Reference no: EM133669429

Problem

First, read the Introduction; (pages 1-13) to Dr. Kathleen DuVal's groundbreaking 2006 book The Native Ground.

Then, read part of "The Shifting Middle Ground," by Dr. Jeannie Whayne; When finished, answer the prompt below.

Historian Richard White radically changed the study of Native-European interactions in the New World with his 1991 book The Middle Ground. It helped portray Natives not as helpless beings or as pawns in a larger tale of European conquest, but instead as shrewd operators who sought alliances and trade with primarily French (but also English and Spanish) explorers to increase their own standings in society. Neither Europeans nor Natives were able to gain an upper hand, so a 'middle ground' was necessarily created. Historians throughout the 1990s began looking for other instances of these middle grounds. They uncovered more and more in the Great Lakes region and Northeast of the United States.

For historians of the American Southwest (the region around modern Arkansas), however, this was shown to be an inaccurate way to tell the story of Native-European interactions. How does Kathleen DuVal push back on this narrative of a middle ground in Arkansas (the title should give it away)? How was Native strength on display in this area (provide specific examples from DuVal's work)? Why, when, and how does Whayne explain the change from this ground being dominated by Native Americans to instead being dominated by American settlers? What role did the Louisiana Purchase play in this - and did Jefferson envision this occurring? (again, cite examples from Whayne's work).