Forts

Forts were central to all colonization efforts in North America because organized violence against Europeans by other Europeans and by Indians was common in the New World. Indeed, a fort was usually the first building constructed by a new colony. Native Americans like the Pequot, although lacking European engineering skills, also produced palisades and forts for defense against both other tribes and European invaders.

While the North American colonial era coincided with the great age of fortification in Europe, colonial forts rarely approached the great masonry piles that dominated the European landscape and mindset. Instead, colonial forts tended to be more rudimentary, constructed most often of wood or earth. Because forts provided protection from cannon bombardment, one major reason colonial forts never achieved the size and strength of their European counterparts was that they did not face comparable threats. Artillery pieces of the power routinely used in Europe could not be transported through the North American wilderness. The largest colonial forts, like the massive fortifications of

Louisbourg protecting the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, were on the coasts because they might encounter heavy guns mounted on ships.

Forts provided both tactical and operational advantages. The most common weapons included the bow and arrow and various personal gunpowder firearms. Loading, aiming, and firing these weapons generally required a person to stand upright, thus exposing himself to enemy fire. A shooter with protection, such as that provided by the walls of a fort, enjoyed a considerable advantage over his opponent. Forts provided secure depots for supplies, protected places for military forces to rest and recover, and a place for a defeated force to retreat. An advancing enemy encountering a fort had to either detail sufficient forces to besiege the garrison, thus weakening the advance, or else bypass the fort, risking an enemy sally in their rear. Forts also provided safety for noncombatants during raids.

Many forts, especially those of the French, served economic as well as military purposes. Trading posts were established within forts, and the garrison of a fort could ensure the safety of nearby traders. The security provided by a fort attracted settlers and traders to the area, and villages, towns, and finally cities often developed on the sites of forts.

Finally, forts served a political purpose, which was sometimes more important than their military usefulness. Establishing a fort legitimized a claim to the surrounding area far more strongly than any other method except populating the region. The English and French disputed ownership of the Ohio River Valley and associated regions for years, but when the French began establishing forts in the region, the English demanded their immediate removal. Fighting broke out shortly thereafter, setting the stage for the Seven Years’ War. One particular location exemplifies the political and economic powers of forts. One English aim in the war was to eliminate the French Fort Duquesne, built on a point in western Pennsylvania where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers meet to form the Ohio River, a strategically valuable spot. The legitimizing effect forts had on a territorial claim demanded an immediate response from the English if they hoped to prevent the French from consolidating their hold on the region. Once the British forced the French to abandon Fort Duquesne, they built Fort Pitt on the same spot, which eventually became the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

From the earliest efforts at colonization, through the end of the Seven Years’ War, and into the Revolutionary Era, forts were central to the lives of colonists. Forts provided economic and political benefits to their possessor as well as operational and tactical military advantages.

See also Fort Necessity.

Further reading: Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 (New York: Knopf, 2000).

—Grant Weller