Devastating losses caused by diseases such as smallpox led to an epidemic of bereavement among the Natives. This loss resonated with the French, who had dealt with smaller epidemics in France and were also mourning their absent communities through a nostalgia for home. Blum traces how ghosts provided transgenerational and transcultural links that guided understanding rather than encouraging violence. Ghost Brothers insightfully examines the process of this colonial interdependent alliance between Native and European worlds.