French and Indian Wars

French and Indian war (1754-63), precursor and part of the worldwide Seven Years War for empire. Smouldering rivalry for dominance of the Ohio valley burst into flames in May 1754, when an expedition under Washington ambushed an alleged French ‘embassy’ that was stalking him. Later captured by the brother of the slain emissary, Washington was released after signing a confession to the ‘murder’.

In 1755, newly arrived with regular army reinforcements, Maj Gen Braddock prepared to advance into the Ohio valley from Virginia, pausing only to alienate potential Indian allies and the colonial militia by his arrogance. With Washington as his ADC, he marched into a French-led Indian ambush at the Monongahela, losing three-quarters of his men, his money chest, his campaign plan (written in London), and his life. Washington remained with him to the end, escaping with several bullet holes in his clothing. The defeat encouraged previously neutral and even well-disposed Indians to drive in the frontier of settlement by 150 miles, killing hundreds.

Thus long before the formal declaration of hostilities in 1756, the conflict in North America was already a full-scale war. The presence or absence of Indian allies defined the earlier engagements, in which the French generally prevailed. Defending his use of atrocity-prone Indians to do most of the fighting, the French governor boasted that thanks to them 100 British died for every Frenchman. Not counted by either side, Indian casualties are unknown.

British success during this time was limited to the capture of Nova Scotia (Fr.: Acadia) and the deportation of the French settlers, who became the ‘Cajuns’ of Louisiana. The New York militia with Mohawk allies won a rare victory at Lake George, and Fort William Henry was built on the spot, only to be taken (an episode depicted in The Last of the Mohicans) and razed after the 1756 arrival of Montcalm to command French forces. Before that, he seized New York's western outpost at Fort Oswego, and with it British hopes of controlling Lake Ontario. To forestall their move towards an overt alliance with the French, desperate colonial officials concluded treaties with the Iroquois confederation and the Delaware in 1756-8, which gave up ceded lands and promised an end to British expansion into their territory. Neither side, of course, had any intention of respecting the terms once the French were defeated.

Under the hammer of defeat and recognizing the shortcomings of the regular army, British colonial authorities encouraged the development of light infantry units and tactics better suited to frontier warfare. The outstanding practitioner was Robert Rogers, commissioned in 1755 by the governor of Massachusetts to ‘distress the French and their allies’ by every means possible. But although his Rangers and a similar regiment raised by his brother were later to be incorporated into the regular army, it is fair to say that the lessons taught by this war were never accepted by the British army. Contempt for colonial militia and pound-foolish parsimony towards potentially invaluable Indian allies prevailed through the American independence war to the War of 1812.

The colonial militia turned the military tide in mid-1758, and this was more important than any dubious treaty in detaching Indian allies from the French. They lost Louisbourg, Oswego, and Duquesne in quick succession, closing their St Lawrence lifeline to France and their Lake Ontario route west of the Alleghenies. Finally even the staunchly anti-British Seneca abandoned them in 1759, which contributed to the fall of Forts Niagara and Ticonderoga in July. In September Quebec fell to a daring assault led by Wolfe in which both he and Montcalm died. Although the French counter-attacked in May 1760, bottling up the British garrison, it was sustained by the navy until relieved when militia columns advanced from the south, combining to take Montreal in September. Some French resistance continued, but the rest of the war in North America was mainly against Indian guerrilla outbreaks.

The biggest of these was in the south where the Cherokee, in return for promises from the governor of South Carolina to defend their homelands against the pro-French Choctaw and the opportunistic Creek, sent warriors north to assist in the 1758 attack on Fort Duquesne. The forts built to ‘protect’ the Cherokee homeland proved to be a Trojan horse, and when a group of returning warriors clashed with scalp-hunting frontiersmen, simmering discontent erupted into an uprising which took four years and two armies to subdue. The Treaty of Paris in February 1763 formally ended French participation in the war, but within months Pontiac's rebellion was to give renewed significance to the Indian part.

— Hugh Bicheno

Three long‐standing contests came together again in the Seven Years' War, which British colonial Americans called the French and Indian War. The ancient Anglo‐French rivalry, which predated their colonization of America, became truly global, including unprecedented martial commitments to North America. Secondly, the war continued an equally epic battle between Indians and Europeans, a struggle that Indians could sustain best as allies of one European supplier and enemies of another. The third enduring contest pitted the North American colonists of Britain against those of France in a frequently brutal 150‐year‐old struggle for trade and land.

An intercolonial boundary dispute between British and French colonies sparked a war that became imperial as well as Indian. The Upper Ohio Valley had been an underpopulated borderland that, by 1748, had become home to Delaware, Shawnee, and Mingo migrants from east of the Appalachians. Although long since denuded of valuable furs and peripheral to Canadian trade routes, this area gained strategic value with the arrival of Pennsylvania traders and Virginia land speculators. The government of New France responded with diplomacy; raids against British American traders and their protectors; and the building (1753) of three forts between Lake Erie and the forks of the Ohio River. Virginia's governor sent Col. George Washington on a futile mission to order the French out, and obtained formal British permission to use force to expel the French Canadians.

Fighting began when, on 28 May 1754, Washington's Virginia troops ambushed a Canadian reconnaissance party, killing ten and taking twenty‐one prisoners. Retaliation led to Washington's surrender of hastily fortified and aptly named Fort Necessity on 3 July. The French marked their victory by turning another unfinished Virginian fort into Fort Duquesne.

