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A COMPLICATEDTRIANGLE: THE INDIANS, THEBRITISH,AND THE AMERICANSIN THEOLD NORTHWEST Colin G. Calloway. Crown and Calumet: British-Indian Relations, 1783-1815. Nonnan: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987. xiv + 345 pp. Maps and Illus. Harvey Lewis Carter. The Life and Times of Little Turtle: First Sagamore of the Wabash. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987. xvii + 275 pp. Maps and Illus. C. A. Sims Colin G. Calloway and Harvey Lewis Carter focus mainly on the Old Northwest, the triangular area bounded by the Mississippi river, the Great Lakes and the Ohio river. By studying this area, they are given an opportunity to trace the complicated relationships involving the Indians, the British and the Americans at a time when each of the three groups had a vested interest in it. 1 These two books illustrate the need to understand the complex motivations leading to conflicts and compromises between the end of the Revolutionary War and the termination of the War of 1812. Calloway's Crown and Calumet is a thematic study of the patterns of relationships between the British and the Indians on the North American frontier between the Peace of Paris and the Treaty of Ghent. Based on his doctoral thesis, the book explores ยท'what Britons and Indians thought of each other'' and what factors "governed those relationships" (xi). Calloway stresses that during this "critical era" the "two major considerations were military and commercial" (xi). The British assessed the Indians in terms of their performance as allies in war and as suppliers and dealers in the fur trade. While similar issues shaped how the Indians perceived the British, their participation in war and trade was governed also by their own cultural concerns. Calloway surveys the attitudes of a wide range of individuals on each side of the relationship including fur traders, travellers and government officials, as well as 244 C.A. Sims Indian politicians, traders and warriors, drawing examples from across the continent but emphasizing the Old Northwest. Well-chosen quotations based on his reading of a variety of primary sources illustrate his contention that pragmatism , not affection, shaped associations involving "mutual exploitation for mutual advantage" (23). Throughout the book, Calloway warns that generalizations are difficult to make because neither of the two groups was homogeneous. Relations were volatile because the individuals involved were affected by specific circumstances and personalities, as well as by more general factors, such as cultural change and exchange. He argues that one observation, however, retained validity. The Indians did not silently and passively accept British paternalism; rather, they critically and independently evaluated British promises and actions a!"}d determined their own responses. His book is balanced and well-organized. He begins by outlining the features of the relations between the British and the Indians by 1783 and demonstrates how the Peace of Paris affected those alliances, he then explores how the British and the Indians regarded each other within a world characterized by ''radical and irreversible change'' (27). Among the many factors transforming Indian societies were disease, which he notes caused "social and demographic disruptions" (28), and the European fur trade, which he likens to a "Trojan Horse" (188). His analysis is strengthened by the broader context he provides as he outlines how such considerations as the Industrial Revolution, British politics, and international tensions affected North Americans. Most importantly, he emphasizes that the fear of American expansionism bound the British and some Indian groups together during this period. This theme is especially evident in his examination of the relationships linked to the fur trade and of the "uneasy alliance" (189) between the British and the Indians during periods of conflict with the Americans. He concludes by analyzing the significance of the Treaty of Ghent and assessing the condition of the relationships between the British and the Indians by 1815. Calloway's thirty-page bibliography is valuable, particularly because of its extensive listing of printed primary and secondary sources. Although most of his research was done in Britain, he has supplemented it with materials from a number of libraries in the United States. While he has made good use of the ''Fur Trade and Indians" manuscript group at the National Archives of Canada, he overlooked other records...

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