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3 Nations vied for world domination in the 17th and
18th centuries: Spain, France, and England
The French established
Quebec in 1608 as their first colony (New France) in the new world.
New France was under total control of the French crown and the colonists enjoyed much less freedom and selfrule than the British colonies in America.

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By 1750 only 60,000 colonists inhabited New France compared to over 2 million in the 13 British American colonies.
The French were allied with the Huron Indians, and helped them fight the Iroquois
Confederation in the upper
N.Y. area.
So the Iroquois allied themselves with the British.

 New France’s one valuable commodity was furs, especially beaver.
 See map of fur posts in North
America on pg 108
 The fur trappers trapped the beaver to near extinction and exposed Native Americans to white culture, disease, trade goods, and alcohol.

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Antoine Cadillac founded
Detroit in 1701
Robert de La Salle floated down the Mississippi to the
Gulf of Mexico in 1682 and named the interior basin
Louisiana in honor of Louis
XIV. Controll of this river was vital to this American regon.
The French founded New
Orleans in 1718.
They wanted to Compete with the Spanish Empire
The French founded trading posts at Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes in the Ohio
River area.

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King William’s War (1689-1697) and
Queen Anne’s War (1702-1713) were early clashes between British colonists and French in North
America.
Neither France nor Britain committed any troops to these as they didn’t see these colonies worth the expense.
The real money was coming from the
Caribbean at that point.
Spain sided with France in these early wars.
King William III of Prussia

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The War of Jenkin’s Ear (1739) was fought between the British and
Spanish in the Caribbean and
Georgia, where James Oglethorpe earned his reputation as a soldier.
British captain Jenkins was captured by the Spanish and had his ear cut off and his captures sent him packing with the ear and threatened to do the same to his king.
The War of Jenkin’s Ear merged with the larger War of Austrian
Succession in Europe and was called
King George’s War in America.
France allied itself with Spain again.

 New England colonists invaded New France and took the French fort at Louisbourg
(see map on pg 112) but the peace settlement gave it back to the French.
 Importance: American colonists resented politics in
Europe dictating politics and life in America

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American (British) colonists had been pushing into this area to expand their land holdings, especially the
Virginia planters.
The French wanted it to link their Canadian land with that of the lower empire.
Control of the Ohio Valley meant control of all of North
America. This became the region that England and
France would fight over

 The French built Fort
Duquesne at the site of present day Pittsburg, which is where the Allegheny River and the Monongahela River join to form the Ohio River.
 In 1754 the Governor of VA sent 21 year old George
Washington and 150 VA militiamen to secure Virginia’s claim to this land.

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The
Ohio Valley
British French
Fort Necessity Fort Duquesne
* George Washington * Delaware & Shawnee
Indians

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His party and a group of
Indians ambushed a French scouting party.
The Indians killed the French commander, a number of
French troops and took even more prisoner.
Washington probably had little command over the situation and the French and
Indian War had begun.
Washington quickly built Fort
Necessity and asked for reinforcements, which never came.

 The French did come with reinforcements, surrounded the fort and pounded it in a torrential downpour for 10 hours before Washington surrendered.
 The French allowed him and his men to march away.

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With the war underway, the
British uprooted some 4,000
French Acadians in 1755
(because they had acquired the land in 1713 in an earlier squirmish) and deported them in Louisiana- the original
Cajuns.
The French and Indian War was the 4th Anglo-French colonial war and the only one which started in America, in
1754.

 It was an undeclared war for 2 years until it spread to all corners of the globe, but especially in America,
Europe, the West Indies, the Philippines, Africa, and the open seas.
 The French and Indian
War is also known as the
Seven Years’ War.

 In Europe it was mainly
Britain and Prussia against France, Spain,
Austria, and Russia.
 France spent most of its troops in Germany instead of America, where
Frederick the Great earned his title fighting for the British.

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The British bought the
Iroquois loyalty against the French.
Seven of the 13 colonies sent representatives.
the long-range purpose of the Albany Congress of
1754 was to achieve
Colonial unity in a common defense against the French

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Ben Franklin  representatives from
New England, NY, MD, PA
A Albany Congress  failed Iroquois broke off relations with
Britain & threatened to trade with the French.