British government response to Washington's defeat proved uncharacteristically strong. While claiming to preserve the peace, the ministry sent two regular regiments to America under Gen. Edward Braddock with instructions to remove French “encroachments” from British‐claimed territory. What was to have been a series of attacks by a single army became, because of enthusiastic New England preparations, four simultaneous British and colonial expeditions against Forts Duquesne, Niagara, Ste. Frédéric, and Beauséjour in 1755. The British attack on Fort Duquesne ended in Braddock's defeat at the Monongahela River, nine miles from his destination, when Indians and Canadian irregulars exploited flanking woods and poor British scouting to surprise and slaughter much of his column. Another army under Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts failed to reach Fort Niagara. William Johnson led the British colonial army that failed to reach Fort Ste. Frédéric, but won a defensive victory at the Battle of Lake George. The only clear British success was by New Englanders, led by British colonel Robert Monckton, who easily took Forts Beauséjour and Gaspereau in Canada, and then expelled 6,000 French Acadian neutrals. The British sent more regulars to avenge Braddock and gave Commanders in Chief Shirley (1756) and John Campbell, earl of Loudoun (1756–58), powers that centralized the war effort and antagonized the colonies.

New France, United under Governor Pierre‐François de Rigaud, marquis de Vaudreuil (1755–60), seized the military initiative. Indian raids launched from Fort Duquesne terrorized the Pennsylvania and Virginia frontiers, while other raiders destroyed New York outposts. General Louis‐Joseph, marquis de Montcalm, led well‐coordinated forces of French regulars, Canadians, and Indians to conquer Fort Oswego in August 1756 and Fort William Henry a year later.

The British recovered the offensive in 1758, as the eloquent and efficient secretary of state, William Pitt, took control of the war effort. Pitt reassured British voters and creditors while spending massively on war in both Europe and America. He cut the power of his new commander in chief and negotiated a “subsidy plan” with colonial governments that was generous enough to promote unprecedented levels of imperial cooperation in supply, transport, and recruitment. British regulars, recruited in Europe and America, now constituted a majority of the much larger forces available. Britain's North American initiatives for 1758, against fortress Louisbourg and Forts Carillon, Frontenac, and Duquesne, paralleled the strategy of 1755, but met with more success. In July, 13,000 British regulars under Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Amherst besieged and captured Louisbourg. Gen. James Abercromby's hurried assault against Montcalm's entrenched defenders at Ticonderoga (Carillon) failed disastrously, increasing Montcalm's influence over military strategy for New France. Abercromby then authorized an expedition by 3,600 colonial volunteers that took Fort Frontenac. Seven thousand men under Brig. Gen. John Forbes constructed a military road across Pennsylvania to Fort Duquesne, which the French destroyed and evacuated on 25 November 1758.

British intent to capture the core of New France in 1759 met such determined French and Canadian resistance that Amherst countered cautiously, and met shifts in Indian diplomacy that proved diversionary. By early 1759, the Delaware and Shawnee had made peace overtures, and the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederation were reconsidering their uneasy neutrality. The siege of increasingly isolated Fort Niagara in July 1759 reflected Amherst's caution, impressed the Six Nations by clearing the French from their territory, and afforded some Ohio Indians an opportunity to change sides decisively. While these Indians strengthened the British side, the Cherokee in the South moved from their traditional alliance to open war with the British colonies between 1759 and 1761. Annual punitive expeditions, the first by South Carolina volunteers and the other two by British regulars, burned abandoned Cherokee towns, provoked retaliation, and may have helped bring a negotiated peace by the end of 1761.

Conquest of New France was not completed in 1759, but the capture of Fort Niagara and the French evacuation of Fort Ste. Frédéric and reoccupied Fort Frontenac represented British success on two of the three prongs of that attack. The third prong, a nearly three‐month amphibious campaign led by Brig. Gen. James Wolfe against the walled city of Québec, stalled until a well‐exploited gamble in the Battle of Québec gave the British victory on 13 September 1759, and control of the city four days later. Control of these areas remained precarious during a successful French counteroffensive that ended only with the arrival of British warships in May 1760. On 8 September, with 17,000 British and American soldiers surrounding Montréal, which was defended by some 3,000 French, Governor Vaudreuil surrendered New France. British and American colonial troops reported the conquest to the interior posts without meeting resistance and mounted major campaigns in the French West Indies that captured Guadeloupe (1759) and Martinique (1762). The Peace of Paris ended the war 10 February 1763, confirmed the conquest of New France, and ceded to the British all lands east of the Mississippi.

The war decided only one of the three long‐standing contests. The Anglo‐French duel would resume regularly for another half century, and the equally long‐lived military struggle between Indians and Europeans reopened immediately with Pontiac's Rebellion. However, the struggle between the British and French North American colonies had been decided. Some Americans opposed the way Britain integrated both New France and “Indian country” into its empire; many more resisted imperial taxation imposed to help pay for the war and for the regular army garrisons of the peace. The war that had unified the British Atlantic empire to an unprecendented degree thus, not surprisingly, helped produce the American Revolutionary War for Independence a decade later.

[See also Native American Wars: Wars Between Native Americans and Europeans and Euro‐Americans; Québec, Battle of; Revolutionary War: Causes.]

Bibliography

• Lawrence H. Gipson, The British Empire Before the American Revolution, 15 vols., 1936–70, Vols. 2–9.
• Fred Anderson, A People's Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years' War, 1984.
• Richard Middleton, The Bells of Victory: The Pitt‐Newcastle Ministry and the Conduct of the Seven Years' War, 1757–1762, 1985.
• W. J. Eccles, Essays on New France, 1987.
• Francis Jennings, Empire of Fortune: Crowns, Colonies and Tribes in the Seven Years' War in America, 1988.
• Ian K. Steele, Betrayals: Fort William Henry and the “Massacre,” 1990

For more information on French and Indian War, visit Britannica.com.

This was the last in a series of conflicts between Great Britain and France for dominance in North America. The French and Indian War (1754–1763), sometimes referred to as the Great War for Empire, and part of the global conflict called the Seven Years' War (1756–1763) in Europe, resulted in a British victory and the end of the French empire in North America.

