Daniel Bourassa I

Biography

Daniel Bourassa's life began in the closely connected trading and Catholic community of Michilimackinac, at the straits connecting Lakes Michigan and Huron in present-day northern Michigan. A surviving transcription of the mission register records his birth and baptism on October 8, 1752. His parents were René Bourassa the younger and Anne-Charlotte-Véronique Chevalier, recorded in the parish entry as Anne Chevalier. Captain de Beaujeu, the commandant, stood as godfather, and Madame Langlade as godmother. The entry places the newborn within a community whose family relationships overlapped with military and trading connections.

The Citizen Potawatomi Nation's account follows Daniel's family toward Detroit, on the river linking Lakes St. Clair and Erie, after the French and Indian War. His later household with Marguerite Bertrand is documented in the church record of their marriage on July 20, 1786. The family's chronology includes children born before that ceremony. The family record names Daniel Bourassa II and Leon Bourassa among their children. The tribal account attributes fourteen children to the couple and also records Daniel's daughter Madeline, born to an unnamed Potawatomi woman in 1781.

Daniel and Marguerite participated in the Catholic kinship network through sponsorship as well as parenthood. The CPN account identifies them as godparents to children of Leopold Pokagon and Elizabeth. Such ties were recorded occasions on which adults assumed a recognized place in another household's religious and family life.

The mission register also preserves a troubling part of Daniel's household history. On April 7, 1794, one entry records the baptism of Alexandre, born on March 19 to Daniel Bourassa and Marguerite Bertrand. An adjacent entry records a child named Regis, born to a woman described as “panis” and as belonging to Daniel Bourassa. That wording documents an enslaved Indigenous woman associated with his household. The register does not name the woman or identify the child’s father. Daniel’s paternity of Regis is unconfirmed.

These entries bring different parts of the same community into view: the named parents and sponsors whose relationships were recorded fully, and a mother whose own name was omitted while her enslaver was identified. Daniel's biography includes both his place in an extensive family and religious network and his connection to that woman's enslavement.