Charles Beatty-Medina

Charles Beatty-Medina is Associate Professor of History at the University of Toledo.

Melissa Rinehart

Melissa Rinehart is Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Miami University–Middletown.

Contested Territories
Native Americans and Non-Natives in the Lower Great Lakes, 1700-1850

Charles Beatty-Medina

Melissa Rinehart

A remarkable multifaceted history, Contested Territories examines a region that played an essential role in America’s post- revolutionary expansion—the Lower Great Lakes region, once known as the Northwest Territory. As French, English, and finally American settlers moved westward and intersected with Native American communities, the ethnogeography of the region changed drastically, necessitating interactions that were not always peaceful. Using ethnohistorical methodologies, the seven essays presented here explore rapidly changing cultural dynamics in the region and reconstruct in engaging detail the political organization, economy, diplomacy, subsistence methods, religion, and kinship practices in play. With a focus on resistance, changing worldviews, and early forms of self-determination among Native Americans, Contested Territories demonstrates the continuous interplay between actor and agency during an important era in American history.

Notes, references, B&W photographs World rights 250 pp., 6.00" x 9.00", September 2012 Cloth, $39.95, 1-61186-045-8 978-1-61186-045-0