In the seventeenth century, the French had explored and claimed a vast amount of land in the interior of North America, ranging from the mouth of the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes in the north to the Mississippi River and New Orleans in the south. In order to consolidate and control this enormous region, they had established a series of forts, trading posts, missions, and settlements, all enclosed by four major cites: Montreal, Quebec, Detroit, and New Orleans. In this manner, France hoped to restrict English settlement in North America to the Atlantic seaboard east of the Appalachian Mountains.

While the English colonies were still confined to the area along the North American coast from Maine to Georgia, some of the English colonies claimed lands as far west as the Mississippi. In three wars fought between 1689 and 1748, French and English colonists had struggled inconclusively for control of the interior. Interest in these unsettled lands was primarily speculative since there were not yet enough settlers in North America to occupy the entire region, although by the 1750s the British colonials were beginning to feel the pressures of population growth. Adding to the growing tensions between the colonists on both sides were disputes over the fur trade and over fishing rights along the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.

English settlers were eager to expand westward. High birth rates and a drop in the number of infant deaths were combining to produce larger families and generally dramatic rises in population. As farmers, the settlers felt it only natural that they should expand their colonies across the Appalachian Mountains into the Ohio Valley. In his "Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind" published in 1751, Benjamin Franklin summarized the feelings held by many of his fellow colonists. Noting that the colonial population was doubling every twenty-five years, Franklin argued that additional land for settlement was required or the colonies would begin to deteriorate. He went on to state that Britain should help acquire this land, as that nation would profit greatly from the opening of new markets that would come about as the result of expansion. Like other colonial leaders Franklin understood that expansion would involve conflict with the French.

In King George's War (1744–1748), the ambitions of some of the English colonists were fulfilled by the capture of the French fort of Louisburg on Cape Breton Island. There was also talk of conquering the rest of Canada and of driving the French out of their holdings along the Mississippi. These ambitions were disappointed when the peace agreement, negotiated in Europe, returned Louis-burg to the French.

Both sides understood the importance of the original inhabitants of North America in their competition for control of the continent. England and France each worked to win the support of the various native tribes, either as trading partners or as military allies. Britain had the advantage of a more advanced economy and could therefore offer the Indians more and better goods. The French, however, with a far smaller number of settlers, could be more tolerant of Native American concerns, and when the war began France enjoyed better relations with the Indians than did the British.

The powerful Iroquois Confederacy that stood astride the colony of New York tended to keep their distance from both the British and French. The Iroquois generally remained independent of both powers by trading with both and playing them off against each other.

Between 1749 and 1754, the relations between the French and English broke down rapidly, and the Iroquois Confederation found itself caught in the middle. The Iroquois had agreed to give the English what amounted to significant trading privileges in the interior; for the first time the Iroquois had taken a side. The French, interpreting this action as the prelude to British expansion into the Ohio Valley, began to construct new forts in that area. Meanwhile, in 1749, unimpressed by French claims to that region, a group of Virginia businessmen had secured a grant of half a million acres in the Ohio Valley for settlement purposes. The French program of building forts was seen as a threat to their plans, and the English began making military plans and building their own fortifications.

The French completed a line of forts in the region extending from Presque Isle to Fort Duquesne on the Monongahela River. Finally, in the summer of 1754, Virginia's governor, Robert Dinwiddie, alarmed by the actions of the French, sent a militia force under the command of the young and inexperienced officer named George Washington to halt French encroachment on what he considered English soil. Arriving near the site of present-day Pittsburgh, Washington built a small fort, named Fort Necessity, and attacked a detachment of French troops, killing their commander and several others. The French retaliated with a strike against Fort Necessity, trapping Washington and his force. Washington surrendered and retreated to Virginia. These encounters began the French and Indian War.

Meanwhile, the London Board of Trade had arranged for a conference between delegates from Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, and New England at Albany, New York, to deal with the question of improving relations with the Indians as well as to promote frontier defense. Meeting between June 19, 1754 and July 11, 1754, the delegates learned of Washington's defeat before the conference concluded. The conference adopted the Albany Plan of Union, which would grant a central colonial authority unprecedented powers to oversee their defense, manage Indian relations, and administer the western lands. The clash at Fort Necessity had already taken place when the plan was presented to the colonial assemblies. None of them approved the plan, as they were unwilling to surrender their autonomy to any central authority, even when threatened with war.

In 1755, the British government responded to Washington's defeat by sending two regiments of infantry to Virginia under the command of General Edward Brad-dock. Braddock was experienced in European warfare, but not in the type of fighting that would take place in the forests of America. In May 1755 Braddock and his men started out for the French stronghold of Fort Duquesne, arriving in early July. There, the British were surprised by the French and their Indian allies, and routed. The Indians fought in the way they were accustomed, using all available cover to conceal themselves and to fire upon the enemy, and Braddock was unable to adjust to these tactics. Braddock was mortally wounded and the British troops and colonial militia were forced to withdraw. The French now controlled a line of forts extending from Lake Champlain to Lake Erie to the mouth of the Ohio River.

The war entered a new phase when Great Britain and France formally declared war on 17 May 1756. The conflict now became international in scope. To this point, a lack of reinforcements had forced the English colonists to manage the war themselves, and things had not gone well. Now, Britain unleashed the power of the Royal Navy, which proved to be highly effective at preventing the French from reinforcing New France. Meanwhile, the fighting spread to the West Indies, India, and Europe, although North America remained the focal point.

The war was inconclusive until 1757, when William Pitt, as secretary of state, took command of the effort. He planned military strategy, appointed military leaders, and even issued orders to the colonists. Since military recruitment had dropped off significantly in the colonies, British officers were permitted to forcibly enlist or "impress" colonists into the army and navy. Colonial farmers and businessmen had supplies seized from them, usually without compensation. And the colonists were required to provide shelter for British troops, again without being paid. These measures strengthened the war effort but created resentment among the colonists. By 1758, the tensions between the mother country and its colonists threatened to paralyze Britain's war effort.

