In May, Eric Toups earned his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign after successfully defending his dissertation, “Bvlbancha: Place and Power in the Mississippi River Delta to 1795.”
He joined U-M History this fall as an assistant professor of Indigenous North American history. Staff member Elise Borbely connected with him to learn more about his research and what inspired him to become a historian.
What inspired you to study the history of Indigenous people?
When I was just starting grad school, I used to participate in Reddit’s AskHistorians page. Someone had asked a question about the history of the town seal of Natick, Massachusetts, which was founded as a missionary town for New England Indigenous communities who converted to Puritanism in the seventeenth century. In trying to explain the history of the town seal of Natick, Massachusetts, which was founded as a missionary town for New England Indigenous communities who converted to Puritanism in the seventeenth century. In trying to explain the history of paternalism and colonialism baked into the seal, I conducted some research of my own on the subject and on the responses of the Nipmuc and Massachusett communities.
This hands-on experience introduced me to the important research questions of early Indigenous American history and how those questions connected to the modern day. I took my research interests to different parts of the continent, but that initial foray created an interest and a set of personal commitments that I try to maintain in all my work.
Your dissertation covers nearly 14,000 years. What is it like to write on the scale of millennia, rather than centuries or even decades?
The idea was to tell the history of a specific location and how the material realities of that place affected its history. Most of the project is concerned with more recent history from about 300 to 400 years ago and how Indigenous communities leveraged their deep knowledge systems and understanding of how to live in a muddy, flooded, deltaic landscape to maintain their hold over their homeland in the face of an expansive colonial power.
The story of the colonization of Louisiana is relatively well-studied and documented, but Indigenous communities are often pushed to the edge of the relevant historical narratives. I believed that telling the history of the place itself, Bvlbancha, would be a good way to place Indigenous groups like the Houmas and Chitimachas at the center. Placing my start point 14,000 years ago was a way of communicating how colonists felt as they tried to override these deep connections: humbled. Bvlbancha has always been so much bigger than any one community.
You’re looking at the archaeological record, geological and climate data, oral traditions, and colonial archives. How do you develop a narrative out of such an incredible range and variety of sources?
With a lot of patience and a bit of skepticism. So many of the archives I used were created, in part, to naturalize the presence of the colonial land and social systems we often call “Louisiana.” The term “Bvlbancha,” meaning “the place of many tongues,” only rarely recurs in the written archive, and a lot of Indigenous knowledge of the region was deliberately excluded.
Fortunately, contemporary Indigenous groups were not simply waiting around for scholars to thread this needle. Communities like the United Houma Nation and activist groups like the Bvlbancha Collective had already applied Indigenous oral traditions to archival knowledge and worked with other scholars to research collaboratively. I built on their assertions, that Native peoples have always been in Bvlbancha and had a hand in shaping the landscapes and waterways.
The evidence was everywhere once I learned how to look for it. For example, there were a lot of maps of “Louisiana” that left large portions of the landscape blank, but an equally large number of archival documents and archaeological evidence demonstrating a longstanding Indigenous presence and power within the blank spaces on the map. These maps, then, became evidence of how little territory colonials were able to physically claim and as evidence that Native peoples continued to deny access to their lands and ways of knowing when it suited them.
Can you talk about your work with the Peoria and Miami Nations in the Reclaiming Stories Project?
I was lucky enough to be introduced to the project as a graduate student due to involvement of my advisor, Dr. Robert Morrissey. The Museé du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris houses some beautiful painted hide robes called minohsaya from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries made by ancestors of the Peoria and Miami communities. Our goal is to help communities like the Peoria and Miami reclaim the knowledge systems engraved upon these robes.
We are currently organizing our third Learning Lab in Miami, Oklahoma. These labs bring in scholars, artists, and community leaders who help the Peoria and Miami communities of today relearn these practices. Our last lab had us actually tanning and fleshing the hides! One of our long term goals is to fly some community members to Paris to see these robes in person. The project tries to place itself in service to these communities and my work on that often reflects this ethos. Sometimes it means helping with the research or arranging travel details, but other times it involves taking pictures or setting up equipment. Anything to help.
What types of courses are you looking forward to teaching at U-M?
I was hired on as a Native American scholar and most of my courses will reflect that. I developed a course on Indigenous environmental history for winter 2025 and plan on teaching other Native American and Indigenous history courses for undergraduate and graduate students in the near future. That said, I have a few ideas for other types of courses that fall outside Native American history, strictly speaking. I’m excited to teach American borderlands history or colonial American history courses when I get the opportunity. I am also workshopping a course called “Haunted America,” which will examine American history through places considered by many to be touched by the supernatural.
What excites you about coming to Ann Arbor?
I love college football, so I’m looking forward to rooting for the home team (no matter how uncertain its future is at present)! All the rivers, streams, and lakes nearby will be great for kayaking. My partner, Ananya, and I are also excited to tuck into the local food scene. We had good luck with Frita Batidos when we visited and we think our streak will keep going!
Originally published in the 2024 edition of the History Matters magazine.
