British Forts and Their Communities: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives, edited by Christopher R. DeCorse and Zachary J. M. Beier, is a collection of 10 well-illustrated chapters that breathes life into forts that have too often been understood solely for their military applications. Framed by a synthesizing introduction and concluding commentary, the volume's case studies are drawn from English and British fortifications in North America (Chapters 1–5), the Caribbean (Chapters 6–7), and Africa (Chapters 8–10), representing nearly 400 years of empire building. Although these case studies are geographically and temporally diverse, analyses are united by two fundamental premises: (1) that the forts discussed were shaped by British colonial policy but were ultimately the products of local “cultural entanglements,” and (2) that to fully examine the social roles of forts, we must move beyond their walls to consider the ever-shifting communities in which they were enmeshed.
With respect to the first premise, the forts examined in this volume defy the image of cookie-cutter copies implanted across the globe, and they are illuminated instead as unique, evolving sociohistorical characters. Robert J. Cromwell's survey of British forts sited along the Columbia River in Washington and Oregon explores a landscape in which fortifications were variably erected, abandoned, and reclaimed as trading companies battled for supremacy, redirecting movements of people and goods throughout the region. Douglas C. Wilson's study of Fort Vancouver and its surrounding village shows that although colonizers attempted to inscribe social differences onto the architectural landscape, pollen analysis suggests that this rigid separation was blurred as plants from chief factor John McLoughlin's formal gardens made their way to the nearby workers’ village.
The volume's second premise underscores the socially and racially diverse communities that flowed into and around British forts, a theme present in nearly every chapter. Liza Gijanto traces the British commercial insertion into the Gambia, arguing that James Fort be viewed not in isolation but as a node connected to surrounding trading posts, factors, ships, and competing interests. This meticulous approach to colonialism-as-network allows one to tack back and forth between sites and scales, moving from British fort to interior African trade routes to Atlantic cultural shifts, and back again. Amy Roache-Fedchenko's analysis of blacksmithing at Fort Michilimackinac, Michigan, positions blacksmiths in a pivotal diplomatic role, connected via their trade to British laborers, Jesuit priests, French soldiers, and Indigenous trade allies alike.
It is telling that each of the volume's chapters detail the diversity of their fort communities, but most reveal challenges inherent in linking archaeologically recovered artifacts to any one group. So often, because of the historical influx and outflux of disparate peoples, material culture recovered from forts resists attribution, forcing affiliation to the whole community rather than penetrating more deeply to any one group. In cases where assemblages could be tied to a group, some chapters demanded further interrogation. For instance, when Gerald F. Schroedl concludes that enslaved Africans-turned-soldiers stationed at Brimstone Hill Fortress on St. Kitts in the Caribbean enjoyed better living conditions because they wielded more expensive European-made ceramics, we might ask whether plates and drinking vessels were enough to elevate the experience of enslavement. Would considerations of “assemblages of practice” (Konrad A. Antczak and Mary C. Beaudry, “Assemblages of Practice: A Conceptual Framework for Exploring Human-Thing Relations in Archaeology,” Archaeological Dialogues 26:87–110, 2019) provide a fuller picture of the daily lives of those at the Columbia River forts studied by Cromwell, rather than the CC index values he assigned? (CC index values are estimates of relative costs of different English ceramics, following a system devised by George L. Miller and outlined in papers published in Historical Archaeology in 1980 and 1991.)
The volume's most successful chapters combine a range of sources. For example, Flordeliz T. Burgarin uses archival records, artifacts, and oral testimony to explore how Xhosa chiefs manipulated colonial systems to jockey for power and prestige, all cast against the backdrop of South African Fort Willshire. DeCorse also integrates oral interviews into historical and archaeological records to identify the impacts of colonialism in West Africa that continue to shape present conditions. The volume is synthesized admirably by Guido Pezzarossi, whose incisive and thought-provoking concluding remarks characterize forts as at once “possessive” (i.e., designed to structure human practices) and “porous” (i.e., permeable spaces through which goods and people moved).
Ultimately, this volume is an excellent—and much-needed—addition to fort scholarship, in large part because of the reduced role assigned to the forts themselves. Individually, its chapters document the idiosyncratic populations that made British forts singular places, and collectively, they demand that forts be viewed within broader networks of people, goods, and sociopolitical forces. Beyond those studying forts, this volume would find a good home on the shelves of any scholar researching cultural interactions on the frontiers of the British Empire.