Pitt relented in 1758, easing many of the policies the Americans found objectionable. He agreed to pay back the colonists for all of the materials the army had seized, and control over recruitment was returned to the colonial assemblies. These concessions revived American support for the war, and increased militia enlistments. More important, Pitt began to send larger numbers of British regulars to North America and the tide began to turn in Britain's favor.

The French had always been significantly outnumbered by the English in North America, and after 1756, poor harvests also began to take their toll on the French. Together, the British regulars (who did most of the fighting in North America) and colonial militias began to capture important French strongholds. Pitt had developed a war plan that enabled the British to launch expeditions against the French in several areas, and the plan proved to be successful.

British forces under Jeffrey Amherst and James Wolfe took Louisburg in July of 1758. The French stronghold at Frontenac fell a month later, cutting the line of communications with the Ohio Valley. In November 1758 the French abandoned and burned Fort Duquesne just before English troops arrived.

In 1759, Quebec came under siege. Located atopa high cliff and seemingly impregnable, this century-old city was the capital of New France. But Quebec fell on 13 September 1759, after the British commander, General James Wolfe, led his men onto the Plains of Abraham, at the western edge of the city, and surprised the larger French garrison. The French commander, the Marquis de Montcalm, led his troops out of the fortress to confront the English. Both Wolfe and Montcalm were killed in the ensuing battle, but the British won the day. Montreal surrendered to Amherst nearly a year later, on 7 September 1760. This victory concluded the French and Indian War.

The French continued to struggle on other fronts until 1763, when the Peace of Paris was concluded. France gave up some of its islands in the West Indies and most of its colonial possessions in India and Canada, as well as all other French-held territory in North America. French claims west of the Mississippi and New Orleans were ceded to Spain, so that France abandoned all of its claims to territory on the North American continent.

The results of the French and Indian War were of tremendous significance to Great Britain. While England's territory in the New World more than doubled, so did the cost of maintaining this enlarged empire. The victory over France forced the British government to face a problem it had neglected to this point—how to finance and govern a vast empire. The British realized that the old colonial system, which had functioned with minimal British supervision, would no longer be adequate to administer this new realm.

The cost of the war had also enlarged England's debt and created tensions with the American colonists. These feelings were the result of what the British felt was American incompetence during the war, along with anger for what was perceived as a lack of financial support on the part of the colonies in a struggle that was being waged primarily for their benefit. For these reasons, many of Britain's political leaders believed a major reorganization of the empire was in order, and that London would have to increase its authority over its North American possessions. The colonies would now be expected to assume some of the financial burden of maintaining the empire as well.

From the American standpoint, the results of the war had a different, although equally profound, effect. For the first time, the thirteen colonies had been forced to act together to resist a common enemy, establishing a precedent for unified action against the mother country. And the hostility that had been aroused over British policies between 1756 and 1757 seemed to justify the feelings held by some of the colonials that Britain was interfering illegally in their affairs. These feelings would be intensified once Great Britain began to administer its North American empire more intensively in the years ahead.

The British victory in the French and Indian war proved to be a disaster for the Native Americans who lived in the Ohio Valley. Most of them had allied themselves with the French during the conflict, and by doing so, they were now confronted with angry Englishmen. In the century before the war, the Iroquois Confederacy had carefully played the British and the French against each other, but in the war, they had gradually moved towards an alliance with Britain. The Iroquois alliance with the English broke down soon after the war's end, and the confederation itself began to disintegrate. The Ohio Valley tribes continued to struggle with both the British and Americans for control of the region for another half century. But, outnumbered and divided among themselves, they were rarely able to confront their European opponents on equal terms. In a sense, Tecumseh's defeat, fighting with the English against the Americans near Detroit in 1813, was the Indians last battle of the Seven Years War.

Bibliography

Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766. New York: Knopf, 2000.

———. A People's Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years' War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984.

Jennings, Francis. Empire of Fortune: Crowns, Colonies and Tribes in the Seven Years' War in America. New York: Norton, 1988.

Nester, William R. The First Global War: Britain, France and the Fate of North America, 1756–1775. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2000.

Rogers, Alan. Empire and Liberty: American Resistance to British Authority, 1755–1763. Berkley: University of California Press, 1974.

Schwartz, Seymour. The French and Indian War, 1754–1763: The Imperial Struggle for North America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.

White, Richard. The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires and Republics in the Great Lakes Regions, 1650–1815. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

—Gregory Moore

A series of military engagements between Britain and France in North America between 1754 and 1763. The French and Indian War was the American phase of the Seven Years' War, which was then underway in Europe. In a battle between British and French forces near Quebec City in Canada, the British gained control of all of Canada.

Not to be confused with French and Indian Wars.

French and Indian War Part of the Seven Years' War Map of the scene of northwestern operations of the French and Indian War Date 1754–1763 Location North America Result British Victory, Treaty of Paris Territorial changes New France east of the Mississippi River ceded to Great Britain; Louisiana ceded to Spain; Spanish Florida ceded to Great Britain Belligerents France Spain  New France First Nations allies: Algonquin Lenape Wyandot Ojibwa Ottawa Shawnee Mi'kmaq Great Britain British America Iroquois Confederacy Strength 3,900 regulars 7,900 militia 2,200 natives (1759)[citation needed] 50,000 regulars and militia (1759)[citation needed] Casualties and losses At least 5,700 killed, wounded or captured[citation needed] At least 11,100 killed, wounded or captured[citation needed]

v • d • e Seven Years' War in North America: The French and Indian War Jumonville Glen – Fort Necessity – Fort Beauséjour – Monongahela – Lake George – Fort Bull – Fort Oswego – Kittanning – First Snowshoes –  – Fort William Henry – Bloody Creek – German Flatts – Second Snowshoes – Louisbourg – Fort Carillon – Fort Frontenac – Fort Duquesne – Fort Ligonier – La Belle-Famille – Fort Niagara – Ticonderoga – Beauport – Quebec – St. Francis – Sainte-Foy – Restigouche – Thousand Islands – Signal Hill

