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xi Acknowledgments scholarly work depends on the assistance of many players for its successful completion. this volume is no different. its seed was first planted after a 2005 conference called Cultures in Conflict: new Perspectives on encounters with native Peoples of the Americas, where many of these essays were first presented. this conference brought together scholars studying all the regions where europeans and native peoples interacted in this hemisphere. it was co-organized by Charles Beatty-Medina and Professor Alfred Cave—who, though now retired, continues to benefit us all with his knowledge and expertise in native American History. tim Messer-Kruse (then History department chair) generously agreed to provide funding for the conference—which further insured its success. We are grateful to the University of toledo for providing the setting for that scholarly encounter. the running of the conference itself would not have been possible without the organizational acumen of deborah Macdonald, History department secretary, and her able assistants (then graduate students, today history professors in their own right) sarah e. Miller and deborah r. Marinski. the idea to publish the conference proceedings came afterward. through several proposals and interactions with publishers, it was decided that the best approach would be to take those presentations that focused on a specific region of the Americas and to collect them into a volume. Authors with scholarly interests in the same region were invited to contribute additional chapters, and the sum of that labor is contained here. Gathering the authors for this volume was one thing; publishing it was another. We owe a debt of gratitude to Martha Bates at Michigan state University Press, who expertly ushered this book through the acquisition and peer-review process, and we are grateful to the reviewers for the suggestions and comments that we received. Along the way numerous editors and scholars aided our efforts. since its instigation in 2005, the journey has indeed been an unforeseen odyssey, but one that brought us “home” in the end, and rendered us grateful for having had the experience. We are indebted to Melody Herr, sarah Hoederman, Gary dunham, Jamie Carson, and Greg o’Brien, for their input and for helping us develop the volume in the form that it appears here. Michael nassaney kept us moving forward in spite of the challenges. special mention needs to be made of the contribution xii| Acknowledgments by Professor Peter Lindquist of the Center for Geographic information sciences and Applied Geographics of the department of Geography and Planning at the University of toledo. His efforts and long hours gave us the wonderful map that opens the volume, thus providing essential points of orientation to the essays herein. the david rumsey Historical Map Collection and the Capitol square review and Advisory Board at the ohio statehouse generously allowed us the use of their images for our cover art. We thank Annette tanner at MsU Press for the beautiful graphics and all the MsU editorial staff: they have treated us professionally and wonderfully throughout the process. in addition to excellent support from MsU Press we received exceptional assistance from scholars, colleagues, mentors, friends, and family along the way. special mentions go out to Jeffrey Anderson, the late susan Applegate Krouse, Lucy Murphy, Margaret Pearce, the Miami tribe of oklahoma, the Myaamia Project at Miami University, and the Miami nation of indiana. And we especially thank our families—Julian Charles Beatty-duarte, eloisa duarte, noemi Masters, robert Masters, ted and Leola Wilson, Ben rinehart, Aimee rinehart, Jim rinehart, Pat rinehart, Matt Buchanan, and sedona Purdy. thank you all. Any omissions to this list are by no means intentional and any errors encountered in this volume are the responsibility of its editors and authors. ...

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