 Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our March edition of our lecture series at the Ethan Island Homestead. Today we have Andrew Bopri with us, and the topic, the title of this talk today is the Archaeology of Colonial Conflict Along the Lake Champlain Border. This presentation will focus on the role of historical archaeology in presenting a more complete version of settlement and conflict in the Lake Champlain and Richelieu River Valley during the 18th century. Now we're recording this, you know, earlier in the week here, the talk will be presented on March 20 as you're sitting here watching it, and we will have a question and answer period afterward. If you are on our contact list, you will have already received a Zoom link for the live question and answer period. If you do not have that Zoom link with you right now, send an email to EthanAlanHomestead at gmail.com. EthanAlanHomestead at gmail.com, and we will send you the Zoom link and you can join Andrew for the question and answer period. Before we begin, we would like to thank our sponsors. Without them, we would really not be able to do many of the events that we have at the EthanAlanHomestead. So we have AARP Vermont, Vermont Humanities. So again, we thank them for their support of the EthanAlanHomestead. Well, let me tell you a little bit about Andrew. Andrew is the Arkansas Archaeological Surveys Research Station Archaeologist for the Central Arkansas River Valley. And he's also a research assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Arkansas. He earned a bachelor's degree in history and anthropology from the University of Vermont, his master's at Western Michigan University, and his doctorate at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg. His research interests include historical archaeology, landscape, heritage studies, and culture contact during the French colonial period in North America. He has excavated in New England, the Great Lakes, Quebec, Alabama, Arkansas, and as far afield as Western Australia. The archaeology has not dug in your backyard, but you may have to check that out yourselves. While still a graduate student, Dr. Bopri worked under the Canadian Department of National Defense as the field scientific director of the University Laval Excavations in partnership at Fort St. John Quebec. And prior to joining the Arkansas Archaeological Survey, he was the inaugural post-doctoral teaching and research fellow in the McCormick Center for the Study of the American Revolutionary Era at Seattle College in Loudounville, New York. He has also taught courses at several colleges and universities, and has worked as a cultural resource management archaeologist. The work you are hearing about today is the subject of his forthcoming monograph on border zone archaeology. With that, Andrew, I will let you take over. Well, thank you very much for that introduction. I appreciate it. It's an honor to be back with the Ethan Allen Homestead Museum. Those of you who have been around a while might remember that you saw some of this research way back in its infancy when I was a graduate student and I was invited to speak in 2011, so it's been a while. But thank you. And so I appreciate you showing up to listen today. John just told you the title I have out here now it is about archaeology of colonial conflict along the Lake Champlain border. The more kind of saucy title if you will, if you will, for the longer title is driving this saucy Frenchman back across Champlain into his den again, colonial contestation in the Lake Champlain border. I'll talk more about that but for those of you you might you might recognize that quotation. It's actually straight out of the introduction of the James Fenimore Cooper novel The Last of the Mohicans. And so my research in the Lake Champlain Valley really deals with this time period of the seven years war and contestation for the Lake Champlain and Rich the River Valley. Now, my association of my research with the the Cooper fiction is not my idea only is not novel. My late friend, Dr. David Starbuck, who is an archaeologist, looking at the Lake Champlain and Hudson River valleys for many, many years. He was at Plymouth State and he taught another number of other schools as well, focused his research on this euro American but really British and Anglo American view of the Lake Champlain Rich the River Valley from historical archaeological approach, and he published a number of books I would recommend checking them out we just lost him this last year it's a great loss to the historical archaeological community. He was he was a treasure really. And he published a number of books, the Great Warpath, the massacre at Fort William Henry, his one of his more recent was the legacy of Fort William Henry, and he also had Rangers and red coats on the Hudson hit a large number of these books. And so what Dr Starbucks work did was really look at the historical archaeology and history of the Lake Champlain Hudson Valley from a very Anglo American perspective. And so my work kind of picks up on some of what Dr Starbucks did, but also I'm interested in this, as I said in the description, a more nuanced discussion a more complete version of transnational politics. And what I mean by that is quite frankly, a more francophone or francophile centered view of conflict for the colonies. And so that has a lot to do with the way that my research is shaped has to do with my experience as a graduate student and also my positionality personally as archaeologists were anthropologists first we study human interaction right, and we have to be aware of where we come into the discussion as researchers. And so I have shaped a lot of my research on this idea of colonial landscape in the Lake Champlain Richard River corridor as a border land. And I call it border zone and