The French and Indian War, also known as the Seven Years' War and in Canada (particularly in Quebec) as the War of the Conquest (French: Guerre de la Conquête), was a war fought in North America between 1754 and 1763 and forms part of a larger conflict also known as Seven Years' War that was occurring in Europe. The name French and Indian War refers to the two main enemies of the British: the royal French forces and the various American Indian forces allied with them. The conflict, the fourth such colonial war between the nations of France and Great Britain, resulted in the British conquest of Canada. The outcome was one of the most significant developments in a century of Anglo-French conflict. To compensate its ally, Spain, for its loss of Florida, France ceded its control of French Louisiana west of the Mississippi. France's colonial presence north of the Caribbean was reduced to the tiny islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon.

Contents 1 Naming the war 2 Impetus for war 2.1 Territorial expansion 2.2 Religious ideology 2.3 Céloron's expedition 2.4 Langlade's expedition 2.5 Marin's expedition 2.6 Tanaghrisson's proclamation 2.7 Dinwiddie's reaction 3 War 4 Outcome 5 Timeline 6 Battles and expeditions 7 Footnotes 8 References 9 Further reading 10 See also 11 External links

Naming the war

The conflict is known by several names. In British America, wars were often named after the sitting British monarch, such as King William's War or Queen Anne's War. Because there had already been a King George's War in the 1740s, British colonists named the second war in King George's reign after their opponents, and thus it became known as the French and Indian War.^[1] This traditional name remains standard in the United States, although it obscures the fact that American Indians fought on both sides of the conflict.^[2] American historians generally use the traditional name or the European title (the Seven Years' War). Other, less frequently used names for the war include the Fourth Intercolonial War and the Great War for the Empire.^[1]

In Europe, the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War usually has no special name, and so the entire worldwide conflict is known as the Seven Years' War (or the Guerre de sept ans). The "Seven Years" refers to events in Europe, from the official declaration of war in 1756 to the signing of the peace treaty in 1763. These dates do not correspond with the actual fighting on mainland North America, where the fighting between the two colonial powers was largely concluded in six years, from the Jumonville Glen skirmish in 1754 to the capture of Montreal in 1760.^[1]

In Canada, both French- and English-speaking Canadians refer to it as the Seven Years' War (Guerre de Sept Ans)^[3][4]. French Canadians may use the term "War of the Conquest" (Guerre de la Conquête), since it is the war in which New France was conquered by the British and became part of the British Empire, but that usage is never employed by English Canadians. This war is also one of America's "Forgotten Wars".

Impetus for war

Territorial expansion

Main article: Franco-Indian alliance

There were numerous causes for the French and Indian War, which began less than a decade after France and Britain had fought on opposing sides in the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748). Both New France and New England wanted to expand their territories with respect to fur trading and other pursuits that matched their economic interests. Using trading posts and forts, both the British and the French claimed the vast territory between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, known as the Ohio Country. English claims resulted from royal grants which had no definite western boundaries. The French claims resulted from La Salle's claim of the Mississippi River basin for France—its drainage area includes the Ohio River Valley. In order to secure these claims, both European powers took advantage of Native American factions to protect their territories and to keep the other from growing too strong.

Newfoundland's Grand Banks were fertile fishing grounds and coveted by both sides. Following the war, France ceded almost all of its claims to Britain, keeping only the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, which allows them access to the Grand Banks to this day.

Religious ideology

Main article: Jesuit missions in North America

The English colonists also feared papal influence in North America, as New France was administered by French governors and Roman Catholic hierarchy, and missionaries such as Armand de La Richardie were active during this period. For the predominantly Protestant British settlers, French control over North America could have represented a threat to their religious and other freedoms provided by English law.^{[clarification needed]} Likewise, the French feared the anti-Catholicism prevalent among English colonists. In this period, Catholicism was still enduring persecution under English law.

Céloron's expedition

Map showing the 1750 possessions of Britain (pink), France (blue), and Spain (orange) in contemporary Canada and the United States.

In June 1747, Roland-Michel Barrin de La Galissonière, the Governor-General of New France, ordered Pierre-Joseph Céloron to lead an expedition to the Ohio Country with the objective of removing British influence from the area. Céloron was also to confirm the allegiance of the Native Americans inhabiting the territory to the French crown.

Céloron's expedition consisted of 213 soldiers of the Troupes de la marine (French Marines), who were transported by 23 canoes. The expedition left Lachine on June 15, 1749, and two days later reached Fort Frontenac. The expedition then continued along the shoreline of present-day Lake Erie. At the Chautauqua Portage (now Barcelona, New York), the expedition moved inland to the Allegheny River.

The expedition headed south to the Ohio River to present-day Pittsburgh, where Céloron buried lead plates engraved with the French claim to the Ohio Country. Whenever British merchants or fur-traders were encountered by the French, they were informed of the illegality of being on French territory and told to leave the Ohio Country.

When Céloron's expedition arrived at Logstown, the Native Americans in the area informed Céloron that they owned the Ohio Country and that they would trade with the British regardless of what the French told them to do.^[5]

The French continued their expedition. At its farthest point south, Céloron's expedition reached the confluence of the Ohio River and the Miami River, which lay just south of the village of Pickawillany, the home of the Miami chief "Old Britain" (as styled by Céloron). Céloron informed "Old Britain" of the "dire consequences" of the elderly chief continuing to trade with the British. "Old Britain" ignored the warning. After his meeting, Céloron and his expedition began the trip home. They did not return to Montreal until November 10, 1749.

