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

The Introduction lays the foundation for the themes and ideas White presents throughout the rest of the chapters. He explains his concept of the middle ground and its importance to the reader, which builds the underlying theme of Cultural Change and Adaptation. White contends that the pays d’en haut was not a traditional world seeking to remain unchanged, nor did it erode under white colonial pressure. Instead, it was a joint invention created through both parties' cultural misunderstandings. The Introduction sets the stage for this nuanced exploration. White acknowledges the agency of both groups, rejecting binary interpretations of history in favor of a more intricate and layered analysis. His methodological approach involves a deep dive into the historical records, including diplomatic documents, missionary accounts, and traders' journals. He emphasizes the importance of understanding Indigenous American perspectives by exploring oral traditions and folklore. This interdisciplinary approach is crucial in uncovering the nuances of the middle ground and moving beyond the Eurocentric viewpoints and resources that have dominated traditional narratives. White also uses the Introduction to define his terminology throughout the book. He acknowledges the problematic nature of labeling the pays d’en haut inhabitants as Algonquians: speakers of the language were not confined to the region, nor were they the only people there. He acknowledges the limitations of such broad categorizations but argues that the term helps highlight shared linguistic and cultural features, and to distinguish the Iroquois as a contrasting group.

White presents the pays d’en haut’s cultural trajectory as “circular,” with the following justification:

Europeans and Indians met and regarded each other as alien, as other, as virtually nonhuman. It tells how, over the next two centuries, they constructed a common, mutually comprehensible world in the region around the Great Lakes the French called the pays d’en haut […] But finally, the narrative tells of the breakdown of accommodation and common meanings and the re-creation of the Indians as alien, as exotic, as other (26-27).

While this presentation is circular in the sense that it demonstrates a return to a lack of cultural understanding, it is notable that White’s “circularity” implies a return to an initial stage and masks the fact that the first stage is one of mutual alienation, whereas the last stage is one of one-sided othering. Perhaps White’s description of this as circular is the result of his presentation of The Middle Ground itself as having a circular structure. He compares the book to Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759), a novel famous for using a stream-of-consciousness approach to its storytelling. White, too, often takes a non-linear approach to retelling events. While he broadly adheres to a chronological structure, beginning the book with early interactions in the pays d’en haut between the Algonquians and Europeans and ending with the United States absorbing the region, the timeline is more fluid within chapters. White often clusters chapters together according to broader periods of Indigenous American interaction with the French, the British, and the Americans. He circles back to the same places, people, and events within these clusters multiple times. His emphasis is more often on pursuing concepts rather than presenting the events in a linear fashion.

As White closes the Introduction setting the stage for the events in the pays d’en haut by noting the origins of the alliance between the French and Algonquians, he emphasizes the Iroquois Wars as a catalyst for this collaboration. This treatment also supports the theme of The Complexities of Colonialism. White warns that “The reader should not mistake their warfare for normal Indian warfare in North America. It, too, was a complex product of European expansion” (32). The demand for fur drove the Iroquois to seek control over the hunting grounds of the Algonquians. The Algonquians, faced with external threats, were compelled to forge an alliance with the French for mutual survival. Colonialism, in this context, is portrayed as a disruptive force that not only pits Indigenous groups against each other but also necessitates unexpected alliances. The Iroquois Wars, rooted in European interests and competition for fur resources, highlight the far-reaching consequences of colonial encounters on the indigenous populations. In this way, White establishes and exemplifies his approach.