Rhonda Tintle’s Book Review of:Richard White.

The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region,1650–1815

(Cambridge, 1991).In

The Middle Ground

, Richard White contends that between 1650 and 1815, NorthAmerican Indians and Europeans who encountered each other in the Great Lakes region know asthe

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created a community based on accommodation. Neither group attempted aviolent domination of the other. Instead, they mediated their situation by adopting systems basedon a combination of European (originally mainly French) and North American Indian customs. Astime passed, more Europeans who were less inclined to accommodate Indians entered the region,and the middle ground dissolved.White’s middle ground exists in space and time, in this case the

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before theEuropean invasion of North America was complete. It is a compromise, of sorts. There have beenmany middle grounds throughout history, where people from different cultures have negotiatedwith, rather than battled, each other. According to White, the negotiation of new cultural formsoccurs when all parties possess some mutual need or desire to cooperate. The actual systems thatdevelop in middle grounds are an amalgamation of accommodations, adjustments,misunderstandings, and erroneous assumptions. White has overlaid his theoretical framework for middle ground studies with explanations about each group’s customs, as well as details about thequotidian realities of 17

century survival in the harsh environment around the Great Lakes.This evocative narrative begins with the Iroquois forcing several Indian tribes into the

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during the 1640s. The

événementielle

wrought by the “Iroquois Hammer” gave way to a period of starvation and desperation during which North American Indian refugees in the

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met French fur traders and Jesuits

During this period, Europeans and North American Indianrefugees (who White refers to collectively as Algonquians) continually negotiated middle ground.

Their immediate compromise was to form a French-Algonquian alliance against the Iroquois, andthen to negotiate trade and religion. At first, the Algonquians regarded the French as manitous.However, according to White, in Algonquian estimation the Jesuits fell quickly from spirits toshamans; and French fur traders were downgraded to greedy, vulnerable mortals with a nasty predilection for “old, greasy beaver robes” (27). Regardless, the Algonquians considered theFrench as father figures.During the middle ground era in the

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the players negotiated an array of situations involving commerce, atonement, retribution, religion, kinship, sex, and violence. FrenchJesuits worked to convert an Indian population that did not understand things considered commonknowledge by Europeans, such as, sex in exchange for goods was prostitution. Fur tradersconstantly negotiated what they viewed as bribes and wages, and what the Algonquians viewed askinship-creating gifts.The middle ground shifted, but was not lost, after the Seven Year’s War ended France'scontrol of the

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The English viewed themselves as conquerors and the NorthAmerican Indians as subjects. In particular, British General Amherst disapproved of calumets andgift giving; he demanded observance of British customs. At this juncture White allows that “itseemed the middle ground itself was about to crumble and cave in” but in 1763, Ottawa leader Pontiac waged war on the British in an effort to restore French power (268). White views thefailure of Pontiac’s rebellion as more of a stalemate than a loss. The result of which was thereplacement of French fathers by British ones, and a move back onto the middle ground.The British-Algonquian alliance was never easy. After Britain’s victory a mix of peoplewho were white, British, and “openly and aggressively expansionist” settled the backcountry (316).These backcountry dwellers had little use for the British military and no use for North American

Indians. Indian-hating settlers and Indians alike entered into a violent contest characterized bymurders, ravages, and revenge. However, according to White, this conflict between Indians andIndian-haters “reached only the barren edges of the middle ground” (388). The big losers in thischaos were women. Algonquians and backcountry dwellers killed each other, but when theopportunity arose, they butchered and mutilated each other’s women. “Fighters who had rejected peace with its images of a common mother and common births now assailed actual mothers,ripping out their wombs” (388). Into this state of affairs, entered the American Revolution, addinganother imperial power to the balance in the

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Despite his gory evidence to the contrary, White maintains that the middle ground in the

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existed until after the War of 1812. He insists that until then, North AmericanIndians were independent political agents who could refuse “to buy when goods were expensive”(482). White allows that after this time the fur trade reduced North American Indians to a conditionthat Neo-Marxists refer to as a state of dependency. Marx never developed a distinct theory of imperialism, but he specifically addressed the influence of the fur trade on North American Indians.There is no doubt that the arrival and interference by Europeans in the

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altered anddistorted Indian culture, specifically their economy. To the French, negotiating with theAlgonquians had been expedient, less so to the British, and not at all to most Americans. Onecommunity cannot function in terms of a middle ground if the other community does notreciprocate.White’s discursive conceptualization of Marxist theory aside,

The Middle Ground

isastonishing in its breath and focus, as well as its ethno-historical discussion about the structures of power. The middle ground of the

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was more temporary than White asserts, and never vanished completely. In the

longue durée

there were many middle grounds, and by focusing on the