How Did The French And Indian War Contribute To The American Revolution
The French and Indian war was the significant event that aggravated the American Revolution. The French and Indian war or Seven years war, lead to certain realizations that caused Americans to realize that their English liberties were being threatened.
The crown of France had just issued the Edict of Nantes in 1598 which had granted limited toleration to French Protestants. Prior to the Edict of Nantes, the tension between the Roman Catholics and the Protestant Huguenots, as a result over 10,000 Protestant Huguenots had died. However, after the bloody resolution, France would have a new ruler to the throne, King Louis XIV. This paved the way for Frances desired expansion in the new world, the establishment of Québec. In which Samuel de Champlain …show more content…
had sought out friendly relations between the neighboring Huron Indian tribes. He later joined their fight against the federated Iroquois tribes inhabiting the upper New York area. This would later bring the Iroquois tribes to side with the British during the upcoming war seeking revenge.
The government of New France settled after Québec would fall under direct control of the crown turning the government purely autocratic. Therefore there will be no elected representative assemblies and they did not exercise the right to a trial by jury. New France would further expand outwards and establish Fur-Trading posts manned by the coureurs de bois who would especially hunt beaver for their furs. Although the coureur de bois were runners of risk and two-fisted drinkers, free spenders, free livers, and lovers their business ventures would be a setback in the fur trade due to European diseases spread amongst the recruited Indians. The slaughter of many beavers lead towards many areas flourishing with their population nearly extinguished and had also violated many Indian religious beliefs. This weakened the European relationships between the Native Americans and their traditional ways of life. While other Frenchmen lead economic ventures some French Catholic missionaries, most known are the Jesuits, sought to save the Indians for Christ. However, some sought to build an empire to halt the growing English settlements in the North Americas. Tensions grew and King William’s war and Queen Anne’s war had resulted in the British colonists fighting against the French coureurs de bois, both sides recruiting as many Indian allies as they could. However, neither France nor Britain had considered the North Americas as a war front, not willing to deploy large detachments of troops. The fighting in North Americas consisted of primitive guerrilla warfare and French Indian allies ravaging the British colonial frontiers.
Peace Terms were signed at Utrecht in 1713, revealing how badly defeated the French and its ally Spain were. Britain had gained most of New France’s territories such as Acadia, which had been renamed Nova Scotia or New Scotland, surrounding what was left of the French claims from the peace treaty to be ultimately doomed. Peace ensued and during which Britain had provided its colonies with “salutary neglect”-laying the way for the roots of colonial independence. More wars would pursue such as the War of Jenkin’s ear between the Spaniard and the British in Georgia and King George’s War with New Englanders invading New France and from the help of the British fleet took the French fortress of Louisbourg. The peace treaty of 1748 would later hand the fortress back to the French and still be considered a threat to the British colonies.
By the mid-1700s, the British colonists would be aware that they were no longer going to bear the burdens of the British empire.
Concerned by the French land-grabbing and cutthroat fur-trade competition, the colonists were determined to fight for their economic security and sovereignty of their way in life in the Americas. Rivalry for land had pressured both sides to the snapping point, in 1749 a group of colonial speculators, highly influential Virginians, which included the Washington family, had been given the vague legal rights to some 500,000 acres which disputed the same land in which the French had erected a chain of forts, most notably Fort Duquesne. In 1754 the Virginian Governor issued Washington as a lieutenant colonel in command to secure the Virginians’ claim to the disputed lands. His detachment of 150 militiamen firing first on a small patrol of French troops 40 miles from Fort Duquesne. In due time, the French returned with reinforcements surrounding Washington’s hastily made encampment and was forced to surrender on July 4th, 1754. However, Washington was allowed to march his men with the full honors of war. Without delay, the British authorities in Nova Scotia had begun to exile the French Acadians, whom Britain had conquered in 1713, fearing the possible backstab in the future due to rising conflicts with France again. Most deportees were scattered as far south as Lousiana, where the descendants of the French-speaking Acadians now called …show more content…
“Cajuns.”
