State of Empire: The "French Fort" and What I Know About Anything

I grew up in Upstate New York, near what was once a border. The border between the Onondagas and the Oneidas. The border between British America and New France. The border between the swampy flats that had once been under the glaciers and the rising hills that had almost held them back.

I liked history when I was a kid, and two of my favorite places were sites of interest to a student of the Colonial Era, specifically the French and Indian War: Fort Ontario in Oswego on Lake Ontario, and the "French Fort" in Liverpool on Onondaga Lake. I remember learning about Iroquois history and culture in middle school. I even made an "authentic" Northeastern Woodlands Indian costume for Halloween one year. It rained that Halloween, but my Mom and I went trick-or-treating in the rain, just so I could show all the neighbors the cool costume we had made.

Growing up in Upstate New York bestowed upon me a lifelong love of many things: canoes, trees, the woods, flat water, a quiet lake, a friendly stream, mist rising from a glassy pond near a marsh filled with life, old forts, good apples, powdered donuts, little mountains and Iroquois beadwork.

Middle school for me was forty years ago. I live far away now, and haven't been home in a decade. Whenever I go to the woods, or launch a canoe, or eat an apple that just doesn't measure up, I think of my "real" home, the Empire State, where once two (to five) European empires clashed, where a great Iroquois Nation once rose and fell, where the old forts and quiet forest give mute testimony to a rich history, where a new nation was formed, and started an empire of its own.

For me, this blog will be an exploration of that history - a history, and a place, that I once thought I knew intimately, perhaps too well - and which I now find that maybe I never knew as much as I thought I did. Maybe my knowledge of the place bore as little real resemblance to the actual history as the Old West-style "French Fort" did to the real Mission of Saint Marie Among the Iroquois.

A sort of love letter to a place that perhaps never was, to my own clouded understanding of it, and to growth and learning through a continued (and closer) examination of old myths, common misperceptions and accepted beliefs.

I'll post some "book reviews" here, along with my comments on the various sources I skim, scan and peruse. Pictures are always nice, so expect a few along the way. Eventually I may stage some skirmishes with miniature figures and FIW rulesets, so after action reports and tactical discussions can be expected as well.

The "French Fort"