Historiography: Cross-Cultural Dynamics in New France

The cross-cultural encounters between the French and Indigenous peoples of the Great Lakes region is a historical topic that has been on the radars of chroniclers and historians since the time of New France in 1534 to the early American Republic in 1800. Throughout American and Canadian history, much of this dynamic relationship has been expressed, studied, then retold again and again through the Eurocentric lenses of the military and political scopes of historiography, sometimes through French eyes, but often through those of the British. In the most recent decades of the historiography, historians have explored the social histories of their encounters as well as the political influences. Revealing the historiography of this topic attempts to harmonize the Indigenous and European perception of the cross-cultural encounters and how the varying parties worked with and against one another for their own benefit. These interactions are far more complex than “White versus Red.”

Outside the longstanding narrative of European expansion, conquest, and extermination, the historiography of examining cross-cultural dynamics in New France, particularly in the Great Lakes region, is relatively new. Beginning with Professor Richard White in 1991, the roots were established to re-examine and reposition the socio-political relationships of the French, British, Americans, and their Indigenous allies. White grew the roots of this historiography, his work in reshaping the narrative and historical perspective influenced and inspired succeeding historians on the topic. Whether directly or indirectly, all other work in this historiography since 1991 can trace its roots back to his theories and research. Historian Susan Sleeper-Smith takes White's theories and research, coming into the 21st century, expanding— and countering his arguments. It is from their combined research and scholarship that the most recent generation of historians is directing the historiography. In 2015, historians like Michael McDonnell began to expand upon the role that these local interactions played in greater world affairs; and in 2017, Jacob Jurss, a student of Susan Sleeper-Smith, explores the narrative of defeated tribes submitting to a powerful Eurocentric nation that continued to prevail, until recent decades. They place the narrative and re-examination of history in the scope of vast early America, and explore the devolution of reality.

Through these historians, particularly White and Sleeper-Smith, a complicated relationship begins to emerge between the French and competing Indigenous groups based on the wills and needs of native groups rather than those of the Europeans. The combined progressive research of these texts demonstrates that the relationship of participating groups was dynamic and complex. Through White's initial research on the middle ground, an exploration of common meaning, mutual benefit, and social accommodation over the conquest-resistance narrative, White sought to introduce the topic to nouvelle-histoire. He throws out the old narratives in place of a more neutral ground on which people as a society, rather than the victors or political elite drove history. With this new idea in mind, many sides benefited in different ways from the French-Indigenous alliance, but the Indigenous groups of the Great Lakes region held most of the social power in relationship, running diplomacy and commerce within their own brand of familial empire. Within the last few decades alone (1990-2020), our understanding of North American history has expanded socially, culturally, and geographically. By incorporating new developments in historical research and perspective via nouvelle-histoire, historians have progressively added to the history of this topic, moving away from politics and great men, toward the social history of common folk, countering the long-standing regurgitated narrative of European encroachment and systematic replacement.

Reframing the Indigenous-European Relationship

In 1991, Richard White's The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 acted as the roots for the historiography of French and Indigenous cross-cultural encounters, introduces Indigenous refugees and a world made of social fragments. These refugees weren't moving westward to avoid the path of European imperial ambitions but those of their Indigenous neighbors. This is crucial because it demonstrates the nature and reality of empire and cross-cultural dynamics of the 17th and 18th centuries, despite the end result of European encroachment.

White opens his argument with a quote from interdisciplinary scholar and revolutionary of culture study, James Clifford:

“Stories of cultural contact and change have been structured by a pervasive dichotomy: absorption by the other or resistance to the other. A fear of lost identity, a Puritan taboo on mixing beliefs and bodies, hangs over the process. Yet what if identity is conceived not as [a] boundary to be maintained but as a nexus of relations and transactions actively engaging a subject? The story or stories of interaction must then be more complex, less linear and teleological.”¹

White acknowledges that past narratives have not been complex or produced dynamic stories about the Indigenous and French relationship; instead lumping all Indigenous groups under one banner. Making his own quote-worthy and thought provoking claims, White argues:

“Indians are the rock, European peoples are the sea, and history seems a constant storm. There have been but two outcomes: The sea wears down and dissolves the rock; or the sea erodes the rock but cannot finally absorb its battered remnant, which endures. The first outcome produces stories of conquest and assimilation; the second produces stories of cultural persistence.”²

White recognizes the truth in these narratives, but he notes that they miss both the bigger picture and minute details, creating something new in the historical process of cross-cultural encounters. There is a bigger picture than the linear path of Europeans changing and Indigenous peoples disappearing; White's book is about accommodation from all parties, including the multiple clans of related and competing tribes. While the French and Anishinaabeg (the Ojibweg people) of the Great Lakes region regard one another as alien initially, via trade, political necessity, and kinship through union they created a reciprocal community, as both of the greater sides were altered in the pays d'en haut (Upper Country/Upper Louisiana/the Great Lakes Region). In essence, at the heart of this expanded community was acculturation, on both.³

