Mobility and Language in the Early Modern Antilles

Abstract This article analyses a corpus of texts, principally of ecclesiastical authorship, which depict early- to mid-seventeenth-century attempts to colonise the Antilles and coastal South America. Focus is placed on French representations of Amerindian populations and of plantation and indigenous economies at a time of great political and military upheaval in the Caribbean. An initial analysis of depictions of European colonial initiatives explores their significant impact on Caribbean societies and suggests how the resultant conflicts influenced representations of Amerindian peoples. This is followed by analysis of the contrasting depictions of European and indigenous economic systems. European populations are depicted as mobile, laborious, and surplus-producing whereas indigenous populations are mainly characterised by economic stasis and the subsistence economy. A further analysis of depictions of Amerindian languages suggests how these might reflect the perception by French observers of absence at the heart of indigenous societies. Rather than indicating an innate deficiency in the faculty of language, this may be interpreted as mirroring a perceived incompleteness in the religious, economic or textual domains.