Speculators in Empire

Treatments of the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, which set the boundary between natives and colonies following the Proclamation of 1763, have, over time, added refinement to Ray A. Billington's article “The Fort Stanwix Treaty of 1768” (New York History, April 1944, pp. 182–94). Recent examples are found in Alan Taylor's The Divided Ground (2006) and David L. Preston's The Texture of Contact (2009). If there is more of significance to add about the treaty, William J. Campbell's Speculators in Empire does not do so. “By tracing the web of interests that fueled negotiations,” Campbell's goal is “to expose past struggles for survival, independence, and empire that deemphasize many themes and events long associated with the creation of a republic in North America” (p. 13). Then, “looking to the imperial and regional positioning in the northeastern borderlands” during the years between the French and Indian War and the American Revolution, Campbell seeks “to blur the lines between European capitals and the council fires of the Iroquois and Ohio nations” (ibid.). Throughout, the Fort Stanwix Treaty is employed to reveal “the importance and recognition of place and protocol in early American history” (ibid.). However, Campbell's efforts do little more than draw together and restate all that has come before, and, lacking originality, fill space on the page by elaborating on the discussions of others. Still, Campbell misses the mercantilist interests of the Lords of Trade who were determined to limit any westward expansion of the colonies, thereby positioning them beyond the reach of the market for English-manufactured goods (p. 49). Moreover, by not engaging a number of relevant secondary works, Campbell tells only half of the story. Thus, for Campbell, the treaties of 1701 signaled only defeat for the Iroquois, and the “debate” surrounding Iroquois influence on the Constitution is not quite dead. Added to this are his puzzling pronouncements such as: “But as the indigenous advocates of Iroquois hegemony increasingly realized the benefits of perception and a closer relationship with the English Crown, the marginalization of ‘dissident’ regional actions paralleled the rise of the Iroquois Confederacy” (pp. 15, 25, 214n3

Ancient history · British Empire · Colonialism · Economic history · Empire · Independence (probability theory · Mercantilism · Political science · Proclamation · Speculation · Treaty · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Archaeology and Natural History · Canadian Identity and History · History · Law

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