Contesting the Curved Shores: Empires, Indigenous Nations, and the Making of the Detroit River Borderland, 1770–1810

This presentation reframes the historical development of the Detroit River region of the Great Lakes basin as a tripartite borderland shaped by Indigenous, British, and U.S. power rather than a simple U.S.–British (later Canadian) divide. It shows how Anishinaabe and Wyandotte communities exercised power by regulating access to land, patrolling the border, and enforcing territorial authority in quotidian interactions with settlers. British and American administrators, for their part, worked to cement their claims to the region with planned settlements, fortifications, and infrastructure projects—efforts that achieved only partial success because of Indigenous maneuvering. The presentation will challenge familiar narratives of all-powerful empires, unrestrained settler colonialism, and the top-down construction of North American borderlands, showing instead how Indigenous peoples shaped what remains today a vital North American trade nexus and commercial corridor.