I think the entire idea of a “middle ground” or a “Native ground” is a really interesting concept—I had never heard of the concept before, and I definitely appreciate the way it has challenged my view of the fur trade, which is probably the period of time in which I have actually learned most about in Native American history in middle/high school (being from the Great Lakes region). The idea of a “middle ground” and the lectures this week made me think far more than I had to in previous lessons, however, which I’m grateful for. I feel like so much of my education about Native American history ignores any potential power that Indigenous people did actually have in these situations, instead portraying them largely as passive participants in their own histories. It was really interesting to learn about just how much the fur trade was truly a collaboration between Indigenous and European cultures.
Perhaps I would consider the fur trade a “middle ground” in history, though I would hesitate to view the actual circumstances through too rosy of glasses—because it was an event that consisted of mutually-beneficial trade between Europeans and Indigenous peoples, with rules in place to discourage settling in the region and various understandings formed between cultures (I think of marriage kinship ties, for one), but it also was ultimately an endeavor of colonialism that put Indigenous people under environmental pressure. I had also basically never heard about the fur trade in the Upper Missouri region as its own thing, and I think that part of the fur trade seemed a little less like a “middle ground” to me. That being said, the existence and influence of people like Natoyist-Siksina’ cannot be ignored, and point to the undeniable strength of Indigenous people in this situation.
I am of the belief that material culture, in general, serves as one of the best records of history to study, even if I wouldn’t consider most examples of material culture to be “historical documents.” Physical materials can help us understand the fur trade in ways beyond being told in written documents—for one thing, I feel like the written and/or spoken word allow for a lot of interpretation. Visual things do too, of course, but there is a little less up for consideration when thinking about exactly what materials are being used, where they came from, who used them, and, then, for what purpose. Items like the 18th century Anishinaabe outfit, for example, tell us so much about culture, aesthetic values, trade relations, and the flow of both materials and imagery across space and peoples.