Native Diasporas: Indigenous Identities and Settler Colonialism in the Americas

2. Rethinking the Middle Ground: French Colonialism and Indigenous Identities in the Pays d’en Haut

Chapter 2 Rethinking the Middle Ground French Colonialism and Indigenous Identities in the Pays d’en Haut Michael A. McDonnell At least since the publication of Richard White’s The Middle Ground in 1991, scholars have been aware of the critical importance of the pays d’en haut (or upper Great Lakes region) in one of the greatest transformations of modern history—the birth of the Atlantic world. In his masterful work, White showed that the French empire in North America was predicated on the creation of a “middle ground”—a process , as well as a place—between Europeans and Indians. A place “in between cultures, peoples, and in between empires and the nonstate world of villages”; a process whereby diverse groups of people came together and negotiated something new out of a series of mutual, creative and often expedient misunderstandings. The creation of this middle ground, in turn, was dependent on a rough balance of power, a mutual need or desire for what the other side offered, and an inability by either side to compel change. In the pays d’en haut, this middle ground held sway for a remarkably long time—at least until the creation of the new American republic.1 White forced scholars to focus their attention on this previously neglected region, and obliged us to pay close heed to the process at work. But though Native Americans were at the heart of his study, White’s work was not necessarily focused on Native Americans. White set out to write a history of European-Indian relations—an imperial 80 mcdonnell history, even while complicating our notions of imperialism. As a result of this, however, Native Americans remain strangely distant in his book—at times almost as incomprehensible to the reader as they were to seventeenth-century Europeans. In part, this was a deliberate and necessary strategy—as White notes, Native Americans were often incomprehensible to the Europeans they encountered. Though we may pretend to know more about them than contemporaries did, White asserts, we probably don’t, especially given that we can only glimpse this world through the confused eyes of European sources.2 White’s methodology is at its best, then, when exploring the complex nuances of the daily (re-)creation of a middle ground when Native and newcomer came together. But the larger narrative arc of White’s story, when told from these same confused European sources, tells an all too familiar story. It alienates Native Americans from both the region and their own history. Indigenous identities are mere creations of a European imaginary.3 Algonquians are from the start described as “shattered peoples”—“refugee” and “remnant” groups who had been hammered against the anvil of punishing Iroquois attacks in the first half of the seventeenth century. These shattered groups then used an “imported imperial glue” to reconstruct a village world in the pays d’en haut. This new world—the middle ground—“sustained, and was in turn sustained by, the French empire.” Indigenous identities, it seems, were almost an artifact of European imperial rule. Seen only through the eyes of European scribes, White’s cast of characters then appear on stage only when called, or noticed, by imperial officials. They remain a volatile, fleeting, and ephemeral—even if important—presence throughout the colonial period. Finally, White’s story comes to an end with the establishment of the American republic and the apparent imbalance of power that resulted. Europeans eventually dispossessed, made dependent, and removed the nations created by the middle ground of the pays d’en haut—returning us to a more familiar tale. The middle ground ceased to exist; along with it, so too did the people of the pays d’en haut. Ultimately, the glimpse White gave us of the Native Americans of the pays d’en haut foreclosed rather than engendered further discussion, despite the rich complexity of the tale he told.4 rethinking the middle ground 81 This chapter, in contrast, is an attempt to rethink the early history of the pays d’en haut and in particular to follow the dictates of Daniel Richter and others to face east rather than west. It is a preliminary effort to view the history of this region from the perspective of Michilimackinac rather than Montreal.5 Yet in trying to comprehend these events from an indigenous perspective, it quickly becomes clear that we need a much more nuanced understanding...