ABSTRACT
Interpreters, who were sometimes called “Spokesmen”, were officers of the court who played an essential role under the French Regime in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries but have hitherto been understudied by historians. About 10 percent of criminal affairs required the help of interpreters, particularly trials involving indigenous peoples who acted as witnesses in cases involving the selling of illegal alcohol, the illegal fur trade or cases where native Americans were involved in criminal acts. Cases such as these, therefore, provide a window into how native allies participated in the system of justice, but because the language skills of these putative interpreters, who ranged from military officers who were relatively conversant in the Mohawk or Algonquin languages to those who knew only a few words, court cases involving interpreters for indigenous litigants raise important questions about whose voices were being heard in court by magistrates. At the same time, they illustrate the power interpreters had to shape legal outcomes. Moreover, although clerks were instructed to faithfully record the words of the accused and the witnesses, highlighting the role of interpreters challenges prevailing notions about the reliability of legal sources.
