Download French and Indian War in America

Chapter 6
• The Duel for North America, 1608–1763
I. France Finds a Foothold in Canada
• At the close of the seventeenth century, a
struggle for North American continent began.
– The three major European powers in this struggle
were: England, France, and Spain – but it also
swept up Native Americans as well. (map of land
claims on the next slides)
• Domestic strife, foreign wars, and religious
clashes between Catholics and Protestant
Huguenots had hindered New World
ambitions for England, Holland, and France.
Map 6-1 p99
Map 6-4 p102
• In 1598, the Edict of Nantes granted limited
toleration to French Protestants.
– Religious wars ceased and France began to blossom
into the mightiest nation on the European
continent.
• In 1608, a year after Jamestown, France
established themselves at Quebec (which
commanded the St. Lawrence River) under the
leadership of Samuel de Champlain the “Father
of New France.”
– Champlain entered into friendly relations with the
Huron Indian tribes and joined them in battle
against their enemy, the federated Iroquois tribes of
upper New York area.
• France’s relation with the Huron earned a lasting enemy in the
Iroquois tribes and they hampered any French penetration into
the Ohio Valley… sometimes raiding French settlements and
serving as allies of the British.
II. New France Fans Out
• New France contained one valuable resource…
Beaver.
– European fashion-setters valued beaver-pelt hats
for warmth and appearance.
• French fur trappers that ranged all over the
woods and waterways of North America were a
rough bunch called coureurs de bois (“runners
of the woods”).
– They were later known as voyageurs because they
would transport their furs via the waterways.
– They soon began to recruit Natives into the fur
business, which lead to some disastrous drawbacks.
• Natives were decimated by the white man’s diseases and
taken by his alcohol.
• Mass slaughtering of animals violated many Natives
religious beliefs (which demonstrated the effect
Europeans had on traditional ways of life for the Natives.)
• The fur trade brought French trappers across
the Great Lakes, into present-day Saskatchewan
and Manitoba; along the valleys of the Platte,
the Arkansas, and the Missouri; west to the
Rockies; and south to the border of Spanish
Texas.
• French Catholic missionaries (Jesuits) labored to
save Natives for God and from fur-trappers.
– They made few converts, but played a vital role as
explorers and geographers.
• Other explorers sought only to advance the
empire.
– Antoine Cadillac pushed into the Ohio Valley and
founded Detroit.
– Robert de LaSalle floated down the Mississippi to
the Gulf and named the great interior basin
“Louisiana” to check Spanish penetration into the
Gulf of Mexico.
• He returned three years later to settle, but once he
couldn’t find the Mississippi Delta his men killed him.
• French officials did manage to plant several
fortified posts in what is now Mississippi and
Louisiana, the most important of these being
New Orleans (1718).
– Commanding the mouth of the Mississippi River,
the outpost was a great staging area to transport
resources to the West Indies and to Europe.
III. The Clash of Empires
• The earliest contests among the European
powers for control of America were the King
William’s War (1689-1697) and Queen Anne’s
War (1702-1713).
– Mainly British colonists against the French Coureurs
de bois, w/both sides recruiting natives.
– At the time, neither Britain not France considered
America worth sending large numbers of regular
troops to battle, so combatants ended up waging
more of a guerrilla war.
• Indian allies of the French continually hit British colonial
frontiers.
• Spain eventually allied w/France, but when the peace
terms were signed in 1713, you could see how bad they
must have been beaten up by what they awarded Britain.
– Britain received: Nova Scotia, New Foundland, and Hudson Bay.
• A generation of peace ensued which permitted Britain to
provide the colonies w/decades of “salutary neglect” –
the roots of independence.
– By the signing of the treaty of 1713, Britain also
won limited trading rights in Spanish America, but
brought with it friction over smuggling.
• British Captain Robert Jenkins had a run-in with Spanish
revenue authorities, they cut off one of his ears and sent
back to his king as a message – don’t mess with Spain.
– The War of Jenkins’s Ear broke out in 1739 between
Britain and Spain.
• The conflict was confined to the Caribbean Sea and the
colony of Georgia.
– This smaller scuffle between Britain and Spain
merged with the larger war of Austrian Succession,
as it was known in Europe, only it was called King
George’s War in America.
• France allied itself with Spain so Britain attacked New
France with New Englanders.
– The New Englanders were able to capture the reputedly
impregnable French fortress of Louisbourg.
