Michilimackinac and Prairie du Chien: Northern Anchors of British Authority in the War of 1812

Abstract

The military campaigns of Great Britain and the United States during the War of 1812 marked the last of a long series of conflicts for the control of the Old Northwest. In larger measure, they form an important stage in a protracted conflict for the possession of the North American continent. As a form of forest warfare, they exhibited many of the characteristics of European warfare in colonial North America dating from the seventeenth century. These included, among others, the control of waterways, use of portages, erection of forts and depots and defense of same, and use of Indian allies by the competing armies. At the same time, tribes acted in their own interests, and in many cases established pan-Indian alliances. Far from being tools in the imperial game of seizure and control, Indians sought the means of exerting their influence at a time when they were disadvantaged by the interruptions to trade that were the unhappy byproduct of war and, more importantly, were undergoing social changes of inordinate complexity.1 In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries alone, the imperial powers