W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 2008 In the pale's shadow: Indians and British forts in eighteenth- century America Daniel Patrick Ingram College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the Indigenous Studies Commons, Military History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Ingram, Daniel Patrick, "In the pale's shadow: Indians and British forts in eighteenth-century America" (2008). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539623527. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-9yet-mr81 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. IN THE PALE'S SHADOW Indians and British Forts in Eighteenth-Century America Daniel Patrick Ingram Flint, Michigan Master of Arts, The College of William and Mary, 1998 Bachelor of Arts, Wayne State University, 1996 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the College of William and Mary in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History The College of William and Mary May 2008 APPROVAL PAGE This Dissertation is submitted in partial fulfillment of the 'requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy w~rP~ Daniel Patrick Ingram Approved by the Committee, March, 2008 ~Axwu. Committee Chair Professor James Axtell, History The College of William and Mary Associate Professor Kris E. Lane, History The College of William and Mary ABSTRACT PAGE British forts in the colonial American backcountry have long been subjects of American heroic myth. Forts were romanticized as harbingers of European civilization, and the Indians who visited them as awestruck, childlike, or scheming. Two centuries of historiography did little to challenge the image of Indians as noble but peripheral figures who were swept aside by the juggernaut of European expansion. In the last few decades, historians have attacked the persistent notion that Indians were supporting participants and sought to reposition them as full agents in the early American story. But in their search for Indian agency, historians have given little attention to British forts as exceptional contact points in their own rights. This dissertation examines five such forts and their surrounding regions as places defined by cultural accommodation and confluence, rather than as outposts of European empire. Studying Indian-British interactions near such forts reveals the remarkable extent to which Indians defined the fort experience for both natives and newcomers. Indians visited forts as friends, enemies, and neutrals. They were nearly always present at or near backcountry forts. In many cases, Indians requested forts from their British allies for their own purposes. They used British forts as trading outposts, news centers, community hubs, diplomatic meeting places, and suppliers of gifts. But even with the advantages that could sometimes accrue from the presence of forts, many Indians still resented them. Forts could attract settlers, and often failed to regulate trade and traders sufficiently to please native consumers. Indians did not hesitate to press fort personnel for favors and advantages. In cases where British officers and soldiers failed to impress Indians, or angered them, the results were sometimes violent and extreme. This study makes a start at seeing forts as places that were at least as much a part of the Native American landscape as they were outposts of European aggression. At Forts Loudoun, Allen, Michilimackinac, Niagara, and Chartres, Indians used their abilities and influence to turn the objectives of the British fort system upside down. As centers of British-Indian cultural confluence, these forts evoke an early America marked by a surprising degree of Indian agency. At these contact points people lived for the moment. The America of the future, marked by Indian dispossession and British-American social dominance, was an outcome few could imagine. - TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 111 INTRODUCTION 2 CHAPTER I: Forts in their Hearts, 1756-1759 38 CHAPTER 2: Anxious Hospitality, 1756-1761 84 CHAPTER 3: The Greatest Mart, 1761-1796 133 CHAPTER 4: A Year at Niagara, 1763-1764 184 CHAPTER 5: Like Stars That Fall, 1765-1772 232 CONCLUSION 294 BIBLIOGRAPHY 303 VITA 319 1 For Stacey ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A great many people helped me reach the end of this project and the beginning of my career. Nothing that I write here can repay all those bills, but I will give it an honest try. My advisor James Axtell brought me to ethnohistory, and I am grateful for his guidance. I am proud to be one of the many lucky students who have benefited from his instruction, encouragement, and humor. I have always liked to write, but Professor Axtell did more than anyone else to make me a writer. The other members of my dissertation committee have been just as gracious and accommodating. James