sometimes but it's around the border, think of border as a specific line and border zone is kind of the amorphous. It's been used before the term frontier and I kind of avoid that term frontier, but the idea of a zone of interaction around the hard and fast line. And I look at this historically through documents and archaeological evidence to try to understand the creation of this kind of hyper nationalistic zone along the border that we that we have today. And we're looking at broader interactions of two different very different cultures that exist along this the same border. And I'm speaking of the American Canadian border here where you have a very kind of Anglo American Vermont in New York on one side and Quebec on the other with its very pro francophone views. And again, talking about positionality. It is a matter of my own upbringing that this comes about. And so, if you recognize this map, this is the bottom part here is the Northeast Kingdom, right, just east of Newport. I was lucky enough to grow up in the kingdom in a little town called Morgan you can kind of see the team my mouse there's a little shadow of Lake Seymour. I grew up right on the shores of Lake Seymour, but this area that's that's you in the map this was kind of my, my home range if you will, especially as a teenager, crossing that border and understanding what it was to be. While I am a francophone American or a descended French Canadian American from the French Canadian diaspora, my parents, grandparents rather emigrated to the United States. And the notion of being both kibikwa and American along this border zone really had an effect on me. If any of you have the opportunity and you haven't yet, please go check out the Northeast Kingdom specifically, one of our great landmarks the Haskell library, where there is literally the US Canadian border runs through the yard and through the building. You can walk into the Haskell library and be completely within the United States and completely legal and then you cross this is the front reading room and there is a line on the floor literally that is the US Canadian border. So check that out but that that view of borders are living on both sides of the border in in a zone around the border. The modern US Canadian border really kind of colored the work that I wanted to do as a professional archaeologist. So fast forward to then I was approached by a colleague to become an archaeologist for the Canadian government worked for the National Department of National Defense of Canada, at a place called Fort Saint Jean you can see on the map here, and here is zoom in that site. And it's a very francophone city, Sandra is on the same time that is a very federal government piece of property it's actually still a military base and it has been a military base since 1666, when the French army first settled in the region. And then you enter the, the young American graduate students there in the corner. And it's very hard to see in this picture but I'm actually wearing an Army Corps of Engineers United States Army Corps of Engineers baseball cap. One of my cousins works for the Army Corps and so I borrowed a baseball cap for that photo to kind of feel like being a little bit of an American invasion. I was hired to do an excavation at this one site of Fort Saint Jean fascinating site in and of itself, located on the northern end of the Lake Champlain where should we river valley right or kind of in the middle of the river section of it. And I started to think about the site itself and that was originally going to be the focus of my research as a graduate student was looking at the site itself. Since you know the site is directly located on the Richley River means right there the fort had been built on the shores of the river. It was built in a strategically defendable position, right it was built as most military ports are, or forts are with the idea of defense. It was famous for being a site that was visited by Sam Champlain on his way south he had to pull the canoes that he was paddling with his urine guides out of the river there there's rapids, things that makes it a defensible position. That same location because of the rapids because of this prime spot was selected by the carrying on Salier regiment to build a fort in 1666. And then there was a supply depot built later and service and on trip or depot for entering the colony as new France moved to the south. Now, one of the fascinating things about doing work at this for as an archaeologist was that not a lot happened there okay it had a, it had an interesting history in terms of, you know, really little snippets but there were no major battles there was an American invasion by that day, but I started to think more about the scope of this one little fort which we can see right up here in the blue. And as a larger regional piece and as mentioned in the introduction, my interest in landscape and larger kind of regional movements and understanding history at a grander scale than a single space, right a single place. It's always been that tie in association to water and to what water means in the 18th century that really interested me. So we you know as always as historical archaeologists we do background research we can find these maps here. So we can see the records and this is the area where the fort was built, and there's actually a ship that was built there to ferry goods as we enter the 18th century to the lake Champlain forts further south. And so, as a graduate student very focused on just one site and starting to get into these documents and understand that okay we have a historical for here but what does this mean it's been studied multiple years this picture is actually from the year before I was born here in the top right excavation was undertaken by Parks Canada. And then my own excavations