Download A. Colonial and Revolutionary America 4. The French and Indian

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A. Colonial and Revolutionary America
4.
The French and Indian War and the Impending Colonial Crisis
i. Purpose: This unit will seek to integrate class lectures and primary documents
with the screenplay “Last of the Mohicans.” Students will benefit from the range
of images and language of the film so as to help them better understand the,
colonials/settlers’ role in the French and Indian War, the role of the Native
Americans, and the formation of a distinct “American” identity.
ii. Background Websites:
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http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/E/7yearswar2/7years01.htm
http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/E/7yearswar/fiw01.htm
http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/E/7yearswar/fiw02.htm
http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/E/7yearswar/fiw03.htm
iii. Key Terms
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The Fort Necessity “debate,” 1754
The Albany Congress, 1754
Prime Minister William Pitt
The Battle of Quebec, 1759
Treaty of Paris, 1763
iv. Documents:
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Braddock’s Defeat by George Washington:
http://www.nationalcenter.org/Braddock'sDefeat.html
2.
Samuel Davies, Religion and Patriotism the Constituents of a Good
Soldier (1755):
http://personal.pitnet.net/primarysources/davies.html
3.
The Albany Plan of Union:
http://www.constitution.org/bcp/albany.htm
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Governor Glen, The Role of the Indians in the Rivalry Between France,
Spain, and England (1761):
http://www.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1751-1775/indians/glen.htm
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Lecture on the French and Indian War
I.
The British Empire and the Colonial Crisis
o In the 1750s, probably most English-speaking inhabitants of the colonies
would have considered themselves affectionately loyal to England.
o But the French and Indian War, which England and its colonies fought
together as allies, shook that affection, and imperial politics in the decade
following the war shattered it completely.
II.
Wars for Empire in the Americas
From 1739 onwards, the British colonies took part in conflicts between Great Britain and Spain,
France, and Native Americans:
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All of these required British colonists to participate more actively in defending the
empire
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Along the southern frontier, the wars were mainly commercial; the British usually won
because they had more plentiful and cheaper goods; for example, tools, clothing,
ammunition, guns, scissors, and rum! (in return for slaves, deerskins and furs from the
Indians)
War of Jenkins’ Ear (vs. the Spanish): 1739-1744
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Governor Oglethorpe of GA used the war to try and eject the Spanish from Florida
(1740)…didn’t quite work, though, and the Spanish attacked St. Simons’!!
King George’s War (vs. the French): 1744-1748
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Began in Europe but spilled over to the American colonies when the French attacked
Nova Scotia
The colonists played a very large role, especially Massachusetts farmers and fishermen
In 1747, the British started impressing colonists into the Royal Navy without the colonial
authorities’ permission! Therefore, several thousand Bostonians used collective action to
protest the act and forced the governor to release the men!
They took Louisburg but to their dismay found it returned to the French in the Treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748
Despite the cost of war in money and lives, it brought no change in the power balance
between Great Britain and France in North America
French and Indian War (vs. the French and certain Indians): 1754-1763
Indian War for Autonomy in the Ohio Valley (vs. certain Indians): 1763-1765
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III.
The French and Indian War (1754-1763)
a. Background
o Whenever England was at war with France or Spain, the colonists in
America also got drawn in. For 22 of the first 50 years of the 18th century,
England was at war, mostly with France, and the colonists who felt it most
acutely and continuously were the ones in frontier New England, sharing
an uncertain and dangerous border with the French in Quebec and
Montreal and their Indian allies
o In the 1750s tensions revolved around French territorial expansion from
their possessions in Canada south into lands that English colonists had
their eyes on…the result was the French and Indian War
o From 1754-1763, British and American soldiers shared the hardships of
battle and the glory of victory over the French and their Indian allies. But
the expense of the war abruptly plunged the British and the colonists into
their most serious disagreement yet
b. French-English Rivalry in the Ohio Valley
o The French used the period of peace after 1748 to advance south from
Canada into regions of present day NY and PA
o But the French had competition from a well-organized group of Virginians
who had designs on what was called the Ohio Valley. This group of men,
which included the brothers Lawrence and Augustine Washington, formed
the Ohio Company and were granted a charter from the King to some
200,000 acres of forests in that area. The Virginians were more interested
in the profits resulting from the resale of the land, while the British
government was more interested in blocking French territorial advances
o The Crown even promised free land if the Ohio Company could launch a
settlement of 100 families and build a fort. By 1753, the enterprising
Virginians had blazed an 80 mile road into their land grant and set up a
trading post near present-day Pittsburgh. The French, meanwhile, were
moving troops south from Lake Eerie and claiming ownership to the land!
o The VA governor, Robert Dinwiddie, himself a major shareholder in the
Ohio Company, sent a messenger to warn the French that they were
trespassing on VA land
o The man who volunteered to be the messenger on this dangerous mission
was…George Washington, younger half-brother of the Ohio Company
leaders
Washington was a middle son of 8 – he had to make something of
his life!
Washington took the letter and while he was there, surveyed the
French troop strength, sketched their forts, and listened to the
soldiers’ boasts of taking all the land west of the Appalachians,
driving all the British there out!
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This information convinced governor Dinwiddie to appoint
Washington to raise an army to go and seek out the French
Washington set out with an army of about 100 men, searching for
the French and their 900 men army!
