Transportation infrastructure remains an understudied part of American history. Scholars of colonial and early American history have examined this infrastructure (often referred to as “internal improvements”) as a technological development, as well as in terms of its connection to the national political debate over the scope of government power. Scholars in numerous subfields, including the history of US foreign relations, borderlands history, and Native American history, have begun to probe its role in influencing the spread of American settlement throughout particular regions. However, no work in any of the above fields has fully explored the role that infrastructure played in the expansion of American power across the continent or the dispossession of Native Americans.

Paths to Possession addresses this gap by analyzing the influence of transportation infrastructure on the expansion of the American empire from the 17th to the 19^th centuries. It examines how the development of transportation pathways, including roads, canals, and railroads, facilitated the transformation of space claimed by other peoples, including Native Americans and European powers, into American territory. The book offers an interpretation of the rise of American power, grounded in material factors, shedding light on developments such as western expansion and the dispossession of Native Americans.

Examining three different technological systems – roadways, waterways, and railways – it argues that from the colonial era, transportation infrastructure has been key to achieving power and control over vast areas of space. These routes shaped the ability of individuals and groups to travel and trade, overcoming geographic and other limits on the spread of European settlement. They influenced the ability to project power, since colonial and early American military strategy required the transport of heavy weaponry and large forces through rugged terrain. They provided a pathway to wealth and power, as the trajectory of these routes played an important role in land speculation and economic development. However, these pathways not only benefited settlers – indigenous groups, too, used transportation routes in response to the spread of European settlement, including to co-opt and resist its advance.

This book asks several questions:

• What role did roadways, waterways, and railways play in expanding American power and hegemony from the 17^th to the 19^th centuries?
• How did those who resisted this expansion, including indigenous peoples and other colonial empires, react to these efforts to create and expand these pathways?
• How did technological and political developments influence the use of these pathways?

This work contributes to several subfields of American history, including the history of the American West, Native American history, and the history of science and technology.