Public opinion -- Great Britain, Indigenous peoples -- North America -- Commerce, Indigenous peoples -- North America -- Government relations -- 1789-1869, Indigenous peoples -- Canada -- Government relations -- To 1830, Indigenous peoples -- Canada -- Government relations, Indigenous peoples -- North America -- Government relations, Indigenous peoples -- North America -- Public opinion, Public Opinion, Great Britain 

""The white people commiserate the Indians, on account of their thousand misfortunes and sufferings, and congratulate themselves on the superior privileges and blessings they enjoy. The Indians reverse the position, and thank the Great Spirit for not having made them white, and subjected them to the drudgery of civilized life."

Thus did a white captive of the Indians summarize Indian-white relations on the North American frontier early in the nineteenth century. Colin G. Calloway maintains, however, that the British, far from scorning and neglecting Indians, cultivated and observed them closely in the period 1783 to 1815. He shows that the stereotype of the arrogant red-coated officer who would not sit at a smoky council fire with people whom he regarded as uncouth savages does not agree with facts or the Britons' and the Indians' own accounts of themselves.

In the thirty years following the American Revolution, the British interest in native North America was reinforced by two overriding concerns: the need to maintain the Indians' friendship in case of war and the desire to retain their patronage in the fur trade. Many tribes joined the British in a common endeavor to preserve the fur trade and limit American expansion, and military and economic considerations governed the attitudes of Britons and Indians alike.

The notion that British-Indian relations revolved exclusively around isolated northeastern posts is belied by the realities of the military and commercial endeavors that brought individuals from throughout the British Isles into contact with Indian people across the whole of North America during this period of dramatic change.

By 1815, Britain had gradually reduced her commitment to the Indians, cynically abandoning them to the expanding United States and the advance of "civilization." But until then the tribes were still powers to be reckoned with. Indian politicians, warriors, and traders gave as good as they got and looked down on Britons who did not measure up to Indian standards or meet Indian demands." -- Book jacket. 

xiv, 345 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm. 

Britons and Indians in a changing world --
The meeting of cultures --
Trappers, traders, and middlemen --
An uneasy alliance --
Conclusion 1815

Includes index.