kind of tying these pieces together and trying to understand the pieces of history in a multi layer of an archaeological site. When we look at archaeological sites we really are looking at them in a way of healing back layers almost like layers of an onion or or layer cake. You would you attack a layer cake from the top as opposed to taking a slice out and understand all of the history and the trash that's built on one another. And so, always this tie seems to be coming back to to the river and the water. Until finally, when we were excavating in a defensive trench around this fort picture the four I just showed you was from 1748. We found this really interesting artifact this is two meters down so over six feet down in the soil really thick heavy mud. You're an archaeologist and you're digging and you're using tools and you're excavating it's always the last day right your summer heat beating down it's the last day that you have a really interesting discovery. And we were here in the last day of excavation this this artifact popped up. And I hope you can recognize it from the picture. It's actually a sheet of birch bark. When I got to excavating the sheet of birch bark, it looks brand new, it looks like you had wandered into the woods and peeled it off of a tree, and it somehow ended up in this whole six feet down. But in dating it relatively to the other artifacts around it figured out that because of the anaerobic environment there's no air down there, things don't rot nice sealed wet mud. This is actually a 200 plus piece a year old piece of birch bark. And when you look closely at it, you can see that there has been holes punched in it regular holes with a round or diamond shaped tool, and there's been scoring that's been placed on it. It's like somebody was actually planning to put these holes and they made lines. And when you repealed these two pieces of bark parts actually two pieces overlaid one another, we peeled it apart. And there was an indication, excuse me, of wood glue, actually a spruce pitch wood glue that was gluing these layers of bark together that had been stuck together with a glue and then stitched, which immediately, my mind jumped to this idea of a birch bark canoe. It could be a number of things that doesn't necessarily have to be a birch bark canoe. There are a number of things that would have been sealed in this way but as it is it's one of the only pieces of incredibly well preserved birch bark like this that's ever been discovered archeologically in North America. And again, the jump from the birch bark artifact to the fact that we're on this river insight really brought me back to the idea. Okay, we have a fort. We're on a river, and we know that it's part of this longer string of forts that really stretched down into North America during the 18th century, or down to entity what is now the United States, I pushed down from Canada. And so it was really the kick in the pants, if you will that I needed to understand that the Lake Champlain Richle River Valley needed a serious investigation as a contested waterway. And we know that prior to contact, prior to the French, and the British fighting over the colonies who would own North America, right. The area had been inhabited. It's not a tabula rust, it's not a plain open space, right. And the Lake Champlain River Valley plays an important part in one of the Evanaki creation stories about Oziozo and Dunder rock right out in Burlington Harbor, right. We have that association and others work about the out of Walker the waters between and what what are the, what is the water between or what is the river between as a border kind of idea of Lake Champlain cutting right down in the middle puts us right between the Adirondacks and the ring mouth, right. And we know from historical documents that it's, it's a highway used by Iroquois rating parties, going into New France from the south from what would become New York, right, moving up and also an avenue of trade for native peoples coming down from to Quebec and down from Vermont and New York over into the Dutch colonies and later the British colonies, right. It's this idea of contestation, and this amorphous lump of water that's in the middle really got my imagination going right is talked about in a very military history standpoint you can read dozens and dozens of books on the military history of Lake Champlain all the way through the war of 1812 and the Civil War and the creation of Fort Montgomery right. But it's always talked about in a very kind of militaristic view. And then he's, it ends up again, back to the title of the talk in this idea of pop literature, right, of driving the saucy Frenchman in this case, referring to month come in the seven years war, the market amount of driving him back across Lake Champlain to his home in the north right so a north south across discussion as archaeologists we like to go back and, and, and look at things in, in a larger scope of understanding. I've got a neat little microcosm of study here. How do I am I going to understand this how as an archaeologist, am I going to take the historical record that exists and jump in with an archaeological record as well. I borrowed a model from an archaeologist named James Dell who looked at some coffee plantations about power and space to try to think about, hey, how are these native people French people. British colonists that are coming in. How do they view that place they understand right, how are they figuring out the Lake Champlain border. How does that work is it just, is it just a space is it just someplace you walk like walking down the aisle of the grocery store, where is there more to it. And my argument, and this, my dissertation is becoming book is that there's a lot more to it. There's a lot more to the way that anybody interacts with a space. Right. And