This thesis involves the creation of a historically-themed museum element. The element, titled “Improving Community,” is a virtual interactive game that allows players to explore certain realities of colonial American life. Within the game, players are presented with a number of civic-related issues that existed throughout the eighteenth century, and they are then given options to improve the situation. Interactivity and immersion are key features of the game, and they have been incorporated so that players may engage with the past and assume a more active role in the process of historical reconstruction. Research for the games draws mostly upon historical primary sources, including firsthand accounts, letters, diaries, periodicals, pamphlets, meeting minutes, and legal documents. In addition, the process of developing the games was informed by a number of secondary source works, and therefore this study inspects the ways in which “Improving Community” fits within the ongoing scholarly debates. Ultimately this project contributes to the field of public history by demonstrating the usefulness of games as a tool for historical exhibition. “Improving Community” is both entertaining and educational, and as a result, the game provides individuals with a unique outlet for exploring and experiencing the past.

Pendant la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle, dans la lutte hégémonique qu'elle livre à la Grande-Bretagne en Amérique du Nord, la France cherche à contrôler et à étendre son empire, et à obtenir le soutien plus que jamais vital des nations amérindiennes. Dans ce contexte, des explorateurs, des missionnaires et des militaires parcourent le territoire de la Nouvelle-France et consignent dans des relations le déroulement de leur voyage et leurs impressions sur le continent, sur les ressources disponibles, sur la faune, sur la flore, et sur les populations indigènes. Dans ces textes et dans les gravures qui les accompagnent, les Amérindiens sont abondamment représentés tant dans leur apparence physique que dans les pratiques corporelles. En analysant les représentations du corps amérindien dans les relations de voyage, cette thèse s'interroge sur l'importance de ce corps et sur sa fonction dans la construction du projet colonial. L'approche méthodologique interdisciplinaire, qui repose sur une analyse quantitative et qualitative des données et sur la confrontation du texte et de l'image, vise à saisir la complexité des perceptions des voyageurs et à les replacer dans le contexte culturel, idéologique et politique de l'époque. L'analyse révèle que ces textes, dont le but est d'informer les autorités coloniales et de les encourager à investir dans les colonies, véhiculent des représentations du corps qui permettent de consolider le lien colonial, ce qui est fondamental à une époque où les relations militaires et commerciales avec les Amérindiens représentent un enjeu considérable. Par des descriptions et une iconographie percutantes, les relations de voyage servent à mettre l'autre à distance pour penser sa colonisation. Ces représentations permettent aussi aux Français de connaître certaines pratiques corporelles leur permettant de s'adapter et de faire progresser le processus de colonisation. Il en ressort une image du corps à la fois riche et complexe, utilisée dans un but pragmatique. Les représentations du corps amérindien sont donc bien plus que de simples images destinées à divertir un public avide d'exotisme, ou des instruments de propagande : elles sont nécessaires pour penser l'autre et pour construire des stratégies de développement du lien colonial. / Eighteenth-century travel accounts in New France describe the Native body abundantly. By analyzing these documents - mostly created for colonial or ecclesiastical authorities - this study shows that the textual and iconographic representations of the body play an active role in France's imperial project. Knowledge of the Amerindian body, made it possible to maintain French-Native alliances, which were essential to the empire, and to reinforce the colonial bond. These representations also aimed to position the 'Other' remotely, in order to contemplate the colonization process. It appears that the French images of Aboriginal bodies were rich and complex and were much more than simple metaphors, mirrors of oneself, or tools of propaganda; instead, they created the possibility to act out the French colonial reality.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In mid-January of 1691/2 two young girls in the household of Samuel Parris, the minister of Salem Village, Massachusetts, began exhibiting strange behavior. "It began in obscurity, with cautious experiments in fortune telling. Books on the subject had 'stolen' into the land; and all over New England, late in 1691, young people were being 'led away with little sorceries.'" The young girls of Salem Village had devised their own creation of a crystal ball using "the white of an egg suspended in a glass" and "in the glass there floated 'a specter in the likeness of a coffin.'"

William III, Prince of Orange, ascended the throne of England after the English Glorious Revolution of 1688. The next year, the American colonists rebelled against colonial administrations in the name of their new king. This thesis examines William's perception of these rebellions and the impact his perception had on colonial structures following the Glorious Revolution. Identifying William's modus operandi—his habit of acceding to other's political choices for expediency until decisive action could be taken to assert his true agenda—elucidates his imperial ambitions through the context of his actions. William, an enigmatic and taciturn figure, rarely spoke his mind and therefore his actions must speak for him. By first establishing his pattern of behavior during his early career in the Netherlands and England, this project analyzes William's long-term ambitions to bring the Americas under his direct control following the 1689 rebellions and establish colonial administrations more in line with his vision of a centralized English empire.

Québec Université Laval, Bibliothèque 2014