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The British sent General Braddock to capture Fort Duquesne.
Braddock hacked a road through the wilderness, which wasted a lot of time, money, and resources.
The French and Indians ambushed the British redcoats and the
American militia and slaughtered them.
George Washington was in charge of the militia and had 2 horses shot from under him and 4 bullets pierced his clothing, but he was one of the few who lived.
After this defeat, the French and
Indians ravaged the frontier from
Pennsylvania to North Carolina.

 The British invaded
Canada in 1756.
 The British tried to attack a number of French forts in the wilderness all at the same time with small forces and failed at nearly every attempt instead of concentrating on the larger forts at Quebec and
Montreal.

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William Pitt became Prime
Minister in 1757 and changed the tactics of the war.
He put the Caribbean on the back burner and focused on taking Canada with the capture of Quebec and
Montreal.
Pitt chose young and energetic generals instead of the old and cautious ones that favored
European tactics that proved not to work in America.

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* By 1761, Sp. has become an ally of Fr.

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In 1758 the British took the
Fort at Louisbourg.
The British attacked Quebec under the dashing General
James Wolfe who sent a detachment to scale the cliffs surrounding the city.
The French and British duked it out on the Plains of
Abraham outside of the city.
Both Wolfe and the French commander were killed, but the British took Quebec in
1759.
The British took Montreal in
1760.

Colonials British
Methods of
Fighting:
• Indian-style guerilla tactics.
Military
Organization:
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Col. militias served under own captains.
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March in formation or bayonet charge.
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Br. officers wanted to take charge of colonials.
Military
Discipline:
Finances:
Demeanor:
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No mil. deference or protocols observed.
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Resistance to rising taxes.
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Casual, non-professionals.
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Drills & tough discipline.
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Colonists should pay for their own defense.
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Prima Donna Br. officers with servants
& tea settings.

 France ceded all of its land west of the Mississippi
(Louisiana) to the Spanish, and lost almost all of it’s North
American land claims, except for a couple of islands in the
St. Lawrence and a few in the
West Indies.
 The Treaty of Paris 1763 settled the French and Indian War.
 England becomes the dominant power in North
America

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20,000 American colonists fought for the British in the war.
British officials were disturbed by the lukewarm support of the colonists (who's interests they were fighting to protect)
During the war the British regular army showed contempt for the American militia as raw, and unrespectable.
The British refused to recognize any American milita commission above the rank of captain, which was humiliating to Colonel George
Washington.

 Many American shippers broke British blockades during the war and exported food to besieged French and Spanish islands in the Caribbean.
 Overall, the American colonies were not united in the French and Indian War and didn’t take up the cause for the
British empire.

 American ambivalence during the French and Indian War was caused by:
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Geographical barriers like rivers,
Conflicting religions, from
Catholic to Quaker,
Varied nationalities: German,
English, Irish, Scots-Irish, etc
Differing types of colonial governments
Many boundary disputes,
The resentment of crude backcountry settlers against the aristocratic bigwigs.

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However, soldiers and statesmen, brought together during the war found that they were all fellow
Americans who generally spoke the same language and shared common ideals.
With the French threat gone,
Americans felt much more confident. Started idea of independence
The Spanish were forced to give up
Florida to Britain.
Native Americans were no longer able to play off the Europeans against one another after 1763.

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Led by the Ottawa chief and a handful of French traders.
They tried to drive the British out of the Ohio country.
Overran all but 3 British posts and killed 2,000 soldiers and settlers.
The British spread smallpox infected blankets to the
Indians, which brought a truce.
Pontiac died in battle with another Indian tribe in 1769.

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Pontiac’s rebellion convinced the British that they needed to spend more money and attention on stabilizing Indianwhite relations and keep the
Indians subdued along the western frontier, they also wanted the colonists to pay for it.
The Proclamation of 1763forbade settlement west of the
Appalachians.
 The British intention was to work out Indian problems in the area fairly and prevent another
Pontiac’s Rebellion.

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The Proclamation of 1763 prohibited colonial settlement west of the Application
Mountains
American’s saw the western land as their birthright and deeply resented (and ignored) the British proclamation.
In the end, they defied the
Proclamation and moved west anyway.

Real Whigs
Q-> What was the extent of Parliament’s authority over the colonies??
Absolute?
OR Limited?
Q-> How could the colonies give or withhold consent for parliamentary legislation when they did not have representation in that body??