Generalizations about Indians and Empires  Where Europeans settled in large numbers, built farms and towns, established mining operations, etc., they soon established control.  In the interior of the Americas, away from areas of dense European settlement, Indians remained more independent, into the 20 th century in some places

 L.G. Moses & Margaret Connell Szasz, “’My Father, have pity on me!’ Indian Revitalization Movements of the Late-Nineteenth Century,” in Religion in the West, ed. F.M. Szasz (Manhattan, KA: Sunflower Univ. Press, 1984)  In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (PBS documentary; YouTube)  Karl Jacoby, Shadows at Dawn   Pekka Hämäläinen, “The Rise and Fall of Plains Indian Horse Cultures,” Journal of American History 90 (Dec. 2003),

Middle Ground Relations  French colonization efforts, 1500s-1600s  Wars with the Iroquois,  Inability to use force to control Indian peoples

Defining the Middle Ground  Places where neither side could determine the relationship (militarily, economically, politically)  For pragmatic reasons, negotiated a third culture, a common world neither wholly Indian nor European  Each side was forced to adapt, but also had some room to adapt on its own terms  Indians and Europeans were not exotic or alien to each other  Sometimes was violent  The middle ground declined when European-Americans became dominant economically and militarily

The “Pays d’en Haut” or Upper Country

Examples of the Middle Ground  Fur trade  “Coureur de bois” & “Voyageurs”  Military relations  Inter-marriage  “country” marriages; “á la façon du pays”  Métis  Missions  Onontio

Ties Between Metropolitan Centers and Frontiers

Impact on Indians  Rising standards of living (e.g., new opportunities for Indian women)  Connection to military alliances  Technological dependence, over time  Environmental degradation  Decline of fur-bearing game and food game in the 1700s, east of the Mississippi  Disease

Decline of the Middle Ground  British conquest of New France (1760)  Proclamation Line (1763)  Economic decline for Indians in eastern North America,  Social problems in Indian communities  “shatter zones”  American Revolution  Joseph Brant, Molly Brant, & General William Johnson  Impact of the Revolution & Independence  The War of 1812  Policies in the U.S. and BNA (Canada): reservations & removal

Conclusions  Successful adaptation, resistance for centuries by many Indians  The material basis of Indian decline was environmental (disease, loss of resources), economic (decline of fur trade, greater manufacturing power of European-Americans), and political-military  In North America, they became wards, victims, only after loss of power (no longer could determine the course of their own adaptation)