Sometimes known as the French and Indian war in the Americas, the Seven Years’ War had begun across Europe from the Philippines to Africa and on the oceans. The adversaries pitted against each other were Britain and Prussia versus France, Spain, Austria, and Russia. The bloodiest of the fighting was done in Germany where Frederick the Great had won his title repelling forces that outnumbered his 3 to 1. As a result, the French had focused much of its resources on the European theater that it was no longer able to muster an adequate force into the new world.
In 1754 the British government had summoned am intercolonial congress to Albany, New York, near the Iroquois Indian Country. Only 7 delegated from the 13 colonies appeared and their purpose was to keep the Iroquois tribes loyal to the British in the developing war. The long-term goal at Albany was to strengthen colonial unity. Benjamin Franklin would later go on to post his famous cartoon of a disjointed snake representing the 13 colonies captioned “Join, Or Die” In the Pennsylvania Gazette. Benjamin Franklin was also the leading figure of the Albany Congress.
The French and Indian war at first went badly for the British colonists. Then General Edward Braddock, a 60-year-old and experienced officer in European warfare was sent to Virginia with a strong regiment of Britsh regulars. He set about capturing Fort Duquesne in 1755 with about 2,000 men but were later ambushed by a small force of French soldiers and Indians. Mortally wounded, Braddock’s expedition was halted, even with the help of George Washington who even had 2 horses shot from underneath him along with 4 bullets piercing his coat. Under those circumstances, the Indians took to a wider warpath. The entire frontier of Pennsylvania to North Carolina was left virtually undefended by Braddock's bloody defeat. In desperation, local authorities offered bounties to Indian scalps: $50 for a woman’s and $130 for a warrior’s. George Washington with only 300 men had unsuccessfully tried to defend most of the scorched frontier. The British later launched a full-scale invasion of Canada in 1756, now that the undeclared war in America had finally merged into a world conflict.
During this dilemma, Britain brought forth a superlative leader-William Pitt.
Who was popularly known as the “Great Commoner.” Pitt used the common people as the backbone of his strength, who in turn admired him greatly. In 1757 Pitt had become a foremost leader in the London government and earned the title “ Organizer of Victory.” The British had won a significant victory in 1758 against the Louisbourg sending a powerful force to attack the even more strengthened fort. Next on Pitt’s list was Québec, assigning the 32-year-old James Wolfe to this task to take Québec. James Wolfe had successfully sent a force scaling a poorly guarded part of the rocky elevation face of the cliff. The 2 armies met on the Plains of Abraham on the outskirts of Québec. Both commanders of the British under Wolfe and the French commanded by Marquis de Montcalm both fell, but ultimately the French were defeated. The battle of Québec in 1759 was one of the most important engagements in British and American history and when Montréal fell in 1760, the French flag was kept raised for the last time in Canada. From the Treaty of Paris in 1763, French power was thrown completely off the continent of North America. Then to compensate for their ally Spain, France had to give up most of its claimed territories which were ceded to
Spain.
There were also many reluctant revolutionary activists. Americans considered themselves English and thought they deserved the same rights as Englishmen. However, the Governors and Generals did not believe the Americans were Englishmen. They treated the Americans badly. William Pitt’s policy of impressments upset many Americans. He took men off boats and forced them into the army where they were not treated like Englishmen. He also seized supplies for his men from the American citizens. However, Americans did not want to secede from Britain. Benjamin Franklin, a reluctant revolutionary, believed that Americans should have the same English rights, but should still be loyal to the Crown.
Afterwards, the French and Indian war caused debts among the British. The British realized that during the war the income from the colonies was rather insufficient. Furthermore, the British needed certain ways in which to gain revenue for its major costs in the war effort. They imposed taxes on the Colonists; the Sugar Act, the Currency Act, and the Stamp Act. These taxes, in turn, caused a stir among Americans. The Stamp Act was a tax imposed on the colonists without their representation. Their rights as English citizens were being contradicted. Radical Whigs saw this as a conspiracy because the French did not have rule by law or trial juries. French were Catholic, and Americans saw this as a deal between the corrupt papacy and King George to return to Catholicism. This had caused even more unrest within the colonies.
