I.

Introduction

French and Indian War (1754-1763), part of a “great war for empire”, a determined and eventually successful attempt by Britain to attain a dominant position in North America, the Caribbean, and India. Although the French and Indian War was fought in America, it corresponded to the Seven Years' War in Europe, and the Third Carnatic War in Asia (see Carnatic Wars). The French and Indian War stripped France of its North American empire and its expense caused Britain to re-evaluate the imperial relationship to its North American colonies.

II.

Early Rivalries

By the end of the 17th century, Britain had established flourishing colonial settlements along the Atlantic Coast in New England and in the Chesapeake Bay region. At the same time, France had founded small communities along the St Lawrence River and had claimed the entire Mississippi River Valley, following the expeditions of French explorers Louis Jolliet and René-Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle. These North American colonies became part of an intense rivalry between Britain and France. Each country tried to equal or surpass the economic, political, and military power of the other through colonization, alliances, and warfare.

Beginning in 1689, Britain fought a century-long series of wars with France and its ally, Spain. On three occasions prior to the French and Indian War, these hostilities spilled over into the western hemisphere where Britain and France competed to control the valuable fur trade on the North American mainland and the rich sugar production on the islands of the West Indies. Both nations received military assistance from colonists in these wars, but also relied on the help of Native Americans who participated because of their own rivalries for land and power.

The first of these conflicts was King William’s War, known in Europe as the Nine Years’ War, and consisted of little more than a number of skirmishes that produced no changes in territory. The next conflict was Queen Anne’s War, known in Europe as the War of the Spanish Succession. During this war, the major battle in North America was a British and colonial attempt to capture Quebec in 1710. Although the expedition failed, Britain used victories in Europe to gain significant additional territory from France in the Peace of Utrecht, including Newfoundland, Acadia, and the Hudson Bay region of northern Canada, as well as greater access to the Native American fur trade. A new conflict, King George’s War, began outside North America as part of the War of the Austrian Succession. In 1745 New England militiamen captured the French naval fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island but the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle returned the fortress to France.

III.

Beginning of the French and Indian War

The French and Indian War began in the struggle for control of the Ohio Valley. For more than a generation, the powerful Iroquois Confederacy dominated a middle ground between the French and British colonies in North America. They had gained control of a vast region in the interior of the continent by alliances with other Native American tribes and had successfully excluded the European nations from this territory. The Iroquois were able to maintain their power against that of both the British and the French, but this three-way balance of power began to break down during the 1740s. British traders penetrated deep into the Ohio country and established direct relations with tribal groups who previously had been controlled by the Iroquois, or had traded only with the French.

The Ohio Company, an association of land speculators based in Virginia, encouraged these excursions. The company had received a grant of 500,000 acres from George II and wanted to move traders and settlers into this interior region. In 1753 Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia, who was also a leading member of the Ohio Company, despatched 21-year-old George Washington to carry an ultimatum to the French, warning them to leave the region. In the following year Governor Dinwiddie ordered the construction of a fort at the forks of the Ohio (where the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers meet, later the site of Pittsburgh).

Recognizing the need to dominate the Ohio Valley militarily in order to protect their strategic interests in the American interior, the French immediately reinforced their existing forts south of Lake Erie and expelled the British from the forks of the Ohio before Dinwiddie’s fort was completed. There they built a new military post, Fort Duquesne, and established firm title to the region.

These rival territorial claims in the Ohio Valley quickly led to violence. An armed party of Virginians under the command of Washington defeated a small French force east of the Ohio River and built a log stockade that became known as Fort Necessity. The French gathered more troops and quickly laid siege to this small fort, forcing Washington and his troops to surrender on July 4, 1754. The French then sent Washington and his troops back to Virginia.

In the meantime, in anticipation of the outbreak of war and on the urging of the British Board of Trade, the colonial governors convened a gathering of delegates from the seven British colonies in Albany, New York. The Albany Congress formalized an alliance with the Iroquois and planned other defensive measures. However, a plan of union developed by Benjamin Franklin, known as the Albany Plan, which was prophetic of the final constitutional settlement following independence, was rejected.

IV.

The Military Struggle

The British had no desire to begin a war in America. The last conflict with France, which ended in 1748, had depleted the British treasury, and Parliament refused to impose new taxes. Yet many British leaders, such as William Pitt who wished to expand British imperial power in order to increase trade, demanded action.

A.

Initial Skirmishes

The French and Indian War had four distinct phases. The first began with the French capture of Washington and his troops at Fort Necessity in 1754 and lasted until 1756, when war was formally declared. During these two years both Britain and France hoped to avoid a general European war and so committed few troops or resources to the fighting in America. Each side primarily attacked enemy forts in unsettled areas along the frontier.

Two battles of significance did take place during this phase. The French ambushed and defeated two regiments reluctantly despatched by Britain and led by Sir Edward Braddock as they attempted to drive the French from Fort Duquesne in 1755. Later British and colonial forces offset these losses by capturing two French forts in Nova Scotia. Subsequently, the British deported more than 6,000 French inhabitants from Nova Scotia.

B.

Early French Success

The second phase of the war in America was fought with much larger armies and opened with a series of French victories. In mid-1756 a French force captured the British fort at Oswego in northern New York. The French advance continued in 1757 with a victory over British regulars and New England militia at Fort William Henry, within striking distance of Albany. Then the French offensive faltered.

