Born of Lakes and Plains

Mixed-Descent Peoples and the Making of the American West

By: Anne F. Hyde

Narrated by: Tanis Parenteau

A fresh history of the West grounded in the lives of mixed-descent Native families who first bridged and then collided with racial boundaries.

Often overlooked, there is mixed blood at the heart of America. And at the heart of Native life for centuries there were complex households using intermarriage to link disparate communities and create protective circles of kin. Beginning in the 17th century, Native peoples - Ojibwes, Otoes, Cheyennes, Chinooks, and others - formed new families with young French, English, Canadian, and American fur traders who spent months in smoky winter lodges or at boisterous summer rendezvous. These families built cosmopolitan trade centers from Michilimackinac on the Great Lakes to Bellevue on the Missouri River, Bent’s Fort in the southern Plains, and Fort Vancouver in the Pacific Northwest. Their family names are often imprinted on the landscape, but their voices have long been muted in our histories. Anne F. Hyde’s pathbreaking history restores them in full.

Vividly combining the panoramic and the particular, Born of Lakes and Plains follows five mixed-descent families whose lives intertwined major events: imperial battles over the fur trade; the first extensions of American authority west of the Appalachians; the ravages of imported disease; the violence of Indian removal; encroaching American settlement; and, following the Civil War, the disasters of Indian war, reservations policy, and allotment. During the pivotal 19th century, mixed-descent people who had once occupied a middle ground became a racial problem drawing hostility from all sides. Their identities were challenged by the pseudo-science of blood quantum - the instrument of allotment policy - and their traditions by the Indian schools established to erase Native ways. As Anne F. Hyde shows, they navigated the hard choices they faced as they had for centuries: by relying on the rich resources of family and kin. Here is an indelible western history with a new human face.

Cover art: Sault Ste. Marie, Showing the United States Garrison in the Distance, 1836–1837 (oil on canvas), by George Catlin, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr., Courtesy of Smithsonian Institute

©2022 Anne F. Hyde (P)2022 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Through stories that are vivid, humane, and powerful, Anne F. Hyde deftly explores families that mixed native and settler cultures in the heart of North America. Sometimes coercive, but often mutual, these intimate relations helped diverse peoples coexist in American borderlands." (Alan Taylor, author of American Republics)

"Anne F. Hyde writes compelling, boots-on-the-ground history, telling stories that are personal, poignant, and powerful. This is the way people really lived." (Elizabeth A. Fenn, author of Encounters at the Heart of the World)

"Anne F. Hyde deftly reconstructs personal lives and relationships, charting the shift from an Indigenous and fur-trading world where marriage, kinship, and community building transcended racial differences to a world dominated by race and divided by ‘blood'." (Colin G. Calloway, author of The Indian World of George Washington)

It was like listening to my family's ttee

I have mostly blood from this line thank you Anne for bringing this lost history to light

Necessary but mostly untold history

Good if somewhat painful listen, couching the Métis history in the story of widely spaced shared families was excellent way to compare their shared stories. Definitely worth the time spent listening.

Transformative

Hyde tells a fascinating story that made me understand the history of Native Americans and the West in an entirely new light. Intermarriage across cultural lands was an adaptive strategy that benefitted both tribal communities and fur-trading settlers alike. The power created through these relationships remains, even if far less visible in our more racist society today. Highly recommended.

Great Story

I struggled to finish. Narration was dryer than an empty river bed. Straight monotone made it very hard to keep listening.