ABSTRACT
Atlantic World histories, like more familiar narratives of the rise of the nation-state, frequently seem to convey a sense of European omnipotence. This chapter explores one European borderland and Indian homeland, the Choctaw Nation, where French and British empires fought a proxy war in the first half of the eighteenth century. It outlines how France and Britain exported their imperial rivalry to the Choctaw Nation. The chapter also explores the French administrators' fantasies of control over native peoples. The great distance between Paris and the lower South as well as the interest of French administrators in their far-flung colony is captured by the brief yet strongly worded comments left by Parisian officers in the margins of reports on Louisiana. The chapter concludes by arguing that the proxy war in the Choctaw Nation, though hardly controlled by French and British officers, nevertheless had devastating consequences for native peoples.
