The Hurons And Odawa Summary

This article’s title is “Inseparable Companions” and Irreconcilable Enemies: The Hurons and Odawas of French Detroit, 1701-38 and its author is Andrew Sturtevant. The thesis in this article is the sentence, “The Hurons ' and Odawas ' simmering hostility and eventual conflict demonstrate that native groups survived the Iroquois onslaught and that their interaction profoundly shaped the region”. In this article, Sturtevant is arguing that the Huron and Odawa are distinct nations with different culture and that because of the differences they had many disagreements, not simply because of the colonialism by the French. Sturtevant uses direct quotes from primary sources to show that the distinct nations fought because of their own differences,

A weakness of this article is its thesis. The thesis is weak not because there is ample evidence in the article that proves the main argument, but because thesis statement is not as clear compared about the argument as the abstracts final sentence, “At Détroit—as at other sites of colonial interaction—colonialism was negotiated among a large cast of indigenous and foreign characters.” It is hard to understand what Sturtevant is arguing based on the thesis alone. A strength of this article is the evidence proved and used. Sturtevant uses primary sources well to prove his argument. An example of this is the quote he has from Father Pierre-Erançois-Xavier Charlevoix that he incorporates into his own argument, when Sturtevant states, “Yet his extensive research and own observations in the region convinced him that these apparent similarities obscured a more profound "diversity" that separated the nations.25” Sturtevant uses what the Father overserves to help his argument and this makes his own argument strong because Sturtevant is using a primary source. Lastly, Sturtevant’s argument overall is strength of this article because of his use of primary sources and other scholars