that's why I came up with this terming this term border zone which Thompson and Lamar other theorists have used the word frontier similar. The idea that border is not just a single line or place. And if we talk about a border area is just a single line or place it loses something. If only which way is the line right which way is the border that we're talking about. I'm gotten some kind of heady ideas here I want to back up and explain kind of each step as how we manifest this idea of understanding space from somebody from the 17th or 18th century. Right. We're going to even go back before the now start with a pre contact right, and it's a recognized trope that Lake Champlain stood as a border between the Iroquois territory on the western side of Lake Champlain and what's now in New York. Right. And Abenaki territory on the eastern side of Lake Champlain now recognized by both the, the, or this territory is recognized by both the four recognized bands of Vermont, as well as the other neck. Abenaki who are recognized in Quebec. Right. And on the western side of the lake we have the Mohawk as archaeologists. And this is the eight material culture with place right material culture with people is a very old trope pots aren't people. Right, but that's a way that archaeologists make a tie between the people of the past and the people of the present is their stuff. Right in this case, a very Iroquoian looking pot on the west hand side of the lake, and a very kind of Algonquin style pot on the east side of the lake here. It's not just archaeological data in artificial information. So, as anthropologists, historical archaeologists we're going to go back and we're going to work on looking at many different avenues of evidence right we have the historical documentation, we have artifacts, and sometimes we use linguistic data, linguistic data that's recorded in documents historical documents as well. Right. In this case, something that's borrowed from from Gordon days work and others looking at toponyms or just the names for different places on the landscape, and we can record toponyms that are largely on the western side of the lake or Mohawk toponyms and those on the eastern side of the lake are largely have an ackee toponyms as well. Right. So, when the French colonization settles and starts in the Lake Champlain which Louvre Valley. We already have an idea of a border, whether it be an east west border between the Mohawk and and the event ackee, or now we're starting to think about in the 17th century as the French start pushing down from the north. Right and French colonization happens, starting to look at the view of maybe the lake Champlain Rich Louvre Valley is a is a corridor where the border is going to move in a north south as a horizontal organization as opposed to a vertical one. Right. So, we can start pulling apart the layers of this onion and look at Okay, hey, this is a 17th century map drawn by a French cartographer, where if you take a look here on the zoom the blow up, you have all of Lake Champlain listed as being part of New France. And then, you know, 1666 when this map is created, the idea that claiming Lake Champlain as part of the colony of New France was just the norm, but the norm from a kind of cognitive perspective in France. That's what the French think in Paris, right in Versailles. Well when we look at historical documentation and then archaeological evidence from North America. There's a little bit of a different view. Right. In this case, a very famous quote from the Jesuit relations, whereas we occupy the northern part of New France and Uruguay occupy the southern right so this is a Jesuit in Quebec saying hey around the lake Champlain Valley that's really a Uruguay territory we don't we don't push down into that. And now as more European contestation comes in the area and the Dutch settle and build Albany. Right. The French government in France says hey, we can't have this, the Dutch are encroaching on our colony on the south end of that Lake Champlain Valley, we need to do something about that. So you get orders in 1663 that says hey, the governor of New France suggest that we build three fortresses, the first in the place of the foundations of Fort Richelieu just way up here on the confluence of the Saint Jean River, or the Richelieu River, right, and the St. Lawrence, right up here. Right, the modern city of Surreal is there. And this order from France is calling for a second fort to be built all the way down on the same river where the Dutch have built their wretched redoubt that they call Fort Orange. Right. So the French governor's calling him out and saying hey we want to keep the Dutch pushed in we're going to go all the way down to the Hudson and build a French for in the Hudson. And then the third one somewhere in the middle at the foot of Lake Champlain, creating a huge line of three forts that's hundreds miles long. Right, over 150 miles long, just unsustainable in 17th century. New world, right there's no way they can build these three forts that far apart and have them survive. So what actually ends up happening in 1666 when the Carrillon Salier Regiment arrives is that we have five force built. And the furthest south of which is on Isle of Mont in Vermont here. So what's now becomes the fort is Fort St. and becomes a St. Anne shrine. Right. That's as far as the French government gets in 1666 saying hey, that's as far as we can control, because that they're pushing the border of what they see is new France to the south and the last thing that they can really claim with any hood spa, if you will, is on Isle of Mont. Which is a different view, then you get orders from France telling you to do something and that the cognitive viewer the idea of what new France is in France. And then the boots on the ground, when we