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

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1991

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction

Chapters 1-2

Chapters 3-5

Chapters 6-8

Chapters 9-10

Chapter 11-Epilogue

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Chapter 11-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 11 Summary: “The Politics of Benevolence”

Chapter 11 covers the end of the middle ground in the pays d’en haut. White begins by discussing the growing white American view that Indigenous Americans would disappear unless they embraced “progress.” This was portrayed as the opposite of “Indian hating” in that people who subscribed to it believed that Indigenous Americans could change; but they also believed that they should. This “benevolence” sought to “save” Indigenous Americans while simultaneously taking away their remaining lands. Despite the political calm in the years following the Treaty of Greenville, significant economic, social, and environmental shifts occurred in the pays d’en haut.

After the Revolution, the British abandoned their posts and accepted the loss of the fur trade to reduce costs. The Montreal traders fought to retain the posts after the Revolution. When that failed, they delayed the evacuation and supported resistance by the Algonquians. The delay did not protect the southern pays d’en haut trade, so it shifted north and west. Some economic theorists argue that Algonquian communities became dependent when Europeans finally took control of their access to fur production. While acknowledging this eventual dependency, White questions when this change happened. The shift to dependency resulted from changing circumstances in the early 19th century. White highlights that economic shifts, particularly in the fur trade, affected the environment and their subsistence strategies. The depletion of large game animals worsened as settlers disrupted both their habitats and hunting patterns. Some Algonquians adopted European-style farming to cope with the lack of game.

Many Algonquian chiefs struggled as mediators, lost support among their people, and couldn’t maintain peace in their towns. The Treaty of Greenville was the beginning of the end for the middle ground. After the treaty, many chiefs died under mysterious circumstances, which complicated the question of who would lead after them. War leaders often tried to take up the title. Some, such as the Shawnee Blue Jacket, manipulated their way into recognition from American officials. This challenged the traditional leadership structures among the Algonquians and contributed to internal strife. The reliance of the chiefs on European goods further exacerbated the situation as they were caught between the anger of their people about land cessions and the need for the goods that the treaties provided. The influx of liquor into villages exacerbated the existing social problems. Despite their efforts to curb the negative impacts of liquor and negotiate with the Americans, the chiefs declined in influence. The erosion of power in villages and the loss of traditional ways of life led to the rise of Tenskwatawa and his brother, Tecumseh, among the Shawnee. Tenskwatawa's visions took inspiration from Christian ideas of heaven and hell and prompted him to advocate removing drinking, trade dependence, and skin hunting and to promote monogamous marriage. He created boundaries between the Algonquians and Americans by emphasizing their differences. He advocated the killing of domesticated animals, stressed the rigidity of gender roles, and opposed intermarriage. His “othering” of the Americans reflected what they were already doing to Indigenous Americans and further eroded the middle ground from the other side. While Tenskwatawa's reforms were a response to the changing conditions in villages, they also evolved. Implementing them required compromises in practice and often changed depending on the area. He used anti-American sentiments among some of the tribes to spread his message. However, his brother, Tecumseh, became more influential when he used old confederation ideas to unify the Algonquians. The Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, where Tenskwatawa's powers failed, marked a turning point. Tecumseh sought British aid, and the rebuilt confederacy merged into a British alliance in the War of 1812. However, it ultimately failed due to conflicting goals. The failure led to the ultimate loss of what political power the Algonquians had possessed, along with the inevitable death of the middle ground.

Epilogue Summary: “Assimilation and Otherness”

In the epilogue, White reflects on how Anglo Americans and Algonquians undermined the middle ground in the 19th century, leading to stark choices between assimilation and otherness. The lives of Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa symbolize these alternatives. Tecumseh, initially a nativist who resisted Americans, was transformed into a symbol of assimilation, depicted as “virtually white” in the mythology of Anglo-American society. White uses the story of Rebecca Galloway, in which Tecumseh falls in love with a white woman, to underline his point. The Galloway story is still told as part of a tourist pageant in Chillicothe, Ohio, portraying Tecumseh as a “relatable” figure who arose among “savages.” Tenskwatawa, on the other hand, embodies the fate of the remaining middle ground. While Tecumseh was assimilated by the American people in death, Tenskwatawa lived to confront his otherness despite efforts at accommodation and negotiation. His interview with Charles Trowbridge in 1824 reflects the transformation of Algonquians from participants in the middle ground to objects of study in a white world. Tenskwatawa's stories reveal his struggle to communicate meaning in a world where stories and dreams had lost their power. The decline of the middle ground meant that Algonquians' dreams were increasingly disconnected from tangible reality. The pays d'en haut succumbed to the dictates of the arriving white Americans, and the middle ground itself withered. Tenskwatawa, once a human being engaged in dialogue with the Americans, became an object of study, marking the return of the sauvage.