This was largely because Britain held the strategic advantage in North America. The French had to travel vast distances, and had few local sources of supply. Most importantly, the small French-Canadian population was not large enough to provide food and soldiers for a lengthy campaign. In contrast, Britain could call upon a population more than ten times as large to provide troops and supplies for an all-out assault on Canada. The only other obstacles to British success were political support from the colonial assemblies, which was provided somewhat begrudgingly, and firm direction and financial assistance from the British government, which finally arrived after William Pitt became secretary of state for the Southern Department (foreign affairs), with sole responsibility for the prosecution of the war, in June 1757.

C.

British Victories

In 1757 Pitt launched the third phase of the war by sending thousands of British troops to America and ordering a direct attack on Canada. A force of 16,000 British and colonial troops advanced from Albany towards Montreal in 1758. This expedition, commanded by General James Abercrombie, stalled in the face of French opposition at Fort Ticonderoga in north-eastern New York. However, British and colonial troops under General Jeffrey Amherst captured the fortress of Louisbourg and additional British victories came at Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario and at Fort Duquesne.

Bolstered by these successes, William Pitt ordered a new British offensive for 1759. He financed the mobilization of 20,000 colonial troops and elevated Amherst to commander of all British forces in America. Amherst's army promptly continued the advance on Canada, capturing Fort Niagara, at the junction of lakes Erie and Ontario, and forcing the French to abandon the strategic Fort Ticonderoga. By early August 1759 the French had retreated to an inner line of defence that protected the major cities along the St Lawrence River.

The British quickly breached these defences and despatched a large fleet and an army up the river from Louisbourg. Late in 1759 British troops led by James Wolfe defeated a French army commanded by Louis Joseph Marquis de Montcalm de St-Véran on the Plains of Abraham, just outside Quebec. The capture of the fortified city of Quebec was the climax of the 'year of victories' for Britain. Only Montreal remained in French hands, and it surrendered to British forces in September 1760.

D.

Worldwide Conflict

The fall of Canada began the fourth and last stage of the war. Only minor conflicts continued on the mainland of North America. Many of these occurred between British settlers in the Carolinas and Native American peoples like the Cherokee, who had sided with the French to protect their lands. In Europe, the Seven Years’ War had reached a stalemate, with neither the British nor the French alliances able to dominate. On many other battlefronts around the world, however, the British had great successes. When warfare ended in 1763 the strategy of attacking their enemies’ colonial possessions had extended British power all over the world.

V.

Consequences of the War

The French and Indian War reduced the once-impressive French empire in North America to a handful of sugar plantations in the Caribbean and two rocky islands off the coast of Newfoundland. It also ended the century-long threat of a French or Spanish invasion of the American mainland colonies and ensured that British institutions would dominate in eastern North America. Through the Treaty of Paris of 1763, Britain gained control of over half of the North American continent, including French Canada, all French territorial claims east of the Mississippi River, and Spanish Florida. France’s desire to avenge its humiliating defeat in the war later prompted it to provide financial and military aid to the American rebels during the American War of Independence. This aid was instrumental in the loss of Britain’s American colonies, but it also contributed to the French financial crisis that climaxed in the French Revolution of 1789.

Another result of the war was British re-evaluation of its imperial relationship with its colonies. Before the French and Indian War, Britain had not controlled its colonies closely. British leaders regarded the colonial governments as subordinate bodies, subject to the sovereign authority of king and Parliament. As long as few serious conflicts of interest arose between Britain and its American possessions, the British government permitted colonial assemblies to oversee enforcement of instructions of the royal governors or to pass new legislation suited to their own needs. Edmund Burke described this imperial system as “salutary neglect” because he believed its leniency was beneficial, allowing the colonists to develop a political and economic system that was virtually independent. The colonists were loyal, although somewhat uncooperative, subjects of the Crown.

However, the British government became concerned about the colonists’ lack of cooperation during the French and Indian War. They resented the fact that the prosperous colonists were unwilling to undertake their own defence. The British also suspected that the assemblies took advantage of the war to increase their own political power. Colonists demanded greater authority over finances and military appointments in return for their approval of war-related measures.

This crisis of confidence in the old imperial system was exacerbated by pressing financial problems. Britain began fighting in 1754 with a national debt of approximately £75 million, but the war effort caused the debt to soar to £133 million by 1763. American colonists had benefited substantially from these military expenditures. They had received £1 million in direct subsidies and millions more in contracts for food, supplies, and transport for the British military forces in America. After these huge expenditures, Britain was reluctant to offer additional subsidies for the peacetime defence of the colonies. Money was needed to maintain the British troops who occupied the conquered provinces of Canada and Florida and defended a chain of western frontier posts. Given the size of the British debt and the extent of American colonial prosperity, British leaders saw no feasible alternative to taxing the colonists.

For the colonists, the French and Indian War increased their concern over the permanent presence of a British army. They believed that a standing army threatened liberty and representative government. These fears intensified with British demands for reform of the imperial system, the imposition of direct taxes, and the stationing of army units in the colonial port cities. Britain’s demands quickly led the colonists to active resistance and paved the way for the American War of Independence.