get to the material understanding of excavating means these five forts. Three of these five forts have been found in in archaeological context we think we know where the other two are we just haven't located them. Again with boots on the ground we call ground choosing, but really fascinating data about that. Right. A difference between what people think and how they view an area in the past, or how they feel about it, and then what actually happens. We still around that idea of pushing frontiers and borders pushing that border zone. Right. When we jump into the 18th century. We have a whole bunch of new ideas about what borders and boundaries are in France. And so the historian in me looks at a number of historical French documents. How are the French cutting up Europe, how are the Europeans engaging this in Europe and putting up borders. Let's see if they're thinking about things the same way in the Lake Champlain Valley. Right. So I've had this idea of this cognitive approach the view their mind's eye of what the place looks like. And they, the French talk about two different types of borders they talk about the limit natural and frontier natural explain that in depth in a second the difference between those right where the limit is that separation between two political jurisdictions is like a line like a borderline, as opposed to a frontier, which directly faces to an enemy. Right. Not just a line on a map but a defended line on a map where people interact on that. Very, very different view explain that more in a second. Then also they have this in your real system, whereby the 18th century. They're deciding to cut up North America in the feudal system that they're used to in France. They're bringing their view of what it is to be a French villager, or what it is to be a French Lord, and they're dropping it in North America they're expanding that colonial view. And then they're also thinking like soldiers, huge portion of when we get toward that seven years war in the 18th century, the contestation for control of the continent comes right through the Lake Champlain Racial River Valley. And it's about positional warfare, or the establishment of military posts which is how I started this idea, way back when I was digging it sentient right start to think about military architecture as it pushes through. So just really quick, from the direct example in the Lake Champlain Valley of both the limit natural and the frontier natural we get it, you can pull it right out of historical documents. In this case, a Swedish naturalist named Peter Tom, who has the opportunity to travel through North America to collect plants. And while he's traveling to collect plants and be a botanist. He records an amazing documentation of French and British colonial wife in the 17th century 18th century other 1700s. And he makes a comment about traveling through the Lake Champlain Valley, where he lists this idea of their high mountains on either side, and a valley in the middle. Right. And so those high mountains. He interprets that limit natural in that French voice. Here is the colony of New France, it's coming down the Lake Champlain Racial River Valley, it's controlled by New France controlled by France, and we've got a border on one side of mountains we got a border on the other side we got the beautiful Champlain Racial River Valley in the middle. That's going to be French territory. Then calm goes on to even give us another example of that frontier natural of that facing to an enemy, where he quotes on the eastern side. We can see in the distance the high mountains, right and those are our green mountains here in Vermont, which separate Canada from New England. We're already claiming that valley as part of Canada as part of New France, the Abinac Indians who wander about these woods are the worst enemy to the Englishman, right, the Englishman's worst enemy. So there, the French are aligning themselves with the Abinac to protect their border here and using Abinac allies as that frontier natural, and we can start to see is that borders now hey, we just made this little bubble, where the border is down from the south and they got the Adirondacks on one side and the greens on the other are pushing down and through. Right, so you can see those borders being written and we can start to see okay how does this fall archaeologically. Well let's look at it through the scenario system. Right. Now a lot of historians have looked at French colonization in the Lake Champlain Racial River Valley, specifically the Lake Champlain area as saying I can't tell you how many times I've read this. I've really amounted to much to never many French people, and you know the French never really settled anything. Right, that's a very Anglo centric view of American history. Right. Like I said, being from the kingdom and being a kibbutz, why American kind of push back against that. Right, let's, let's look at the story of a documentation. Again, let's take that a step further and look at archaeology. Can we actually find archaeological evidence of French colonization. Right. Well hey, let's look at the historical documentation. Here are maps of the French cutting up Lake Champlain into their own scenery into their style of French feudal landformings because they're planning on the lords that are going to come and take control of this and people are going to live there. And to settle that out. Right. Fascinating thing up here. In what would become the Mississaucoye Valley written in the Mississaucoye River is shooting right out of Lake Champlain up here in Mississaucoye Bay. The gentleman who ends up getting granted this piece of land as the Lord later served at the fort in Michigan where I did my master's work which is really kind of a neat tie for me personally but the dear these officers are all over in North