Morrissey, Robert M","Burton, Antoinette","Hogarth, Rana","Hoganson, Kristin"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2024,"date_issued":"2024-05","date_published":"2024-05","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:00Z","subjects":["Indigenous","Environmental","Early America"],"languages":["en","eng"],"rights":["Copyright 2024 Eric Toups"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/2142/124351","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Morrissey, Robert M","Burton, Antoinette","Hogarth, Rana","Hoganson, Kristin"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Toups, Eric J."]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2024-05","2024-04-21"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["History"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Indigenous","Environmental","Early America"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en","eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2024 Eric Toups"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/124351"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2024-09-16 without embargo terms","The student, Eric Toups, accepted the attached license on 2024-04-19 at 16:07.","The student, Eric Toups, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2024-04-19 at 16:13.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2024-04-21 at 17:11.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #20513 on 2024-09-16 at 00:35:38","This project examines the production of space through eighteenth-century Bvlbancha, “the place of many tongues,” a region birthed from the geologically and ecologically dynamic alluvial deposits where the Mississippi River meets the Gulf of Mexico. Indigenous groups carefully curated the landscape to suit their needs and developed a flexible system of spatial practices I identify as “Bvlbancha.” The overwhelming ecological productivity of the region allowed peoples to subsist without the need for permanent crop cultivation while the low, muddy, constantly flooded terrain combined with the might of the Mississippi River and the ever-present threat of hurricanes created an environment in which it was difficult for the colonial state to assert control over the land and its people. Indigenous communities leveraged their territorial expertise to maintain the political upper hand in their colonial dealings and spatial control over most of Bvlbancha despite living alongside expansionist settler regimes. French, Spanish, and British colonial enterprises attempted to impose their own spatial orders upon Bvlbancha, but the difficulty in containing the river and managing the liquid landscape led officials to rely heavily upon Bvlbanchan spatial and economic practices to survive. As a result, Euro-American colonizers could construct only tiny islands of colonial space within a Bvlbanchan spatial sea whose politics and territoriality remained defined by Indigenous actors. This further created avenues for poor settler colonists and enslaved Africans to engage in Bvlbanchan spatial practices in a way that allowed them to consistently challenge colonial authority and to construct their own sense of territory and belonging with varying results. The persistence of Indigenous spatial power throughout the eighteenth-century challenges us to reconsider the usefulness of settler colonial theory that presumes a linear progression between the beginnings of colonial settlement in a specific region and the inevitable dispossession of its Indigenous inhabitants. The relationships between Natives and newcomers were preconditioned by the physical and social spaces within which they interacted. In the case of Bvlbancha, those spaces continued to reinforce Indigenous power and territoriality for decades after the beginnings of the settler colonial state of Louisiana."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Bvlbancha: Place and power in the early Mississippi Delta"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Morrissey, Robert M","Burton, Antoinette","Hogarth, Rana","Hoganson, Kristin"],"dc:creator":["Toups, Eric J."],"dc:date":["2024-05","2024-04-21"],"dc:description":["Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2024-09-16 without embargo terms","The student, Eric Toups, accepted the attached license on 2024-04-19 at 16:07.","The student, Eric Toups, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2024-04-19 at 16:13.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2024-04-21 at 17:11.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #20513 on 2024-09-16 at 00:35:38","This project examines the production of space through eighteenth-century Bvlbancha, “the place of many tongues,” a region birthed from the geologically and ecologically dynamic alluvial deposits where the Mississippi River meets the Gulf of Mexico. Indigenous groups carefully curated the landscape to suit their needs and developed a flexible system of spatial practices I identify as “Bvlbancha.” The overwhelming ecological productivity of the region allowed peoples to subsist without the need for permanent crop cultivation while the low, muddy, constantly flooded terrain combined with the might of the Mississippi River and the ever-present threat of hurricanes created an environment in which it was difficult for the colonial state to assert control over the land and its people. Indigenous communities leveraged their territorial expertise to maintain the political upper hand in their colonial dealings and spatial control over most of Bvlbancha despite living alongside expansionist settler regimes. French, Spanish, and British colonial enterprises attempted to impose their own spatial orders upon Bvlbancha, but the difficulty in containing the river and managing the liquid landscape led officials to rely heavily upon Bvlbanchan spatial and economic practices to survive. As a result, Euro-American colonizers could construct only tiny islands of colonial space within a Bvlbanchan spatial sea whose politics and territoriality remained defined by Indigenous actors. This further created avenues for poor settler colonists and enslaved Africans to engage in Bvlbanchan spatial practices in a way that allowed them to consistently challenge colonial authority and to construct their own sense of territory and belonging with varying results. The persistence of Indigenous spatial power throughout the eighteenth-century challenges us to reconsider the usefulness of settler colonial theory that presumes a linear progression between the beginnings of colonial settlement in a specific region and the inevitable dispossession of its Indigenous inhabitants. The relationships between Natives and newcomers were preconditioned by the physical and social spaces within which they interacted. In the case of Bvlbancha, those spaces continued to reinforce Indigenous power and territoriality for decades after the beginnings of the settler colonial state of Louisiana."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/124351"],"dc:language":["en","eng"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2024 Eric Toups"],"dc:subject":["Indigenous","Environmental","Early America"],"dc:title":["Bvlbancha: Place and power in the early Mississippi Delta"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["History"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:00Z"}