Just before the War for Independence, John Cartwright, a prominent British campaigner for parliamentary reform, believed he could resolve the American problem. He outlined his plan in American Independence and its accompanying map. His solution was not terribly popular, as imperial officials were hardly willing to reorganize their empire as a federation; Cartwright himself was concerned that the pamphlet would hinder his “advancement in my profession.” But the reformer’s tract illustrated the entangled nature of French, English, and Indigenous concerns and his geographic response attempted to create a federation that would address the needs of each group and thus preserve, although alter, Britain’s North American empire.
The challenge for Cartwright was balancing imperial reform with requisite protections for Indigenous lands. Reducing the size of Quebec (which had been greatly expanded in 1774) created space for new states in the Ohio Valley. The division of the remaining territory resulted in new states, ostensibly to be filled with settlers, but with names that reflected an Indigenous presence. Cartwright noted that Great Britain’s role would be to protect “the rights and independencies of the several tribes or nations of Indians in amity with or under the protection of the British crown, until these points shall be more particularly adjusted by treaty.” Cartwright consequently reversed the typical imperial geographic practice of marginalizing or removing the Indigenous presence. The map that accompanied American Independence is striking because it presents the reader with a complicated image of North America. Cartwright hoped to increase settlement in western regions, and he undoubtedly believed that British Americans would populate those new states, yet his map’s toponymy reflected the Indigenous nature of much of North America. Several new colonies took their names from Indigenous groups and thus infused the map with an identity that challenged British (or American) sovereignty. Maine became Sagadohock (an Abenaki name meaning “mouth of big river”); above West Florida could be found Chocktawria and Chickasawria; Ohio and the Indian Reserve became Erieland and Miamisia; and the reduction of Quebec created room for Huronia.
For Cartwright, reorganizing the empire’s geography in North America served to recognize the territorial influence of Indigenous nations. Whether he truly believed that the empire should protect Indigenous peoples is harder to pin down, but his proposal was nevertheless a more accurate reflection of the local geopolitics. British Americans eager to push west would find little to like about the plan, and staunch imperialists were equally unlikely to support this kind of reimagined imperial federation. But at the blurred edges of imperial collapse and colonial independence, Cartwright charted a path not taken.