An Architecture of Territoriality: Fort Brady and the U.S. Seizure of Bawating, 1822

The U.S. first claimed the south shore of Lake Superior, vis-à-vis Britain, in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. But this was mostly a “paper” claim, supportive of peace between colonial powers. On the ground, the region’s longstanding Anishinaabe communities controlled the territory, and Canadian fur trading interests siphoned wealth to Montreal with impunity. All of this changed in the early 1820s, however. The U.S. War Department launched an initiative to throw “a cordon of advanced posts” around the peninsula, to “secure” the Americans’ norther border and make way for future civilian settlements, including lucrative minerals mining operations.

This paper examines the territorial architecture the U.S. employed at the outflow of Lake Superior, a place known as Bawating to the Anishinaabe and to colonists as Sault Ste. Marie. It was the first of several sites that made up the eventual “cordon.” Establishing armed defense of the border with British Canada, and seeking economic leverage over the fur-trading Anishinaabe, the U.S. built a palisaded fort there, a trading post, and a Federal Style Indian Agency. These structures provided more than armed patrol and administrative capacity for the border, they also did representational work, manifesting American territorial claims with their martial and “civilized” forms, and hosting conspicuous rituals of dominance, such as drum-led drills that “echoed [off of] the adjoining woods.” At the same time, amidst this American ascendancy, the Anishinaabe worked to preserve their sovereignty, protecting burial grounds from development and demanding fishing and settlement rights, crucial to survival in the north.