The document asks to summarize the middle ground in the pays d'en haut as depicted by Richard White and the Comanche Empire in the Southwest plains as depicted by Pekka Hamalainen. It instructs to discuss the conditions that allowed each system to emerge, how Native people exercised power in each, and how New France and New Spain attempted to exercise power in each. The question concludes by asking what factors helped Native people exercise power in colonial North America based on these two readings.