America that are being given these lands to become lords. Right. And again, did it ever actually happen in reality. Well, look at some satellite imagery, and you can see, we can associate what we call long lot agriculture, which is a typical view of the rural rural system. On satellite imagery, we can see these long locks coming out in upstate New York and down here in Addison County, where French settlers are building their habit on households their farms, and they're following that style of land delineation where everybody has access to the waterway that vital waterway or contested waterway and moves back into the forest. And so, we have that string of forts that then settle the Lake Champlain Valley moving from where I was talking about at St. Jean up here to where I started work way up here in the north, for Chambley above that, and then for Illinois, right on on there's a later fort there Lenox you can visit now at the Canadian National site. And then, down into New York we have Fort St. Frederick, and for tip you up on the chevrier the first Fort St. Frederick habitation in 1731 was actually on the Vermont side of the lake in in West Addison underneath chimney point chimney point gets his name from the French chimneys. Being there after the French are burned out and the British colonization comes through, and there are chimneys on the point from the chimneys of the French habitations. And down to Fort Carillon, which we know today as Ticonderoga. Again, from my earlier slide, Ticonderoga is a mohawk word right comes from a mohawk word. So thinking about as the border shifts and changes through time, we can check these lines of forts and lines of settlement, and verify with archaeology that there is French habitation. Now, in Vermont, New York isn't the only places is happening. There are three really three well defined lines of forts like this in North America. One over here in the middle in the Lake Champlain Valley. One over here between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia from Fort Gasborough down to Mestitush. And over here from Prescott down to Fort Duquesne and what's now Pittsburgh right great story about Fort Duquesne that's where George Washington the seven years were gets his butt handed to him twice and loses as he's serving as a British militia officer. But understanding this kind of riverine map. I'm still trying to get my head around where I was still trying to get my head around the idea of movement through the landscape. And I thought what the better way to do that then understand movement through the landscape and understand how people in the past we're going to understand space, then give it a try myself. So this is the logo from a project I put together and was funded by LLB incorporation as well as the American Canoe Association to paddle Lake Champlain from Fort Ticonderoga all the way up to where I was working at San Jean. And I envisioned myself in this very kind of Voyager way, doing that in a birch bark canoe. And while I'm not a reenactor, I'm an academic. My romantic view of my cognitive view of connecting with my Voyager ancestors turned out to be much more like my future wife and I in a 17 foot Grumman canoe. And but we paddled this this distance. Down to Ticonderoga and up the eastern shore of Lake Champlain stopping a number of sites along the way, and trying to understand again how someone would have moved through this contested waterway in the 18th century, because it's going to be via either going to be via sailboat in the late 18th century, or be a canoe in the beginning in the 17th and 18th century. And so, of course, a big site that sticks out in there is is the discussion of Fort St. Frederick right this bastion of French settlement on Lake Champlain, built in 1733 by the French government last until 1759. And it was effectively an absolutely beautiful Luar Valley French castle that is built on Lake Champlain. Now other archaeologists have investigated this as well, namely, Paul Huey, who's for many years with the New York State, New York State and looking at a lot of these historical maps about the fort itself and it was a real concern for British colonization at the time. And these are maps that are drawn by spies to record the forts on the Lake Champlain Valley because it's pushing down too close to Albany and too close to that core of British colonization in the New World in the colony of New York. And these later British maps and there's our mention of chimney point again. These later British maps are showing the abandoned French settlements on the farms and the lines of trees that are indicative of orchards. Right. And we have very the famous apple that comes from the snow apple that is from chimney points actually descended from a Canadian apple that was grown on chimney point and still can see the scene while there, and is now being recultivated again by individuals who are trying to save that that variety of apple. So we have that historical documentation. When I wanted to engage with this site from the riverine landscape or from the lake landscape as an archaeologist, you know, again, it's just looked so impressive was a four story tower keep in the middle. So this was actually a photo I took from the old Lake Champlain Bridge before it was demolished, you can travel it now and has a slightly different view of you can see the remains of 14 Frederick right here on Crown Point New York and Crown Point New York as you cross the Champlain Bridge from West Addison to Crown Point. That's an open park and you can walk through it and you can see the remains of the four that are left. And then when you visit this site now, the British, after they took over the area they later built as Majesty's Fort at Crown Point is this massive earthwork which dwarfs the little French fort here. But at the time