P. Whittenburg has helped guide my education since the day I arrived at William and Mary, and his comments on this study and on many other subjects, such as archaeology and historiography, have been enlightening and profound. KrisE. Lane is one of those invaluable historians whose groundbreaking scholarship is a genuine pleasure to read, and I was very fortunate to have his input and feedback. Michael N. McConnell provided a fresh perspective on my work. In addition to his service on my committee, his book Army and Empire arrived just in time to serve as a perfect reference guide to frontier military life. I am thankful to have had the benefit of his substantial experience and knowledge of this subject. I owe more than I can express here to the teachers and friends who have guided me to this happy place. Special thanks go to professors Timothy Koerner, Sandra V anBurkleo, and Joseph P. Ward, without whom I would never have embarked on a course to an advanced degree in history. At William and Mary, many scholars helped me find my way. I especially thank Carol Sheriff, Cindy Hahamovitch, Scott Reynolds Nelson, Kimberley L. Phillips, Dale Hoak, Marley R. Brown III, Philip D. Morgan, Ronald Ho:ffinan, and Michael McGiffert for believing in me enough to give me the benefit of their valuable time and tutelage. Graduate coordinator Roz Steams guided me through the fmale of this project, as she has done with so many others, and deserves exceptional praise. Philip Levy, John Coombs, David Muraca, David Brown, and Robert Paulett, with whom I shared many grimy sessions digging under the insufferable Virginia sun, are colleagues and friends whose advice and opinions on archaeology and history have changed the way I think. My heartfelt thanks go to Brian Geiger, David Preston, Creston Long, Steve Feeley, Sharon Sauder Muhlfeld, Ericka Thoms, Emily Blanck, Bill Carrigan, Lily Richards, Jim Piecuch, Beth English, Joan Campbell, Chesley Flotten, Laurie Bauer-Coleman, Elizabeth Kelly Gray, Catharine Dann, and Jody Allen for their help and friendship during my time at William and Macy. Mike Lavoie, Matt Spittle, Mark Rabinowitz, Steve Simonson, Dudley Smith, Paul Smith, Howard Williams, and their families are close friends who have known and assisted me since the beginning of my education, through all kinds ofweather. 111 Professional organizations and libraries have been invaluable to my work. William and Mazy's Lyon G. Tyler Department ofHistocy and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences provided funding through their Historical Archaeology Apprenticeship and History Writing Resources Center. I am proud of my association with the Colonial Williamsburg Department of Archaeological Research, where I worked as a field school instructor for several summers. The General Society for Colonial Wars provided important funding for my research through their George Washington Fellowship, for which I am vecy grateful. Thanks also to the staffs of the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan, the Burton Historical Collection at the Detroit Public Library, the American Philosophical Society, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Peterson Center Library in Mackinaw City, Michigan, the Main Library at Michigan State University, the Library ofMichigan, the Kresge Library at Wayne State University, and the Earl Gregg Swem Library at William and Mary. My family has been a constant source of love and inspiration. My father Terry Ingram deserves special mention because it was literally on his knee that I first learned to love history. My appreciation of maps, charts, and books began with him. Thanks also to the Harris and Joyrich families, who know how much they mean to me. Wendy Joyrich would have liked to read this dissertation. None of it would have happened without her. Finally, thanks to Stacey Harris Ingram, the very heart ofevecy part ofmy life. iv IN THE PALE'S SHADOW Indians and British Forts in Eighteenth-Century America 2 INTRODUCTION As the confused and timid throng, left the protecting mounds of the fort, and issued on the open plain, the whole scene was, at once, presented to their eyes. At a little distance on the right, and somewhat in the rear, the French army stood to their arms, Montcalm having collected his parties, so soon as his guards had possession of the works. They were attentive, but silent observers of the proceedings ofthe vanquished, failing in none of the stipulated military honours, and offering no taunt or insult, in their success, to their less fortunate foes. Living masses of the English, to the amount, in the whole, of near three thousand, were moving slowly across the open plain, towards the common center, and gradually approached each other, as they converged to the point of their march, a vista cut through the lofty trees, where the road to the Hudson entered the forest.