The French & Indian War

The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was the North American theater of the worldwide Seven Years' War.

The war was fought between the colonies of British America and New France, with both sides supported by military units from their parent countries of Great Britain and France, as well as Native American allies. At the start of the war, the French North American colonies had a population of roughly 60,000 European settlers, compared with 2 million in the British North American colonies. The outnumbered French particularly depended on the Indians. Long in conflict, the metropole nations declared war on each other in 1756, escalating the war from a regional affair into an intercontinental conflict.

The name French and Indian War is used mainly in the United States and refers to the two main enemies of the British colonists: the royal French forces and the various indigenous forces allied with them. British and European historians use the term the Seven Years' War, as do English speaking Canadians. French Canadians call it La guerre de la Conquête (War of the Conquest) or the Fourth Intercontinental War.

The war was fought primarily along the frontiers between New France and the British colonies, from Virginia in the South to Nova Scotia in the North. It began with a dispute over control of the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, called the Forks of the Ohio, and the site of the French Fort Duquesne and present-day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The dispute erupted into violence in the Battle of Jumonville Glen in May 1754, during which Virginia militiamen under the command of 22-year-old George Washington ambushed a French patrol.

In 1755, six colonial governors in North America met with General Edward Braddock, the newly arrived British Army commander, and planned a four-way attack on the French. None succeeded and the main effort by Braddock was a disaster; he was defeated in the Battle of the Monongahela on July 9, 1755 and died a few days later. British operations in 1755, 1756 and 1757 in the frontier areas of Pennsylvania and New York all failed, due to a combination of poor management, internal divisions, and effective Canadian scouts, French regular forces, and Indian offense. In 1755, the British captured Fort Beauséjour on the border separating Nova Scotia from Acadia; soon afterward they ordered the expulsion of the Acadians. Orders for the deportation were given by William Shirley, Commander-in-Chief, North America, without direction from Great Britain. The Acadians, both those captured in arms and those who had sworn the loyalty oath to His Britannic Majesty, were expelled. Native Americans were likewise driven off their land to make way for settlers from New England.

After the disastrous 1757 British campaigns (resulting in a failed expedition against Louisbourg and the Siege of Fort William Henry, which was followed by Indian torture and massacres of British victims), the British government fell. William Pitt came to power and significantly increased British military resources in the colonies at a time when France was unwilling to risk large convoys to aid the limited forces it had in New France. France concentrated its forces against Prussia and its allies in the European theatre of the war. Between 1758 and 1760, the British military launched a campaign to capture the Colony of Canada. They succeeded in capturing territory in surrounding colonies and ultimately Quebec. Though the British were later defeated at Sainte Foy in Quebec, the French ceded Canada in accordance with the 1763 treaty.

The outcome was one of the most significant developments in a century of Anglo-French conflict. France ceded its territory east of the Mississippi to Great Britain. It ceded French Louisiana west of the Mississippi River (including New Orleans) to its ally Spain, in compensation for Spain's loss to Britain of Florida (Spain had ceded this to Britain in exchange for the return of Havana, Cuba). France's colonial presence north of the Caribbean was reduced to the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, confirming Britain's position as the dominant colonial power in eastern North America.

Timeline:

1754
May 28 - Battle of Jumonville Glen - Uniontown, Pennsylvania
July 3 - Battle of the Great Meadows (Fort Necessity) - Uniontown, Pennsylvania

1755
May 29-July 9 - Braddock Expedition - Western Pennsylvania
June 3-16 - Battle of Fort Beauséjour - Sackville, New Brunswick
July 9 - Battle of Monongahela - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
September 8 - Battle of Lake George - Lake George, New York

1756
March 27 - Battle of Fort Bull - Rome, New York
August 10-14 - Battle of Fort Oswego - Oswego, New York
September 8 - Kittanning Expedition - Kittanning, Pennsylvania

1757
August 2-9 - Battle of Fort William Henry - Lake George, New York
December 8 - Second Battle of Bloody Creek - Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia

1758
June 8-July 26 - Siege of Louisbourg - Louisbourg, Nova Scotia
July 7-8 - Battle of Carillon (Fort Ticonderoga) - Ticonderoga, New York
August 25 - Battle of Fort Frontenac - Kingston, Ontario
September 14 - Battle of Fort Duquesne - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
October 12 - Battle of Fort Ligonier - Western Pennsylvania

1759
June 26-27 - Battle of Ticonderoga - Ticonderoga, New York
July 6-26 - Battle of Fort Niagara - Fort Niagara, New York
July 31 - Battle of Beauport - Quebec City
September 13 - Battle of the Plains of Abraham - Quebec City

1760
April 28 - Battle of Sainte-Foy - Quebec City
July 3-8 - Battle of Restigouche - Pointe-à-la-Croix, Quebec
April 16-24 - Battle of the Thousand Islands - Ogdensburg, New York

1762
September 15 - Battle of Signal Hill - St. John's, Newfoundland

1763
February 10 - Treaty of Paris - Paris, France