The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 (Studies in North American Indian History)
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Anniversary edition, 11/8/2010
EAN 9781107005624, ISBN10: 1107005620
Hardcover, 578 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 3.2 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
An acclaimed book and widely acknowledged classic, The Middle Ground steps 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 other, 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 pays d'en haut. Here the older worlds of the Algonquians and of 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 re-creation of the Indians as alien and exotic. First published in 1991, the 20th anniversary edition includes a new preface by the author examining the impact and legacy of this study.
Introduction
1. Refugees
a world made of fragments
2. The middle ground
3. The fur trade
4. The alliance
5. Republicans and rebels
6. The clash of empires
7. Pontiac and the restoration of the middle ground
8. The British alliance
9. The contest of villagers
10. Confederacies
11. The politics of benevolence
Epilogue.