Just as important as this realization of a world of mutual advantage, there are also revelations regarding the breakdown of diplomacy, how international relations fell apart, alliances shifted, and the actions of a few paved the way for the demonization of the many. Through White's text, not only does the reality of life in the Great Lakes come to light, but also each group's re-alienation of the “other” in relation to how the outcome of the prevailing narrative was born. This links back to a concept that White explores regarding the middle ground of acculturation, where one group attempts to assess the values and perceptions of the other. Where this re-alienation worked, it also led to great misinterpretation as well as the devolution of diplomacy and relations.⁴ This concept of the middle ground, was revolutionary in the thought process of historians, analysis of historical relationships, modern cultural and social understanding, and understanding the shared past of North America. It has altered the historical understanding of New France, the Great Lakes region, pre-Columbian life, and the native narrative outside of European context. Additionally, in was greatly influential in succeeding literature and research.

A decade later, in 2001, there is more inclusivity in the historiography of the French­native relationship, in addition to a greater understanding of the division and cohesion of the great tribes of the Great Lakes region, nominally the Sioux, the Huron, and the Iroquois. While White represents the roots of the research, Sleeper-Smith is the trunk to which all other branches of the historiography grow. Reimagining the topic, Susan Sleeper-Smith in Indian Women and French Men: Rethinking Cultural Encounter in the Western Great Lakes explores la Basse- Louisiane (the Low Country/Lower Louisiana) through the pays d'en haut into Canada and the surrounding area via rivers and waterways. For both the Indigenous peoples and Europeans— such as the French, English, and Dutch— these waterways were the trade network of furs, raw materials, and finished goods for growing consumer demands, but for the Europeans they were also territorial dividing lines. The Europeans generally respected these dividing lines, while the Indigenous people did not recognize such boundaries.⁵

Through this lens, Sleeper-Smith builds on, yet contests Richard White and his work on the middle ground, opening an expansion of the Great Lakes region in the greater world, both in the vast expanse of North America and the transatlantic economic web. She is largely in agreement with White, engaging with his perspective as a base on which to expand his ideas into her own approach. Where White's scope is somewhat limited in geography and context, Sleeper­Smith expands it in scale, placing Indigenous economy and socio-political relations in more of the foreground. This revelation also introduces the idea that tribal conflict could impact diplomacy in the expanded world, as well as international events and consumer demands impacting inter-tribal relations. In this particular text, Sleeper-Smith reiterates White's refugee theory to some degree, noting:

“Food was produced in larger quantities, and agricultural fields were expanded to meet the demand of several villages as well as to supply newly arriving or transient refugees. —Defeat [of the British and their allies after the American Revolution] transformed Indians into refugees, and those who did not flee to Canada fled north and west into the lands that lay between Lakes Huron and Michigan.”⁶

Later, Sleeper-Smith attempts to dispel the refugee theory, she affirms the idea that the agricultural potential and fertility of Green Bay made it a multi-ethnic village with plentiful opportunities for trade and exchange among different groups and nations.

Regarding the aforementioned tribes, Sleeper-Smith explores how the shifting power dynamic meant that the Huron could no longer contain the westward-expanding Iroquois from the eastern Great Lakes. The Iroquois pushed the Huron further west as refugees, where they encountered equally aggressive resistance from the Sioux. French involvement with these distinct groups complicated matters, as the founding of Montreal prevented northeast migration. French-Indigenous marriages linked them to tribes, but their desired expansion of fur trade was their motivator and chief concern. The French preference on trade over relationship and alliances, and attempts to appease multiple groups ultimately caused the Iroquois to turn on them.⁷ It is also because of this factor of relationship between the French, invasive Indigenous groups, and refugee Indigenous groups that scholars examined the term “refugee” in the context of the Great Lakes and New France. Sleeper-Smith takes note of the importance that agriculture played in feeding these refugee groups as well as French trappers, traders, and frontiersmen. As increasing numbers of Indigenous groups and Frenchmen inundated the region, it was the agricultural work of women, often married to Frenchmen or intermarried into other tribes that kept the growing populations fed. It is due to that complex web of relationships and overlapping cultural dynamics that later authors begin to question the appellation and consideration of the “refugee” groups.

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¹ Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Re­gion, 1650-1815, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), xxv.

² White, The Middle Ground, xxv.

³ White, The Middle Ground, xxv-xxvii.

⁴ White, The Middle Ground, xxv-xxvii.

⁵ Susan Sleeper-Smith, Indian Women and French Men: Rethinking Cultural Encounter in the Western Great Lakes, (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001), 11.

⁶ Sleeper-Smith, Indian Women and French Men, 75, 85.

⁷ Sleeper-Smith, Indian Women and French Men, 12-13.