"Norris Norman has picked a very difficult subject for his book and has done wonders with it.  There is probably no more obscure part of the history of Arkansas than the period in which this book is situated, namely, the second decade of the nineteenth century. Mr. Norman makes it come alive in a very convincing way.  His main character, a French/Indian mixed-blood or metis, is carefully crafted and is ideally positioned to tell the tale of the New Madrid earthquake, the early White settlers of a newly-American Arkansas, and the daily lives of Indians and Europeans alike..."

-- Hon. Morris S. Arnold, author of Unequal Laws Unto a Savage Race: European Legal Traditions in Arkansas 1686-1836

Winner of the Kemper and Leila Williams Book Prize for the Best Book on Louisiana History, French Roots in the Illinois Country creates an entirely new picture of the Illinois country as a single ethnic, economic, and cultural entity. Focusing on the French Creole communities along the Mississippi River, Carl J. Ekberg shows how land use practices such as medieval-style open-field agriculture intersected with economic and social issues ranging from the flour trade between Illinois and New Orleans to the significance of the different mentalities of French Creoles and Anglo-Americans.