As Britain sought to exert control on the American continent, perhaps no places were such fraught contact points as backcountry forts. In Indians and British Outposts, Daniel Ingram sees colonial forts as “little worlds” (5) of their own, where their distance from administrative centres created challenges for colonizing Europeans and opportunities for Indians. The work helps us better understand the complexity, contingency, and accommodation that circled these locales.
Ingram builds on the work of Richard White, Daniel Richter, Jane Merritt, James Merrell and others who made the welcomed turn to understanding history from the perspective of the Indians, and who have brought the Native American experience into the imperial narrative as active actors. Ingram rejects any narrative of determinism that ends with native destruction and shows the many ways Indians shaped colonial worlds. The work successfully contributes to our understanding of the complexity of relations and succeeds at highlighting the overall weakness of the British Empire in the American interior.
Ingram’s monograph focuses on British frontier forts from roughly the Seven Years War to the American Revolution, and the book has five main chapters, each fort case study. The forts’ history demonstrates some common themes, including the ideas that individual contacts mattered in determining outcomes, and that there always existed a fluidity of exchange and mutual misunderstandings which led the backcountry to frequently “squelch larger political, military and economic” British plans in favour of Indians’ desires (6).
The events surrounding the building and use of Fort Loudoun (in modern-day Tennessee) in the 1750s, clearly demonstrates the ways that “Native American priorities intruded upon provincial military and expansion goals” (29). Ingram convincingly shows that the skilful negotiation of the Cherokee to acquire a trading fort demonstrates their ability to forward their goals and to change those of the colonies. Stoking fears of a French incursion from the west, Indian leaders manipulated the South Carolina and Virginia governments to build a fort where the Cherokee desired to trade, and not where the colonies wanted for defence. To fulfil imperial aims, the fort’s commander tried to convince the Indians to help attack the French, but he never succeeded. Just three years after being built, the Cherokee besieged the fort and killed the commander, because the British did not meet Indian trading needs.
Fort Allen existed for just five years but is still instructive as to the ways that “the collision of provincial military imperatives, backcountry settlement ambitions, and Native American cultures helped define and complicate an outpost’s mission” (59). During the Seven Years War, backcountry Pennsylvania settlers demanded military protection against Indian attacks. Colonial leaders hurriedly built a line of small forts, including Fort Allen, which was at a strategic gap in the mountains and was intended to defend the entrance to the Lehigh Valley. However, its placement on the path that Indians used to travel to Philadelphia and Easton, meant that local Delawares quickly redefined the fort to be a meeting place; instead of keeping Indians away, it attracted them. Teedyuscung, a leading Delaware, stayed for months. As a result, the colony declared Fort Allen an official “diplomatic checkpoint” rather than a defensive barrier (82), and a few months later, a trading fort. The Delawares succeeded in bending it to their purposes in less than a year.
The story of Fort Michilimackinac, at the point where Lakes Huron and Michigan meet, is an excellent example of the value of Ingram’s in-depth study. The story features elements familiar to readers: duelling French and British empires, cultural change due to the fur trade, Pontiac’s War, and the American Revolution. Despite the familiarity, Ingram’s work yields satisfying additions to our understanding, showing that Indians were not merely acted upon by empires. Ojibwe and other Indians in the region were essential to provisioning the fort, and their choice to supply food and to trade there made it an excellent location for the French. Under French control, mutual interdependence helped preserve peace for nearly 40 years. However, when Britain took control in 1761, they pursued a strategy of importing foodstuffs, in part to show superiority and power over the Indian population. Because of this attempted change from interdependence to subservience, in 1763 the Ojibwe attacked and killed the fort’s British residents. The taking of Michilimackinac is considered part of Pontiac’s Rebellion, but Ingram’s study underscores the way that local affairs and relationships at the fort prompted Indian action.
The four-fort complex around Niagara presents another opportunity to look closely at the Indian uprisings known collectively as Pontiac’s War. Ingram argues that the events of 1763-1764, from the Seneca Indian point of view, were not just a Pan-Indian movement, but rather a “local strategy, connected through strands of diplomacy and kinship with other Iroquoians, but particular to the unique history and geography” of Niagara (124). The deep and narrow straights formed by the Niagara River and falls required an extensive portage for all boat traffic. Under French control, a system developed of paid labour for Indians to carry goods over the portage. The British ended this, and the Senecas attacked. Ingram complicates our understanding of Pontiac’s War, writing that the Senecas’ actions were not to return to native ways as Pontiac urged, but rather to ensure continued control over “the use of Indian country” (155).
The case study of the Fort Chartres illustrates the challenges Britain faced trying to assert their dominance after the Seven Years War. A large stone fort along the Mississippi River in modern-day Illinois, Chartres was built by the French in 1751 to establish the fur trade (160). The successful fort attracted thousands of Indians, “French settlers, and African and Creole slaves” to settle nearby (161). Kaskaskian and other Indians came to trade, and they also benefited from French protection against rival tribes such as the Fox, Sioux, and Creek. When Britain took control in 1765, Indians did not transfer their allegiance. Ingram shows that many Native hunters did not bring their furs to the fort, even as they demanded and accepted British gifts (179). Instead, Indians traded with the French and Spanish traders who operated just across the Mississippi River. Ingram argues that the fort commander’s “journal implies that native visitors and neighbours held a strong hand in negotiations”, using the “fort as a repository of free goods” (190). This untenable situation ultimately doomed the fort, and Britain abandoned it; the “natives had overcome [the] newcomers” (192).
Each fort case study is compelling on its own, and together they support Ingram’s arguments. At each fort, we see Native Americans not only acting for their best interests, as we would expect, but also aggressively shaping British imperial policy on the frontiers. The book highlights the overall weakness of Britain beyond the Atlantic coast, as the empire tried to assert power. Students of empire, Native Americans, and colonial frontiers will find this work enlightening.
