The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650 - 1815

This chapter describes the various meanings of the exchange for the Algonquians and the French beyond the movement of goods. Both sides had models of equitable exchange, with the French model influenced by the European market and the Algonquian model seeking to satisfy the needs of each party. The Algonquian exchange system involved reciprocity, social relationships, and uneven gift-giving rather than a purely economic transaction. The desire for European goods among the Algonquians and Iroquois was driven more by symbolic value than utility. These goods had both everyday and ritual purposes. By the late-17th and early-18th centuries, they were necessary to obtain influence in the heterogeneous society emerging from the alliance. In Algonquian society, individual accumulation of wealth was not a common practice. Goods were treated as communal property and kept in circulation, taken out only when used as grave goods.

White pivots to discussing the relationships in the French-Algonquian fur trade in the pays d’en haut. He highlights the role of the Montreal trade fairs during the 1650s and 1660s in facilitating trade between the Algonquians and other western Indigenous American groups and the French.