• When the treaty was signed in 1748, Britain gave the
fortress back to the French, which enraged the New
Englanders for returning a massive weapon that would
only be used against them again.
Table 6-1 p101
IV. George Washington Inaugurates War
with France
• As France and Britain continued to position
themselves in the New World, the Ohio River
Valley became the biggest bone of contention.
– The British would inevitably push west, and the
French needed it to connect their Canadian
territory with the lower Mississippi Valley.
Map 6-4 p102
• Rivalry over this lush territory brought tensions
to boil over.
– 1749, British colonial speculators (including
Washington’s family) obtained shaky legal rights to
500,000 acres in the Ohio River Valley.
– In this same land, the French were building a chain
of Forts to command the Ohio River.
• The most formidable was Fort Duquesne which
commanded the intersection of the Monongahela and
Allegheny Rivers and join to make the Ohio River.
– In 1754, the Governor of Virginia sent George
Washington, as a lieutenant colonel in command of
150 militiamen, to secure Virginia’s claims to the
territory.
Map 6-5 p104
• Washington and his men ran into a small French
detachment 40 miles from Fort Duquesne and fired on
them.
– They killed the commander and sent the others running back to
the fort.
• The French promptly returned w/reinforcements and
surrounded Washington and his men in their hastily
constructed fortification, Fort Necessity.
– After a 10 hour siege, Washington was forced to surrender his
command. He was fortunate to march his men away with the
full honors of war.
– With the shooting already taking place, the British
feared the French Acadians, who they conquered in
1713, might rise up against them.
• The British then uprooted about 4,000 of the in 1755 and
transplanted them, some as far south as Louisiana.
– The descendants of the Acadians are now called “Cajuns”.
Table 6-2 p103
V. Global War and Colonial Disunity
• The war that began by George Washington in
the wilds of the Ohio River Valley in 1754, was
called the French and Indian War in America,
and the Seven Years War in Europe.
• The British and French fought each other on
American soil, but the major wars were taking
place in Europe.
– Germany held off the French and their allies so well
that the French wasted so much strength in Europe
that they couldn’t throw the adequate force into
the New World.
Map 6-6 p105
• The colonials had a tough time unifying their
people.
– Colonists closest to the fighting were much more
generous volunteers of men and resources than
those who were further from the fighting.
– In 1754 the British government called for an
intercolonial congress to Albany, NY.
• Delegates from only 7 of the 13 colonies showed up.
• The purpose of the congress was:
1.
2.
To keep the Iroquois tribes loyal by showing them Britain
was spreading the war.
To achieve greater colonial unity and thus bolster the
common defense against France.
• Ben Franklin was the leading spirit of the Albany
Congress.
p106
• Franklin’s attempt to adopt a plan for colonial home
rule was unanimously accepted by the Albany
Congress, but spurned by the individual colonies, as
well as Britain.
– The colonies thought the plan didn’t give them enough
independence; to the British, the plan gave the colonies too
much.
– Franklin later made an observation…
» “All people agree on the need for union, but their weak
noodles are perfectly distracted when they attempt to
agree on details.”
VI. Braddock’s Blundering and Its Aftermath
• The opening clashes of the French and Indian
War went badly for the British colonists.
– The arrogant General Edward Braddock had
experience in European warfare and was sent to
Virginia with a detachment of British regulars.
– In 1755, he set out for Fort Duquesne with his
regulars and a considerable force of colonial
militia, who drove Braddock nuts with their
behind-the-tree methods of fighting the natives.
• Axmen hacked a path through thick forest toward Fort
Duquesne. A few miles out they encountered a
smaller French and Indian force.
• At first they successfully repulsed the force, but the
French and Indians quickly melted into the woods and
fired into the ranks of the redcoats.
• George Washington, an aide to Braddock, had two horses
shot out from under him and four bullets through his
coat. Braddock was killed, and his entire force was
routed after taking heavy losses.
– Encouraged by the easy victory, Natives expanded
the warpath from Pennsylvania to North Carolina.
– The British launched a full scale invasion of Canada
in 1756, now that the undeclared war in America
merged into a world conflict.
• They chose to attack a number of exposed wilderness
posts simultaneously, instead taking their full force
against Quebec and Montreal.
– If they had fallen, the smaller outposts would’ve withered.
VII. Pitt’s Palms of Victory
• An exceptional British leader emerged –
William Pitt.
– He drew much of his strength from the common
people that loved him.
