Peoples of the Inland Sea. David Andrew Nichols
Peoples of the Inland Sea
NEW APPROACHES TO MIDWESTERN STUDIES
Series editors: Paul Finkelman and L. Diane Barnes
Nikki M. Taylor, Driven toward Madness: The Fugitive Slave Margaret Garner and Tragedy on the Ohio
Jenny Bourne, In Essentials, Unity: An Economic History of the Grange Movement
David Andrew Nichols, Peoples of the Inland Sea: Native Americans and Newcomers in the Great Lakes Region, 1600–1870
Peoples of the Inland Sea
Native Americans and Newcomers in the Great Lakes Region, 1600–1870
DAVID ANDREW NICHOLS
OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS
ATHENS
Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701
© 2018 by Ohio University Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Nichols, David Andrew, 1970- author.
Title: Peoples of the Inland Sea : Native Americans and Newcomers in the Great Lakes Region, 1600-1870 / David Andrew Nichols.
Description: Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press, 2018. | Series: New Approaches to Midwestern History | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018000074| ISBN 9780821423196 (hardback) | ISBN 9780821423202 (pb) | ISBN 9780821446331 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Indians of North America--Great Lakes Region (North America)--History. | Great Lakes Region (North America)--History. | BISAC: HISTORY / United States / General. | HISTORY / Native American.
Classification: LCC E78.G7 N53 2018 | DDC 977--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018000074
For Patrick
Frater et philosophus
Contents
1. Once and Future Civilizations
6. Revolutionary Stalemate
7. The United Indians versus the United States
8. Survival and Nation Building on the Edge of Empire
9. Reckoning with the Conquerors
10. Trails of Death and Paths of Renewal
Conclusion: The Last Imperial War and the Last Removals
Illustrations
FIGURES
1. Benjamin West, “The Indians Giving a Talk to Colonel Bouquet . . . in October 1764”
2. George Winter, “Potawatomi Camp Scene, Crooked Creek” (1837)
3. Francis de Castelnau, “Village of Folles Avoines” (1842)
4. Charles Van Schaick, “Studio Portrait of Emma Blackhawk Holt” (ca. 1895)
MAPS
1. Native Americans in the Great Lakes region to 1700 CE
2. Native Americans and newcomers, 1810 CE
Series Editors’ Preface
For much of American history the term “Midwest” evoked images of endless fields of grain, flat, treeless landscapes, and homogenized populations in small towns. Most Americans hear “Midwest” and think of corn, wheat, soybeans, massive feedlots, huge pig farms, and countless dairy herds. The cinematic Midwest was River City, Iowa, in The Music Man; Dorothy trying to escape Oz and get back to Kansas; the iconic power of small-town basketball portrayed in Hoosiers; or a mythical baseball diamond in rural Iowa in Field of Dreams. In the late twentieth century, images of deindustrialization and decay linked the region to a new identity as the nation’s Rust Belt. For too many Americans, the Midwest has been “flyover country.”
This book series explores regional identity in the nation’s past through the lens of the American Midwest. Stereotypical images of the region ignore the complexity and vibrancy of the region, as well as the vital role it has played—and continues to play—in the nation’s economy, politics, and social history. In the antebellum and Civil War periods the Midwest was home to virulent racist opponents of black rights and black migration but also to a vibrant antislavery movement, the vigorous and often successful Underground Railroad, and the political and military leadership that brought an end to slavery and reframed the Constitution to provide at least formal racial equality. A midwestern president issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and midwestern generals led the armies that defeated the southern slaveocracy. Midwestern politicians authored the Thirteenth Amendment ending slavery and the Fourteenth Amendment mandating legal equality for all Americans. The political impact of the region is exemplified by the fact that from 1860 to 1932 only two elected presidents (Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson) were not from the Midwest. Significantly, from 1864 until the 1930s every Chief Justice but one was also a midwesterner.
While many Americans