In his report, which extensively detailed the journey, Céloron wrote, "All I can say is that the Natives of these localities are very badly disposed towards the French, and are entirely devoted to the English. I don't know in what way they could be brought back."^[5]

Langlade's expedition

On March 17, 1752, the Governor-General of New France, Marquis de la Jonquière died, and was temporarily replaced by Charles le Moyne de Longueuil. It was not until July 1, 1752 that his permanent replacement, Ange Duquesne de Menneville, arrived in New France to take over the post.

In the spring of 1752, Longueuil dispatched an expedition to the Ohio River area. The expedition was led by Charles Michel de Langlade, an officer in the Troupes de la Marine. Langlade was given 300 men comprising members of the Ottawa and French-Canadians. His objective was to punish the Miami people of Pickawillany for not following Céloron's orders to cease trading with the British.

At dawn on June 21, 1752, the French war party attacked the British trading centre at Pickawillany, killing fourteen people of the Miami nation, including Old Britain. The expedition then returned home.

Marin's expedition

In the spring of 1753, Paul Marin de la Malgue was given command of a 2,000 man force of Troupes de la Marine and Indians. His orders were to protect the King's land in the Ohio Valley from the British. Marin followed the route that Céloron had mapped out four years earlier, but where Céloron had limited the record of French claims to the burial of lead plates, Marin constructed and garrisoned forts. The first fort constructed by Paul Marin was Fort Presque Isle (now Erie, Pennsylvania) on Lake Erie's south shore. He then had a road built to the headwaters of LeBoeuf Creek. Marin then constructed a second fort at Fort Le Boeuf (Waterford, Pennsylvania), designed to guard the headwaters of LeBoeuf Creek.

The earliest authenticated portrait of George Washington shows him wearing his colonel's uniform of the Virginia Regiment from the French and Indian War. This portrait was painted years after the war, in 1772.

Tanaghrisson's proclamation

On September 3, 1753, Tanaghrisson, Chief of the Mingo, arrived at Fort Le Boeuf. He hated the French because, as legend had it, the French had killed and eaten his father. Tanaghrisson told Marin, "I shall strike at whoever...",^[6] threatening the French.

The show of force by the French had alarmed the Iroquois in the area. They sent Mohawk runners to William Johnson's manor in Upper New York. Johnson, known to the Iroquois as "Warraghiggey", meaning "He who does big business", had become a respected member of the Iroquois Confederacy in the area. In 1746, Johnson was made a colonel of the Iroquois, and later a colonel of the Western New York Militia.

At Albany, New York, Governor Clinton of New York and Chief Hendrick met, along with other officials from a handful of American colonies. Chief Hendrick insisted that the British abide by their obligations and block French expansion. When an unsatisfactory response was offered by Clinton, Chief Hendrick proclaimed that the "Covenant Chain", a long-standing friendly relationship between the Iroquois Confederacy and the British Crown, was broken.

Dinwiddie's reaction

Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia found himself in a predicament. Many merchants had invested heavily in fur trading in the Ohio Country. If the French made good on their claim to the Ohio Country and drove out the British, then the Virginian merchants would lose a lot of money.

To counter the French military presence in Ohio, in October 1753 Dinwiddie ordered Major George Washington of the Virginia militia to deliver a message to the commander of the French forces in the Ohio Country, Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre. Washington, along with his interpreter Jacob Van Braam and several other men, left for Fort Le Boeuf on October 31.

Washington's map of the Ohio River and surrounding region containing notes on French intentions, 1753 or 1754.

A few days later, Washington and his party arrived at Wills Creek (near modern Cumberland, Maryland). Here Washington enlisted the help of Christopher Gist, a surveyor who was familiar with the area. Washington and his party arrived at Logstown on November 24. At Logstown, Washington met with Tanaghrisson, and convinced him to accompany his small group to Fort Le Boeuf.

On December 12, Washington and his men reached Fort Le Boeuf. Saint-Pierre invited Washington to dine with him that evening. Over dinner, Washington presented Saint-Pierre with the letter from Dinwiddie that demanded an immediate French withdrawal from the Ohio Country. Saint-Pierre was quite civil in his response, saying, "As to the Summons you send me to retire, I do not think myself obliged to obey it."^[7] The French explained to Washington that France's claim to the region was superior to that of the British, since René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle had explored the Ohio Country nearly a century earlier.^[8]

Washington's party left Fort Le Boeuf early on December 16, arriving back in Williamsburg on January 16, 1754. In his report, Washington stated, "The French had swept south",^[9] constructing and occupying forts at Presque Isle, Le Boeuf and Venango.

War

The French and Indian War was the last of four major colonial wars between the British, the French, and their Native American allies.^{[citation needed]} Unlike the previous three wars, the French and Indian War began on North American soil and then spread to Europe in 1756, where Britain and France continued fighting the Seven Years' War. The war in North America was largely over in 1760, while the war in Europe continued until 1763.

Native Americans fought on both sides of the conflict, but were primarily allied to the French. The notable exception was the Iroquois Confederacy, which sided with the American colonies and Britain. The first major event of the war was in 1754, when a Virginia provincial major named George Washington, then twenty-one years of age, was sent to negotiate boundaries with the French, who were unwilling to give up their fortified positions. Washington led a group of Virginian colonial troops to confront the French at Fort Duquesne (the site of modern Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). Washington stumbled upon the French about 40 miles before reaching Fort Duquesne. In the ensuing skirmish, a French Officer named Joseph Coulon de Jumonville was killed, news of which would have certainly provoked a strong French response. Washington pulled back several miles and established Fort Necessity. The French attacked this position on July 3, forcing Washington to negotiate a withdrawal under arms.