– He was a fantastic orator that believed passionately
in his cause, in his country, and in himself.
• Pitt first dispatched an expedition in 1758
against Louisbourg. Pitt’s forces were able to
take the strong fort and provide a huge morale
boost to the British, as this was the first
significant victory.
• Quebec was next on Pitt’s list.
– A 32 year old James Wolfe, who had been an officer
since he was 14, had been given command on the
expedition.
– The Battle of Quebec in 1759 was one of the most
significant engagements in British and American
history.
• The British weren’t doing that well until Wolfe made a
daring move by sending his troops up a cliff face at night
to get a better position to fight in the morning.
• The two armies faced each other on the outskirts of
Quebec. The commanders for both armies fell, and in the
end the British were able to pull out another victory as
Quebec surrendered.
p107
• When Montreal fell in 1760 and the peace
settlement took place at Paris in 1763, the
French authority was tossed from North
America, leaving behind a fertile population
that to this day is strong minority in Canada.
– To compensate their Spanish ally for its losses they
gave them the trans-mississippi Louisiana and the
outlet of New Orleans.
– Spain, for its part, turned over Florida to Britain in
return for Cuba.
– Britain emerged as the dominant power in North
America, while taking its place as the leading naval
power in the world.
North America Before 1754
North America After 1763 (after French losses)
VIII. Restless Colonists
• While the French and Indian War increased
colonial self-esteem, it also shattered the myth
of British invincibility.
– The “buckskin” militia had seen the demoralized
British regulars, under Braddock, huddling
helplessly together or fleeing from their unseen
enemy.
• A friction had developed between arrogant
British officers and the raw colonial recruits.
– The British refused to recognize any militia
commission above the rank of captain.
– General Wolfe referred to the colonial militia as
being “in general the dirtiest, most contemptible,
cowardly dogs that you can conceive.”
– The colonials felt that they deserved credit for
risking their lives to secure a New World empire.
• British officials were also distressed by the lack
of colonial support to the cause.
– American shippers were using fraudulent papers to
traffic supplies into ports of the Spanish and French
West Indies for huge profits.
– Other colonists, self-centered and alienated by
distance from the war, refused to provide troops
and money for the conflict.
• They wanted the privileges of Englishmen, without the
duties and responsibilities of Englishmen.
• The unity of the colonies did make some
progress during the war.
– Despite the enormous distances, geographic
barriers, conflicting religions (Catholics to Quakers),
varying nationalities (German to Irish), differing
colonial governments, boundary disputes, and
resentment of the backcountry settlers against the
aristocratic bigwigs, these barriers began to melt.
IX. War’s Fateful Aftermath
• The removal of the French from Canada had a
major impact on American attitudes.
– While the French were a threat, colonists had to
cling to the power of Britain. Now that they were
pushed out, British influence in the colonies was no
longer needed or in many cases wanted.
• The French, having been humiliated by the
British, consoled themselves with the thought
that some day Britain too might lose their
American empire
• Spain was (temporarily) eliminated from
Florida, but still held Louisiana and New
Orleans, and much of western North America.
• The Natives were hit hard – they lost the ability
to play rival European powers off one another.
– After the French and Indian War the Natives would
have to negotiate exclusively with the British.
• Seeing the writing on the wall, the Ottawa chief
Pontiac in 1763 led several tribes, aided by
some French traders, in a campaign to drive the
British out of the Ohio country.
– Pontiac’s uprising laid siege to Detroit and
eventually overran all but three British posts west of
the Appalachians.
Map 6-8 p110
• The British retaliated by waging a primitive version of
biological warfare… distributing blankets infected with
smallpox.
• Such tactics crushed the uprising and brought an uneasy
truce to the frontier.
– The bloody episode convinced the British of the
need to stabilize relations with the western natives
and to keep regular troops stationed along the
frontier.
• Land-hunger colonists were eager to finally be
able to settle land west of the Appalachians,
but in an attempt to regulate expansion and
minimize further bloodshed, Britain issued the
Proclamation of 1763.
– The proclamation angered many American
speculators.
• They felt that fighting in the French and Indian War had
given them a right to it.
• In complete defiance to the proclamation, the trails
across the Appalachians were full of settlers.
– With their path cleared and a new vision of their destiny, they
were in no mood to be restrained.
• British aristocrats, whose ego’s were swollen from their
recent victories, became annoyed by their unruly colonial
subjects.
• The stage was set for a family quarrel.