In recent years, New Indian History has emphasized cultural synthesis.
Redirecting attention away from traditional themes of conflict and
conquest, historians have examined the process by which Indians and
Europeans learned to coexist. Initially, according to this literature, neither
side enjoyed absolute power and authority over the other. Consequently,
native people and European settlers carved out a “middle ground”
between their two cultures upon which they engaged in relationships
based on mutual accommodation. This mode of contact led to an
exchange and intermingling of European and Indian cultural forms and
practices.Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes
Region, 1650–1815 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Daniel H. Usner,
Jr., Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy: The Lower Mississippi
Valley before 1783 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992); Colin G.
Galloway, New Worlds For All: Indians, Europeans and the Remaking of Early America
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).