The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815This book seeks to step outside the simple stories of Indian/white relations--stories of conquest and assimilation and stories of cultural persistence. It is, instead, about a search for accommodation and common meaning. It tells how Europeans and Indians met, regarding each other as alien, as virtually nonhuman, and how between 1650 and 1815 they constructed a common, mutually comprehensible world in the region around the Great Lakes that the French called the "Pays d'en haut". Here the older worlds of the Algonquins and various Europeans overlapped, and their mixture created new systems of meaning and of exchange. Finally, the book tells of the breakdown of accommodation and common meanings and the recreation of the Indians as alien and exotic. The process of accommodation described in this book takes place in a middle ground, a place in between cultures and peoples, and in between empires and non-state villages. On the middle ground people try to persuade others who are different than themselves by appealing to what they perceive to be the values and practices of those others. From the creative misunderstandings that result, there arise shared meanings and new practices. |
Contents
Refugees a world made of fragments | 1 |
The middle ground | 50 |
The fur trade | 94 |
The alliance | 142 |
Republicans and rebels | 186 |
The clash of empires | 223 |
Pontiac and the restoration of the middle ground | 269 |
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Common terms and phrases
Algonquians alliance chiefs allies Americans Amherst Papers attack backcountry Beauharnois beaver Bouquet Papers British Cadillac Canada Chippewas Clair Clark confederation Contrecoeur council Croghan Delawares Detroit Draper Mss English European exchange father Fort Pitt French Frenchmen fur trade Gage Papers Gage to Johnson gifts Governor Green Bay Haldimand Haldimand Papers Hamilton Hamtramck Harmar Papers History Hocquart hunting Huron-Petuns Hurons ibid Illinois country Indians Iroquois Jesuits Johnson to Gage Jonquière Journal July June Kaskaskia killed Lake lands leader Mascoutens McKee mediation Memoir Miamis Michilimackinac middle ground Mingos Ministre Montreal Moravian MPHC murders negotiations Neolin NYCD Ohio Onontio Ottawas pays d'en haut peace Pennsylvania Perrot Peyster phratry Piankashaws political Pontiac posts Potawatomis Potherie prisoners quotation Sauks Sept Shawnees Simcoe Papers Tanacharison Tecumseh Tenskwatawa Thwaites treaty tribes Vaudreuil villages Vincennes Wabash warriors Weas West western women Wyandots