19 Colonial French Presence on the Fox River: Motivations of the Fox Wars Atharva Gawde The Fox Wars, a series of military encounters between the French and Fox (Meskwaki) Indians in the Midwest, fought mostly between 1712 and 1730, are a significant installment in the historiography of French colonialism in the Great Lakes Region. At a surface level, the French’s desire to use the Fox-controlled Fox River system to gain trade access to Mississippi and the West defines the conflict. However, since Louise Phelps Kellogg wrote the first comprehensive account of the Fox Wars in the 1920s, the war has been a heavily challenged topic in virtually all histories of French-Indian relations in the Upper Country.1 The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires and Republics, 1650-1815, Richard White's seminal study of the region, highlights the wars’ importance in influencing French-Indian relationships throughout the first half of the eighteenth century. White regarded the violence noteworthy for its effect on historical figures and historians trying to comprehend and document the structure and purpose of French-Indian ties. "The Fox wars," according to White, "provided the basic primer for alliance politics," shaping all future interactions between the French and their native allies. Both French and Indians came to understand how to function within the "complicated and precarious" partnership that kept them together until the French ceded the territory to Britain in 1763.2 Yet, despite its historic significance, historians of the 20th century and their contemporaries have grossly misrepresented and exalted French-Indian diplomacy as cordial and cooperative when, in fact, it was a masquerade motivated by the profitable 1 Louise Phelps Kellogg. 2007. The French Régime in Wisconsin and the Northwest. Westminster, Md.: Heritage Books. 2 White, Richard. 2011. The Middle Ground : Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815. New York: Cambridge University Press.
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