The Great Power of Small Nations: A History of Contemporary Relevance

Abstract

The Great Power of Small Nations:A History of Contemporary Relevance Shannon Speed (bio) ELIZABETH N. ELLIS'S The Great Power of Small Nations: Indigenous Diplomacy in the Gulf South is a remarkable book that sheds new light on the political systems of the "small nations" of the Lower Mississippi Valley in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and provides an important corrective to the long-standing erasure of their histories. Meticulously researched and elegantly written, the book describes the ways that these small nations' unique patterns of settlement and forms of social organization helped them navigate and survive European invasion and colonization. Ellis highlights the long-occluded history in which Chitimachas, Chakchiumas, Mobilians, Tunicas, Ishak/Atakapas, Houmas, and other small nations "shaped European empires and forged vibrant and powerful nations" (3–4) and effectively "steered the course of the development of the eighteenth-century Lower Mississippi Valley" (4). As a Chickasaw (also of Choctaw descent), I have long been interested in the history of Indigenous and colonial relations in the Lower Mississippi Valley, but The Great Power of Small Nations gave me an entirely new perspective on the history of the region. One important aspect of the book's argument is that flexible residence patterns in what Ellis characterizes as a borderlands space between the larger nations of Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek to the east, Osage and Quapaw to the north, and Caddoan polities to the west meant that groups of people regularly moved among and between nations, creating fluidity of spatial and ideational boundaries. The common practice of breakaway groups migrating out of their nations and receiving refuge in another, or, as Ellis calls it, "fusion and fission" (5), created new multinational, multicultural, and multilingual communities in which people grew accustomed to residing in close proximity to, and thus relating to, people of foreign nations. She both explores how this system of social relations and community composition was a significant aspect of what gave these small nations their strength and analyzes what this history can tell us about the processes of Indigenous nation building. The first obviously gives the book its title and is important because so much of the written history has focused on larger nations or [End Page 757] confederacies, and the second is what gives this book such broad interest beyond the particular nations' histories it examines. In terms of demonstrating how small nations exercised power, I found chapter 6, "Imperial Blunders and the Revival of Interdependency at Midcentury," particularly compelling (perhaps also due to my own interest in and stronger knowledge of this period of Chickasaw and Choctaw history). This chapter chronicles the Chickasaw Wars, the Choctaw Civil War, and other conflicts, taking the reader through the mind-boggling sets of alliances and changing relationships among the Petites Nations, with the powerful Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations, and with the French and British during the tumultuous and violent 1730s, 1740s, and 1750s. The author skillfully demonstrates the larger powers' absolute reliance on the Petites Nations and the tremendous significance of these alliances in the political outcomes of that era's conflicts. Further, Ellis shows us the practices of giving refuge and sharing territory, particularly in the case of the Chakchiumas, who, through their key role in the conflicts, suffered great losses of both people and political sovereignty but were able to survive after receiving refuge among the Chickasaw. Finally, we see the Petites Nations' crucial role in diplomacy, as the Chakchiumas helped to broker lasting peace between the Chickasaw and Choctaw, who signed a peace agreement in 1759 and never returned to open conflict. Though Ellis's arguments are well supported throughout the book, this chapter demonstrates effectively all her major points. Although the specific histories she sheds light on are fascinating and make the case for the power of small nations, it is Ellis's lucid depiction of Indigenous notions of power and nation building—markedly distinct from European settler conceptions—that gives the book its broader theoretical power.1 Indigenous nation building is something I have been thinking about a lot these days. What were its formal elements, and what made it distinct from Western nation building? The Great Power of Small Nations provides...