when the French fort was built and the Valley was French in the 1730s and 40s. Fort St. Frederick was the pinnacle of French civilization in the southern end of New France. It was the furthest south post until they built for Ticonderoga in 1755. For almost two decades. This was the customs house it was everything. And if you look at it from the lake level, even in ruins. It is still impressive from that lake level, right you can paddle right up to it. And you can see it's built on the route rock outcropping and this is the remains of what would have been the four story keeping tower. An archaeologist with the benefit of modern technology we can do what we call you should analysis and look and say hey, you know, but it only the fort itself would only have been able to view to the north. It's the backing enemy of the British is to the south. It's kind of a really interesting discussion, right it's a very interesting dichotomy, a fort that's built and it's absolutely gorgeous and it's designed to protect the people the valley, but it doesn't have any strategic advantage, looking, looking back home. And then when you partner it with the other French build up in the area, we can see that there was a windmill further down on the peninsula, which is actually down around here and you can see further south and you can use the windmill is mentioned in historical documents of using the windmill as a redoubt as a watch tower if you will to see if anyone was attacking up the lake from the British colonies to the south. Right. When I was visiting the site and understanding it from the water, realizing that it wasn't built as a strategic position. Right. But it was built more as a symbol, and it was built as a symbol of a cognitive view or minds I picture for the settlers of the lake Champlain Valley, these French people who are living all around. Down the fort here, there was French settlement on both sides of the lake here. And you can see again some of that long lot agriculture remains the French colonization is happening there. The fort stands as a symbol, and not only as a symbol that they can, they can view and see, but as almost as a view of an auditory landscape as well, because you can hear anything you can hear a pin drop at night and the southern end of Lake Champlain. I was proven when I was actually doing the paddling trip and camped here at the French cabin site over in DAR State Park, and all night long you can hear Mack trucks hit the deck plates on the Champlain Bridge. And as you can hear those trucks crossing over the bridge. The immediate thought was a shout that comes from over, you know, two and a half kilometers away at the fort or a single pistol shot or rifle shot it's going to be heard throughout the entire valley. And you can see that the, the individuals who would have been living in Champlain Valley at that time would have been associated the French individuals would have been closely associated with that fort and that that feeling of home and that castle. That brings them back to the feeling of what it's like to be a French settler or a French peasant living in France under the protection of their local Lord in the castle, and that being transported to North America, even if it wasn't strategically defendable from a military history standpoint. There's the, there's that you can go and visit some of those could be French could be later British seller whole cabins. There's even grapes that remain on the shore there and it kind of gives you that feeling. We know from the historical documents as well as the French planted grapes to make their own wine around Fort St. Frederick it's really interesting kind of time when you go and visit these places which I'd encourage you to do everything that I've mentioned so far as is open sites and parks. It's a really interesting place to visit. So, just kind of wrapping up the thoughts on this. We as an archaeologist or me as an archaeologist with with my colleagues, looking at that placement of borders through time and the creation of what we have as the modern US Canadian border. In between all of these forts, especially in the 18th century there's this zone of contestation. There's a fear you're on the edge. You never know when the next attack from the enemy is going to come. And then, literally for 100 years, the British and French were at war on and off over 100 years for control of this contested waterway, not to forget their native allies are with them all the time and having their own political country as well. So when the French are attempting to push the colony to the south from 1666 all the way up here on Isle of Mott down to Fort St. Frederick in 1731 33 and down to Fort Gary on 1755. Right. And then we can gain that last step and understanding again from the traveler journal, when the war is really getting going. And the idea of the border zone between this border on Lake George and the southern end of Lake Champlain, as the seven years war begins. It's called the French Indian War here. You have the British force to the south, Edward and William Henry, which play that role in the James Fenmore Cooper novel. And then Ticonderoga or carry on, and the no man's land if you will between bring us back to our Swedish naturalist friend, who makes the comment that I shall call the part of Canada. A wilderness which lies between the French farms at St. Frederick and Fort Nicholson on the Hudson. And where Mr lion eyes another Englishman at their farms, not a human being lives in this waste region and no Indian villages are found here. It's a land left to wild animals and birds. So again, try to look at that cognitive approach of designing a contested border from the past. This guy is traveling through, and he's he's freaking out, right he's freaking out because he knows he's in the middle of a war zone he