4.1 THE FRENCH AND
INDIAN WAR
thesandwichjourney.blogspot.com
I Can…
1. Summarize the causes of
the French and Indian
War.
2. Describe how the British
won the French and Indian
War.
3. Analyze how the war
weakened the colonists’
loyalty to Britain.
LEARNING
TARGETS:
GEORGE WASHINGTON
 After ambushing a
French scouting party in
Western Pennsylvania
in May 1754, a small
force of British
colonists built a
stronghold named Fort
Necessity.
 There they waited for
the French to try to
retake the Ohio Valley,
which both Britain and
France claimed.
 The French, who far
outnumbered the
British, soon
surrounded the fort and
forced a surrender.
 The colonists returned
to Virginia defeated and
disgraced.
 They were commanded
by 21 year old, George
Washington.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
en.wikipedia.org
CAUSES OF WAR
RIVALRY BETWEEN BRITAIN AND FRANCE
 Washington’s
 While the English built their
unsuccessful expedition
settlements along the
was the first minor battle eastern seacoast during the
of a war that lasted until
1600s, the French explored
1763.
farther inland: along the
St. Lawrence River, the
 The French and Indian
Great Lakes, and the
War was a 9 year war
Mississippi River.
that ended the fighting
among the French, the
 The French claimed a vast
British, and Native
region stretching from the
Americans for control of
Appalachian Mountains in
eastern NA.
the east to the Rocky
Mountains in the West.
 The English claimed some
of this territory as well.
www1.american.edu
PATTERNS OF COLONIZATION
British settlers made
towns & cleared
land for crops
French colonists
made forts to
protect land & trade
with NAs.
French had better
relationship with
NAs
In the late 1600s,
GB and France were
often at war in
Europe and then
between the
colonists.
Increasingly, these
conflicts focused on
the rivalry in NA.
The last of them, the
French and Indian
War, actually started
in the colonies and
spread to Europe.
The European phase
began in 1756,
about 2 years after
the fighting was
under way in
America, in Europe it
was called the 7
Years’ War.
H av e yo u s e e n
this before?
W h a t d o yo u
think it means?
Who published
it?
W hy i s t h i s
p i c t ur e
s i g n i fi ca n t ?
At the time George
Washington and his small
force held out at Fort
Necessity, a meeting of
delegates from seven
northern colonies convened
at Albany, New York, in June
1754.
The delegates hoped to
strengthen ties with the
Iroquois league as potential
allies.
THE
ALBANY
PLAN OF
UNION
FORTS OF
THE WAR
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Another reason for the
Albany meeting was to work
out a unified war effort in the
Northern colonies.
Benjamin Franklin, a PA
delegate, offered a
determined plan for a
permanent union of the
colonies.
Named the Albany Plan of
Union, it called for a council
of delegates from each
colony, elected by their
colonial legislatures.
UNIT Y
Heading the council would be a
president general, appointed by
the British crown.
Franklin believed that just as the
Iroquois nation had
strengthened itself by forming a
league, the British colonies
would benefit from greater unity.
The delegates approved the plan
but the colonists rejected it.
They didn’t want to give that
much power to a central
government.
It is important because it
provided a model for the U.S.
government later.
RESULTS
EARLY BRITISH DEFEATS
 The most impressive of the French victories took place once
again in western PA .
 On July 9, 1755, about 900 French and NAs surprised a force
of nearly 1 ,500 British troops and 450 colonial militia, armed
citizens who serve as soldiers during an emergency.
 British soldiers had been trained to fight in straight lines in
the open.
 They were no match for an enemy who hid behind rocks and
trees.
 In the fierce 3 hour battle, about a third of the British force
was killed or wounded including British commander, General
Edward Braddock.
THE BRITISH WIN THE WAR
 In 1756 GB formally declared
war on France.
 As fighting spread to Europe
and Asia, the British repeated
their American military
disasters.
 In 1757 William Pitt became
Britain’s prime minister, the
highest of ficial of a
parliamentary government .
 He thought the whole British
empire was at stake, Pitt
persuaded Parliament to
raise taxes and borrow a lot
of $ for the war
en.wikipedia.org
THE TIDE OF WAR TURNS
 In 1758, betterprepared and led
British troops began to
beat French and NA
forces in western PA
and Canada.
 They first attacked the
long line of forts and
settlements that the
French had built.
 In July 1758, British
forces sized
Louisbourg, an
important French
fortress on the Gulf of
St. Lawrence.
 In November they
captured Fort
Duquesne in PA.
 The fort, renamed
Fort Pitt for the
British leader,
eventually became
the city of Pittsburgh.
BRITISH VICTORY
 In July 1759 British
troops took Fort Niagara.
 The British victory put
the French on the
defensive.
 They abandoned their
forts in New York and
retreated to Canada.
 The Iroquois, who had
been playing both sides,
decided that the French
cause was hopeless and
began to support the
British.
wargame.ch
THE FALL OF QUEBEC
 In the late spring of 1759, the British began a campaign to
invade Canada and capture Quebec, the capital of New
France.
 The city sat high on the clif fs overlooking the St. Lawrence
River, General James Wolfe commanded about 9,000 British
troops.
 Some 7,500 French forces led by the Marquis de Montcalm
defended Quebec.
 After suf fering heavy losses in a direct attack in July 1959,
Wolfe settled down to a siege of the city.
 A siege is a tactic were the enemy is trapped and starved into
surrendering.
 Wolfe had limited time for the siege to work.
 British warships supporting his army had to withdraw from the
river as winter approached.
A DARING TACTIC
 On the night of Sept. 12, Wolfe began moving troops up a
narrow, undefended path on the side of Quebec’s clif fs.
 By dawn 4,500 troops were in position to attack.
 Montcalm moved his 4,500 troops out of the city to battle the
enemy without waiting for reinforcements.
 Both Wolfe and Montcalm were killed in the fighting.
 A few days later, the city surrendered.
 With the fall of Quebec the war was nearly over.
 The following Sept., British forces took the city of Montreal,
giving GB control over all of Canada.
 By 1761 , the British had seized Fort Detroit and other French
posts along the Great Lakes.
THE TREAT Y OF PARIS
 In 1763, representatives  The only exception
of GB, France, and
was the city of New
France’s ally Spain
Orleans, which France
signed the Treaty of Paris had given to Spain in
(1763) in Paris, France
a secret treaty the
ending the War.
year before.
 France turned Canada
 The British returned
over to Britain and
Cuba, captured during
surrendered its claim to
the war, to Spain in
all lands east of the Miss. exchange for Florida.
River.
WEAKENED LOYALT Y TO BRITAIN
 The war strained the
relations between the
British and American
colonists.
 The British thought
the colonists did not
provide enough
support to the war
fought for their
protection.
 The Americans were
shocked by the
weakness of British
military tactics.
 They demanded to be
led by colonial
officers, which the
British viewed as
treason.
1. A loss of respect for the
British military power.
2. The other was that the
British did not share the
same values as Americans
or treat them with respect.
Now that the French no
longer held Canada or the
region west of the
Appalachian Mountains, the
colonists wanted to expand
and prosper on their own,
without British help.
THE END
OF THE
WAR LEFT
COLONISTS
WITH T WO
BELIEFS: