Fort Christanna was one of the projects of Lt. Governor Alexander Spotswood, who was governor of the Virginia Colony 1710–1722. When Fort Christanna opened in 1714, Capt. Robert Hicks was named captain of the fort and relocated his family to the area. His homestead Hicks' Ford is located near the municipality of Emporia in Greensville County, VA. The fort was designed to offer protection and schooling to the tributary Siouan and Iroquoian tribes living to the southwest of the colonized area of Virginia. Located in what became Brunswick County, Virginia, near Gholsonville, the fort was completed in 1714 and enjoyed three successful years of operation as the westernmost outpost of the British Empire at the time, before being finally closed by the House of Burgesses in 1718. However, the Saponi and Tutelo continued to live on the allotted land, 6 miles square, into the 1730s and 1740s.

Alexander Spotswood was a British Army officer, explorer and lieutenant governor of Colonial Virginia; he is regarded as one of the most significant historical figures in British North American colonial history.