Contested Territories

Native Americans and Non-Natives in the Lower Great Lakes, 1700-1850

Charles Beatty-Medina, Melissa Rinehart

• Publisher: Michigan State University Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781611865066
  9781611860450
• eBook ISBN:
  9781628950656
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

A remarkable multifaceted history, Contested Territories examines a region that played an essential role in America's post-revolutionary expansion—the Lower Great Lakes region, once known as the Northwest Territory. As French, English, and finally American settlers moved westward and intersected with Native American communities, the ethnogeography of the region changed drastically, necessitating interactions that were not always peaceful. Using ethnohistorical methodologies, the seven essays presented here explore rapidly changing cultural dynamics in the region and reconstruct in engaging detail the political organization, economy, diplomacy, subsistence methods, religion, and kinship practices in play. With a focus on resistance, changing worldviews, and early forms of self-determination among Native Americans, Contested Territories demonstrates the continuous interplay between actor and agency during an important era in American history.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• A Year at Niagara: Negotiating Coexistence in the Eastern Great Lakes, 1763-1764
• "Foolish Young Men" and the Contested Ohio Country, 1783-1795
• Native American-French Interactions in Eighteenth-Century Southwest Michigan: The View from Fort St. Joseph
• Old Friends in New Territories: Delawares and Quakers in the Old Northwest Territory
• Delawares in Eastern Ohio after the Treaty of Greenville: The Goshen Mission in Context
• Miami Resistance and Resilience during the Removal Era
• The Politics of Indian Removal on the Wyandot Reserve, 1817-1843
• Bibliography
• Contributors
• Index