Chapter 11-Epilogue Analysis

The last section of the book, containing Chapter 11 and the Epilogue, covers the final decline of the middle ground. White’s opening anecdote regarding Benjamin Lincoln encapsulates the finality of the othering of Indigenous Americans. Based on his views of the Bible and reductionist ideas of how these people lived, Lincoln thought they would all die out. This is the idea of the “vanishing Indian,” which was used to justify further expansion of the United States into Indigenous American lands. Regarding “Indian hating” and Lincoln, White wrote, “Lincoln did not hate Indians; he presumed hatred was unnecessary” (502). This idea exemplifies White’s view of the United States’ cynical approach to interactions with the Indigenous Americans at this point. Without the need to care that dominated earlier interactions by the French or even the British on the pays d’en haut, the give-and-take politics of the middle ground couldn’t survive. The ability of the Indigenous Americans to exert their agency against this mentality faltered as they had little to bargain with. True dependency finally set in due to economic pressures and environmental degradation. As White wrote, “The Algonquians had lost the ability to force whites to act as fathers” (505).

While he noted in the Introduction that he originally intended for the focus of The Middle Ground to be on Tecumseh, he only appears in these final two chapters. The role he and his brother, Tenskwatawa, played in the pays d’en haut takes the central focus. Even though Tenskwatawa pushed for a total separation of Indigenous Americans from Europeans, he is still an exemplification of Cultural Exchange and Adaptation. He and his brother are the ultimate creations of the middle ground because, according to White, they “had grown up in the complex and intimate world of the pays d’en haut, their traditions rested on an intermingling of existing Algonquian and white ways” (535). Tenskwatawa’s teachings were built on years of cultural mixing and interactions. However, he also leaned into the separation pushed for by the “Indian haters” between Indigenous Americans and Europeans. When outlining the reforms Tenskwatawa pushed for, White also makes his last mention of the role of indigenous women in the middle ground. One of the strategies used was “to argue that Americans sought to reduce Indian men to the status of women” (540). This aimed to emphasize a perceived subjugation and disrespect experienced by Indigenous American communities at the hands of the Europeans. However, in making these arguments, he forced the marginalization of the Algonquian women. White notes, “Women, in many ways the most influential creators of the middle ground, were, in effect, to withdraw from it” (541). While this push for “othering” the Europeans results from external pressures, Tecumseh's vision of a united indigenous front is the last attempt at Indigenous Agency and Resilience. The American expansionism and their encroachment upon Indigenous lands catalyze Tecumseh's resistance. His leadership and military prowess were showcased in battles like the Battle of Thames. However, Tecumseh ultimately succumbed to defeat, which marked the demise of a leader who sought to reclaim agency for his people. Meanwhile, Tenskwatawa became an advocate for Indigenous American removal. At this point, the middle ground was well and truly destroyed.

White returns to the “circularity” of the pays d’en haut’s history in these final chapters. The decline of the middle ground coincides with a reversion to the othering of Indigenous Americans. This circularity marks a regressive step in the relationship between the cultures, erasing the progress achieved in the middle ground. Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa emerge as contrasting figures in the aftermath, representing the polarities of "Indianness" in this reductive view. After his death, Tecumseh was reduced to the “noble savage” archetype. The Rebecca Galloway story encapsulates this flattening, portraying Tecumseh as a tragic figure caught between his Indigenous roots and the allure of assimilation. The narrative paints him in a simplistic, romanticized way. It erased the complexities of his resistance and negotiating persona within the middle ground because, as White says, “once they had assimilated him, the world that produced him ceased to matter” (552). In stark contrast, Tenskwatawa emerges as what White calls "the ultimate other, the alien savage" (552). White describes him as someone white Americans disregarded as a curiosity. During his discussions with Charles Trowbridge, the latter’s questioning and disregard for the meaning of Tenskwatawa's stories underscore the chasm between the two cultures.