After an initial skirmish, the first of the French and Indian War,
Washington was captured and later sent back with a determined
message from the French – they weren’t going to give up their
disputed possessions!
Thus began the French and Indian War (2 years earlier in America,
1754)
c. The Albany Congress and Intercolonial Defense
o To succeed, the British needed colonial and Indian support
o They arranged for a colonial congress to meet in Albany, New York–
called the Albany Congress—to discuss how the war should be won
One goal of the Albany Congress was to construct an Intercolonial
agency to provide for the mutual defense of the colonies
A second, and perhaps more crucial goal, was to persuade some of
the key Indian tribes of the powerful Iroquois Nation of western
New York to support the English, or at least to promise neutrality
in the war with the French
At Albany, the Plan of Union was drawn up by a small number of
people, the most famous of whom was Benjamin Franklin: it
proposed a new top layer of colonial government consisting of a
president general, appointed by the crown, and a grand council,
with members selected by the colonial assemblies. The president
and the council would only have powers in the areas of defense
and Indian affairs
Despite Franklin’s best efforts to publicize the Albany Plan, not a
single colony ever approved it, not even Britain did! They thought
it wouldn’t work and that it might be a design of gaining power
over the colonies
d. The War Heats Up
o By 1755, Washington’s frontier skirmish had turned into a major
mobilization of British and American troops against the French
o At first the British government hoped for quick victory by throwing
armies at the French in three strategic places:
1. General Edward Braddock from England was sent to attack the French
at Fort Duquesne at the confluence of the Ohio, Allegheny, and
Monongahela Rivers.
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2. In Massachusetts, Governor William Shirley raised a force colonial
militiamen to take fort Niagara, critically located at the narrow land
neck between Lakes Erie and Ontario.
3. William Johnson of New York, a wealthy and influential Indian trader,
was charged with leading troops to unseat the French at Lake
Champlain and push them back to Canada
o Unfortunately for the British, a French spy in England learned details of
the plans, so the French were ready!
o In July 1755, Braddock set out from VA with more than 2000 regular
army troops to clear the French out of Fort Duquesne. Washington and
several hundred Virginia militiamen accompanied them. But they were
ambushed by a combined French and Indian force. Washington said the
British redcoats “broke and ran as sheep pursued by dogs!”
o Washington, again had to return home with news of defeat. But Dinwiddie
promoted him to commander of the VA army. And so at age 22,
Washington was beginning to realize his ambitions!
o News of Braddock’s defeat alarmed the other two British army’s, so they
turned around and consolidated their positions, and for the next 2 years,
the British stumbled badly on the American front of a war that was
quickly expanding to sites in Europe and the Caribbean
e. The war turns
o What finally turned the war around was the rise to power of William Pitt
in 1757 as the King’s leading minister.
He committed money, men, and resources to North America in
1757
In 1758, he sent a large naval fleet up the St. Lawrence River to
threaten French cities
Pitt also pried American troops out of colonial assemblies with
promises to reimburse the colonies later
o Within 2 years, Pitt’s strategy resulted in a string of resounding successes
o The decisive battle of the war, however, was the capture of Quebec in
September 1759.
Led by the young General James Wolfe, British ships had, since
midsummer, threatened the fortress city, located on a seemingly
invincible rocky cliff
After a sustained effort for some weeks at bombarding the French
out of the city, Wolfe led his troops up the steep cliff face in the
dead of night and took his adversary by surprise
The backbone of the French in North America was broken by the
fall of Quebec. The victory was completed by the surrender of the
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IV.
French at Montreal to Amherst in late 1760. American colonists
rejoiced but the French and Indian War was not over yet.
Battles continued in the Caribbean, where the French sugar islands
Martinique and Guadeloupe fell to the English in 1762, and in
Europe and India. France finally capitulated, and the treaty of Paris
was signed in 1763
Consequences of the War
o The triumph of victory was sweet but unfortunately short-lived. Much of
what England should have won in this expensive and spectacular war was
given away at the peace negotiations:
France relinquished its claim to North American possessions in
Canada and the Ohio Valley – so at least the threat from the North
and the West was gone
But all French territory west of the Mississippi River, including
New Orleans, was now transferred to Spain, as compensation for
its assistance to France during the war.
Stranger still, Martinique and Guadeloupe, the Caribbean islands
captured late in the war, were returned to France
One possible reason for this is that the English might have thought
that in allowing France to keep its sugar islands, a French presence
might worry Americans and keep them dependent on England for
protection
In truth, the French sugar islands posed little real threat to the
colonists.
The real threat was from the Indians disheartened by England’s
victory. The Treaty of Paris dictated terms for the European
powers, but completely ignored the Indians
With the French gone, the Indians had lost the advantage of having
two opponents to play off against each other, and they now had to
contend with westward-moving Americans. Indian policy would
soon become a serious bone of contention between the British
government and the colonists
England’s version of the victory awarded all credit to the redcoats
of the British army – this annoyed the colonists who had fought
From Braddock’s defeat, the colonists took note that the British
army wasn’t as invincible as it was said to be
V.
“Check, please”
o The enormous expense of war cast another shadow over the victory
o In England there was much debate over the responsibility the colonists
should bear in helping to pay off the war debt
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o This was the question that would turn mild American discontent to violent
rebellion in just a few short years