In 1755, the British sent General Edward Braddock with about 2,000 army troops and provincial militia on an expedition to take Fort Duquesne. The expedition ended in disaster, with Braddock mortally wounded. Two future opponents in the American Revolutionary War, Washington and Thomas Gage, played key roles in organizing the retreat. The failure of Braddock's expedition was offset by British victories at Lake George, which secured the Hudson River valley, and at Fort Beauséjour, where the capture of that French fort secured the frontier of Nova Scotia. An unfortunate consequence of the latter was the subsequent forced deportation of the Acadian population of Nova Scotia and the Beaubassin region of Acadia, which effectively came under British control.

However, 1756 and 1757 were filled with French military victories, in which they consolidated control over Lake Ontario, Lake Champlain and the upper Mohawk River valley, with victories at Fort Bull, Fort Oswego, and Fort William Henry. This string of bad news led to a change of political control over the war in Britain. William Pitt became the Secretary of State responsible for the colonies, and he proceeded to implement plans largely developed by his predecessor, Lord Loudoun, to once and for all drive the French from North America.

The Victory of Montcalm's Troops at Carillon by Henry Alexander Ogden.

Pitt's plan called for three major offensive actions involving large numbers of regular troops, supported by provincial militias, aimed at capturing the heartlands of New France. In 1758 two of these expeditions were successful, with Fort Duquesne and Louisbourg falling to sizable British forces. The third was stopped with the improbable French victory in the Battle of Carillon, in which 4,000 Frenchmen famously defeated a British force of 16,000 outside the fort the French called Carillon and the British called Ticonderoga.

British victories continued in the same theaters in 1759, when they finally captured Ticonderoga, James Wolfe defeated Montcalm at Quebec, and victory at Fort Niagara successfully cut off the French frontier forts further to the west and south. The victory was made complete in 1760, when, despite losing outside Quebec City in the Battle of Sainte-Foy, the British were able to prevent French relief of their colonies in the naval Battle of the Restigouche while their armies marched on Montreal from the south and the west.

In September of 1760, Pierre François de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil-Cavagnal, the King's Governor of New France, negotiated a surrender with British General Jeffrey Amherst. General Amherst granted Vaudreuil's request that any French residents who chose to remain in the colony would be given freedom to continue worshiping in their Roman Catholic tradition, continued ownership of their property, and the right to remain undisturbed in their homes. The British provided medical treatment for the sick and wounded French soldiers and French regular troops were returned to France aboard British ships with an agreement that they were not to serve again in the present war.

Outcome

The descent of the French on St. John's, Newfoundland, 1762

Most of the North American fighting ended with the surrender of Montreal; notable late battles included the British capture of Spanish Havana, the capture of French Martinique and a French attempt to gain control of Newfoundland in the Battle of Signal Hill, all in 1762. The war officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on February 10, 1763. The British offered France a choice of its North American possessions east of the Mississippi except Saint Pierre and Miquelon or the two small islands off Newfoundland and the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, which had been occupied by the British. France chose to cede Canada. The economic value of the Caribbean islands to France was greater than that of Canada because of their rich sugar crops, and the fact that they were easier to defend. The British, however, were happy to take New France, as defence was not an issue, and they already had many sources of sugar. Spain gained Louisiana, including New Orleans, in compensation for its loss of Florida to the British.

Map showing British territorial gains following the Treaty of Paris in pink, and Spanish territorial gains after the Treaty of Fontainebleau in yellow.

Britain gained control of French Canada, a colony containing approximately 65,000 primarily French-speaking Roman Catholic residents. Early in the war, in 1755, the British had begun expelling French settlers from Acadia (some of whom eventually settled Louisiana, creating the Cajun population). Now at peace, and eager to secure control of its hard-won colony, Great Britain found itself obliged to make concessions to its newly conquered subjects; this was achieved with the Quebec Act of 1774. The history of the Seven Years' War, particularly the siege of Quebec and the death of British Brigadier General James Wolfe, generated a vast number of ballads, broadsides, images, maps and other printed materials, which testify to how this event continued to capture the imagination of the British public long after Wolfe's death in 1759.^[10]

The European theatre of the war was settled by the Treaty of Hubertusburg on February 15, 1763. The war changed economic, political, and social relations between Britain and its colonies. It plunged Britain into debt, which the Crown chose to pay off by increasing tax revenues from its colonies. The British were also keen on keeping the peace in North America, especially on the colonies' western frontiers, so in an effort to appease the various Indian tribes the Royal Proclamation of 1763 included provisions prohibiting colonists from engaging in further expansion west of the Appalachian Mountains. In taking these measures the British government failed to appreciate that by eliminating the French threat in North America the British had in fact removed one of the strongest incentives the colonies had for retaining their links with Great Britain. Unpopular taxes, restrictions on colonial expansion and concessions given to Quebec's Catholic population all contributed to the beginning of the American Revolutionary War.