has a past to do it he's being escorted by French soldiers and then they hand him off the British he is completely legal to travel across this border through war zone, but he knows it. And he's making up the story and we have other documentation, there were native people living there, there were animals and birds there there was idea there it's not like a dead zone right. But we also see in the kind of historical documentation sometimes that the French soldiers are playing with them a little bit, you can read this longer bit. He talks about tales of horror of killings and beatings to death from from people that happen in this zone that he's talking about native people attacking in a zone that he said no one lived in a second ago, which is really interesting but it's this cognitive view of borders where everything is a little messed up right it's a little different it's not safe anymore it's an unsafe view right recall a safe social space a place where you feel at home, or comfortable. It's not going to be right along that border that's a zone of fear right a zone of you never know what's going to happen right. And so we have that safe space that was created by Fort St Frederick just like their common saying north of St Frederick and the farms around that's safe that's a that's a cool safe place to be south there is dangerous right, or north of Fort Edward south of Fort Edward and all the British are living happily in their own well ensconced and being in New England, or in New York. It's very different than in the middle, right. And so, then we have to look at how does this change and the end of the seven years war really brings that that big change to big changes that kind of blow the idea of a safe space for French villagers to live out of the water one siege warfare. And when big scenes guns showed up at Fort Ticonderoga, and then Fort St Frederick, and the British could attack with really big cannons. And that their symbols of safety, the more defensible fort at Ticonderoga and the more symbol of safe haven at Fort St Frederick windows can be attacked by serious cannons. The French are going to be freaked out by that. And number two is actually terrorism. And I took a lot of flak. When I finished the dissertation and I've been discussing this with my editor for quite some time about my characterization of otherwise American heroes, Rogers Rangers interview as terrorists. And over the course of 26 plus raids, Robert Rogers and his Rangers attacked Fort St Frederick and this is all historically documented by Rogers on hand, actually, where he killed cattle, burned barns kidnapped women to ransom them back for information. And one of my favorite examples was where one of the Rogers Rangers ran out of the woods near Fort St Frederick and caught a French soldier outside of the fort in full in market day on market day in full view of the settlers around, grabbed this soldier, this French Marine soldier, and the Rogers Rangers scalped him and slid his throat in front of the market town, and then just disappeared into the woods. And so it's very much a terroristic way of combating on the frontier Rogers calls it frontier warfare. Another word for it is terrorism, but it ended this this kind of view of a safe social space of French settlement in the Lake Champlain which the valley, as we know for Ticonderoga, a carry on became Ticonderoga and July 2659, when it was burned and same four days later at St Frederick and the French retreated back up into Canada or drove the saucy Frenchman back across their lake into the den in in Canada. And so, looking at one of these valleys in the larger scope of things. It's fascinating to kind of tell tell a viewpoint from an archaeological and historical record that's not often as explored. It's a very fascinating kind of humanistic side of settlement of the French in the Champlain down. So, thank you very much for listening, I am happy to take questions. You're here for the live question and answer. Please also check out had some a lot of help with my research over the years, thank you for the homestead for inviting me. If you're not able to make the live discussion today on the 20th. Please feel free to reach out to me the email and happy to answer any questions that you have. Thanks so much. Well, thank you Andrew for this fascinating trip back in time. Having visited a few archaeological sites over the years I'm always amazed at how you folks can take small pieces of evidence and build the whole story around it. So, this is pretty fascinating. I just looked on my desk and that one of the books I had in my pile to read is called, maybe you won't be able to see this coming up here. I'll just tell you the title it may be you're familiar with it's called the French occupation of the Champlain Valley 1609 1759. And apparently was written in 1938 by Guy Olman Coolidge, who is a relative of Calvin Coolidge. So, it is, it is a great, it's a great historical version, a lot of primary source documents are in there as well. I think the reference has got its great appendices in there. It's a great place to start. Former UVM Professor Andre Senegal was was working on an update of that book. He's also published some great stuff in the Journal of Vermont history as well on Fort St. Frederick to take a look at. So I'm not the only voice out there for the francophone side of things but there's some really interesting work. Thank you very much and we hope that many of you who are viewing this on the 20th will join us for the question and answer period. Again, you should have received if you're on our contact list you have received the zoom link. If you do not have a zoom link, send an email to Ethan Allen homestead at gmail.com and go for that. We'll get that link to you. So you can join us for the question and answer period. Thank you again.