Alex Dorsch

Mr. Cian
17 December 2015
French

French and Indian War

The first Colonial War, known at the French and Indian War, lasted from
1754 to 1763. The war was between the colonies of British America and
New France, both supported by the military units from Britain, France, and
the Native American allies. The French roughly had 60,000 European

settlers going up against the two million British colonies. The name French
and Indian War is used mainly in the United States, and refers to the two
main enemies of the British colonists. British, European historians, and
English speaking Canadians use the term the Seven Years' War. French
Canadians call it La guerre de la Conqute (War of the Conquest) or the

Fourth Intercontinental War. The root cause of the war was the desire to

dominate North America. The war 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. In the early 1750s, Frances
expansion into the Ohio River valley repeatedly caused conflict with the
British colonies, especially Virginia. In 1755, Governor Shirley of
Massachusetts feared that the French settlers in Nova Scotia would side with
France in any military confrontation. As a result, he expelled hundreds of
them to other British colonies. Many of the exiles suffered cruelly. In 1756
the British formally declared war, marking the official beginning of the Seven
Years War. In 1757 William Pitt, the new British leader, saw the colonial

conflicts as the key to building a British empire. He paid Prussia to fight in

Europe and reimbursed the colonies for raising troops in North America. In
July 1758, the British won their first great victory at Louisbourg, near the
mouth of the St. Lawrence River. A month later, they took Fort Frontenac at
the western end of the river. In September 1760, with the fall of Montreal,
the French lost their last foothold in Canada. Soon, Spain joined France
against England, and for the rest of the war Britain concentrated on seizing
French and Spanish territories in other parts of the world. At the peace
conference in 1763, the British received Canada from France and Florida

from Spain, but permitted France to keep its West Indian sugar islands and
gave Louisiana to Spain. (ushistory.org)