Timeline

Year	Dates	Event	Location	Result
1754	May 28 July 3	Battle of Jumonville Glen Battle of the Great Meadows (Fort Necessity)	Uniontown, Pennsylvania Uniontown, Pennsylvania	British victory French victory
1755	May 29 – July 9 June 3 – 16 July 9 September 8	Braddock expedition Battle of Fort Beauséjour Battle of the Monongahela Battle of Lake George	Western Pennsylvania Sackville, New Brunswick Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Lake George, New York	French victory British victory French victory British victory
1756	March 27 August 10 – 14 September 8	Battle of Fort Bull Battle of Fort Oswego Kittanning Expedition	Rome, New York Oswego, New York Kittanning, Pennsylvania	French victory French victory British victory
1757	August 2 – 9 December 8	Battle of Fort William Henry Second Battle of Bloody Creek	Lake George, New York Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia	French victory French victory
1758	June 8 – July 26 July 7 – 8 August 25 September 14 October 12	Siege of Louisbourg Battle of Carillon (Fort Ticonderoga) Battle of Fort Frontenac Battle of Fort Duquesne Battle of Fort Ligonier	Louisbourg, Nova Scotia Ticonderoga, New York Kingston, Ontario Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Western Pennsylvania	British victory French victory British victory French victory British victory
1759	July 26 – 27 July 6 – 26 July 31 September 13	Battle of Ticonderoga (1759) Battle of Fort Niagara Battle of Beauport Battle of the Plains of Abraham	Ticonderoga, New York Fort Niagara, New York Quebec City Quebec City	British victory British victory French victory British victory
1760	April 28 July 3 – 8 August 16 – 24	Battle of Sainte-Foy Battle of Restigouche Battle of the Thousand Islands	Quebec City Pointe-à-la-Croix, Quebec Ogdensburg, New York	French victory British victory British victory
1762	September 15	Battle of Signal Hill	St. John's, Newfoundland	British victory
1763	February 10	Treaty of Paris	Paris, France

Battles and expeditions

United States

• Pennsylvania
  • Battle of Jumonville Glen (May 28, 1754)
  • Battle of Fort Necessity, aka the Battle of Great Meadows (July 3, 1754)
  • Braddock Expedition (Battle of the Monongahela aka Battle of the Wilderness) (July 9, 1755)
  • Battle of Sideling Hill (April 4, 1756)
  • Kittanning Expedition (climax September 8, 1756)
  • Battle of Fort Duquesne (September 14, 1758)
  • Battle of Fort Ligonier (October 12, 1758)
  • Forbes Expedition (climax November 25, 1758)

• New York
  • Battle of Lake George (September 8, 1755)
  • Battle of Fort Oswego (August 10–14, 1756)
  • Battle of Fort Bull (March 27, 1756)
  • Battle on Snowshoes (1757) (January 21, 1757)
  • Battle of Sabbath Day Point (July 26, 1757)
  • Battle of Fort William Henry (August 9, 1757)
  • Attack on German Flatts (1757) (November 12, 1757)
  • Battle on Snowshoes (March 23, 1758)
  • Battle of Carillon (July 8, 1758)
  • Battle of La Belle-Famille (July 24, 1759)
  • Battle of Fort Niagara (July 6–26, 1759)
  • Battle of Ticonderoga (1759) (July 26, 1759)
  • Battle of the Thousand Islands, August 16–25, 1760

• West Virginia
  • Battle of Great Cacapon (April 18, 1756)

Canada

• New Brunswick
  • Battle of Fort Beauséjour (June 16, 1755)

• Nova Scotia
  • Siege of Louisbourg (June 8–July 26, 1758)

• Ontario
  • Battle of Fort Frontenac (August 25, 1758)
  • Battle of the Thousand Islands, August 16–25, 1760

• Quebec
  • Battle of Beauport (July 31, 1759)
  • Battle of the Plains of Abraham (September 13, 1759)
  • Battle of Sainte-Foy (April 28, 1760)
  • Battle of Restigouche, July 3–8, (1760)

• Newfoundland
  • Battle of Signal Hill September 15, 1762

Footnotes

1. ^ ^{a b c} Anderson, Crucible of War, 747.
2. ^ Jennings, Empire of Fortune, xv.
3. ^ The Canadian Encyclopedia: Seven Years' War
4. ^ (French) L'Encyclopédie canadienne: Guerre de Sept Ans
5. ^ ^{a b} Fowler, Empires at War, 14.
6. ^ Fowler, Empires at War, 31.
7. ^ Fowler, Empires at War, 35.
8. ^ Ellis, His Excellency George Washington, 5.
9. ^ Fowler, Empires at War, 36.
10. ^ Virtual Vault, an online exhibition of Canadian historical art at Library and Archives Canada

References

• Anderson, Fred (2000). Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0375406425. 
• Anderson, Fred (2005). The War that Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War. New York: Viking. ISBN 0670034541.  Released in conjunction with the 2006 PBS miniseries The War that Made America.
• Ellis, Joseph J. (2004). His Excellency George Washington. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 1400032539. 
• Fowler, W. M. (2005). Empires at War: The French and Indian War and the Struggle for North America, 1754-1763. New York: Walker. ISBN 0802714110. 
• Jennings, Francis (1988). Empire of Fortune: Crowns, Colonies, and Tribes in the Seven Years War in America. New York: Norton. ISBN 0393306402. 
• Virtual Vault, an online exhibition of Canadian historical art at Library and Archives Canada

Further reading

• Eckert, Allan W. Wilderness Empire. Bantam Books, 1994, originally published 1969. ISBN 0-553-26488-5. Second volume in a series of historical narratives, with emphasis on Sir William Johnson. Academic historians often regard Eckert's books, which are written in the style of novels, to be fiction.
• Parkman, Francis. Montcalm and Wolfe: The French and Indian War. Originally published 1884. New York: Da Capo, 1984. ISBN 0-306-81077-8.

See also

• Franco-Indian alliance
• Great Britain in the Seven Years War
• Fort at Number 4
• French and Indian Wars (article includes King William's War, Queen Anne's War, King George's War, and the French and Indian War.)
• Great Upheaval
• Military history
• New Hampshire Provincial Regiment
• Join, or Die, the famous cartoon by Benjamin Franklin
• Pontiac's Rebellion
• Rogers' Rangers
• Mitchell Map
• List of conflicts in Canada
• List of conflicts in the United States
• List of historical novels, under United States - Colonial

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: French and Indian War

• The French and Indian War Website
• Historical Preservation Archive: Transcribed Articles & Documents
• The War That Made America from PBS
• French and Indian War study guide, analysis, primary sources, teacher resources

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