LIVING THE MIDDLE GROUND - 2 DAKOTA MISSIONARIES, 1887-1912

This essay examines Richard White's concept of the ''middle ground'' t hrough careers of two Dakota missionaries active in Rupert's Land in t he late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, John Thunder and Pet er Hunter. The archival sources suggest that both men used the process involved in the creation of the middle ground in an attempt to commun icate effectively with the dominant white society. To attain their own goals, they appropriated and manipulated Euro-Canadian symbols and in stitutions.