Great Lakes Indian accommodation and resistance during the early reservation years, 1850-1900

Abstract

This is the story of how Great Lakes Indians survived the early reservation years. During the four decades following the War of 1812, Great Lakes Indians were forced to surrender most of their ancestral homelands and begin refashioning their lives on reservations. The challenges Indians faced during this period could not have been greater, and it's little wonder that policy makers in Washington and Ottawa alike anticipated the disappearance of distinctive Indian communities within a single generation.As Edmund Danziger's lively and insightful book documents, however, Great Lakes Indians not only survived but were able peacefully to protect the old ways in the face of ongoing marginalization. Utilizing eyewitness accounts from the 1800s and an innovative, cross-national approach, Danziger reveals a story not of victimization but of how Native American communities and their leaders determined their own destinies and preserved core values, lands, and identities even while adapting to their altered circumstances. In particular, the book examines Indian attempts at horse and plow agriculture, the impact of reservation allotment, the response to Christian evangelists, and the challenge of sharing political power with federal officials.