The removal of the French menace in Canada affected the Anerucab attitudes along with the Spanish and Indian threat being substantially removed. The Treaty of Paris had also dealt a major blow to the Iroquois, Creeks, and other interior tribes. Accordingly, with the rivalry among European powers gone, England remained dominant ruling out the Indians most powerful diplomatic weapon. The ability to use the European’s rivalries against each other as leverage and would have to exclusively negotiate with the British. This lead to Pontiac’s uprising which laid siege to Detroit in the spring of 1763. Killing some 2,000 soldiers and settlers out west from the Appalachians. Consequently, the British acted swiftly and waged a primitive biological warfare on the Indians by distributing infected blankets amongst them killing them with smallpox. With Pontiac’s plans ruined, he perished in 1769 to the hands of another rival chieftain.
The proclamation of 1763 supposedly prohibited settlement beyond the Appalachians, but the document was not meant to actually keep the colonists out and was made just to temporarily solve the Indian problem. Most colonists in defiance in the 1,000s rolled their wagons towards the westward frontiers rejecting British authority being in no mood to being controlled. The British as well being overconfident from their recent victories were beginning to get fed up with their colonist's brash ways. Which set the stage for a bloody conflict and quarrel over the colonies independence.
The crown of France had just issued the Edict of Nantes in 1598 which had granted limited toleration to French Protestants. Prior to the Edict of Nantes, the tension between the Roman Catholics and the Protestant Huguenots, as a result over 10,000 Protestant Huguenots had died. However, after the bloody resolution, France would have a new ruler to the throne, King Louis XIV. This paved the way for Frances desired expansion in the new world, the establishment of Québec. In which Samuel de Champlain …show more content…
had sought out friendly relations between the neighboring Huron Indian tribes. He later joined their fight against the federated Iroquois tribes inhabiting the upper New York area. This would later bring the Iroquois tribes to side with the British during the upcoming war seeking revenge.
The government of New France settled after Québec would fall under direct control of the crown turning the government purely autocratic. Therefore there will be no elected representative assemblies and they did not exercise the right to a trial by jury. New France would further expand outwards and establish Fur-Trading posts manned by the coureurs de bois who would especially hunt beaver for their furs. Although the coureur de bois were runners of risk and two-fisted drinkers, free spenders, free livers, and lovers their business ventures would be a setback in the fur trade due to European diseases spread amongst the recruited Indians. The slaughter of many beavers lead towards many areas flourishing with their population nearly extinguished and had also violated many Indian religious beliefs. This weakened the European relationships between the Native Americans and their traditional ways of life. While other Frenchmen lead economic ventures some French Catholic missionaries, most known are the Jesuits, sought to save the Indians for Christ. However, some sought to build an empire to halt the growing English settlements in the North Americas. Tensions grew and King William’s war and Queen Anne’s war had resulted in the British colonists fighting against the French coureurs de bois, both sides recruiting as many Indian allies as they could. However, neither France nor Britain had considered the North Americas as a war front, not willing to deploy large detachments of troops. The fighting in North Americas consisted of primitive guerrilla warfare and French Indian allies ravaging the British colonial frontiers.
Peace Terms were signed at Utrecht in 1713, revealing how badly defeated the French and its ally Spain were. Britain had gained most of New France’s territories such as Acadia, which had been renamed Nova Scotia or New Scotland, surrounding what was left of the French claims from the peace treaty to be ultimately doomed. Peace ensued and during which Britain had provided its colonies with “salutary neglect”-laying the way for the roots of colonial independence. More wars would pursue such as the War of Jenkin’s ear between the Spaniard and the British in Georgia and King George’s War with New Englanders invading New France and from the help of the British fleet took the French fortress of Louisbourg. The peace treaty of 1748 would later hand the fortress back to the French and still be considered a threat to the British colonies.
By the mid-1700s, the British colonists would be aware that they were no longer going to bear the burdens of the British empire.
Concerned by the French land-grabbing and cutthroat fur-trade competition, the colonists were determined to fight for their economic security and sovereignty of their way in life in the Americas. Rivalry for land had pressured both sides to the snapping point, in 1749 a group of colonial speculators, highly influential Virginians, which included the Washington family, had been given the vague legal rights to some 500,000 acres which disputed the same land in which the French had erected a chain of forts, most notably Fort Duquesne. In 1754 the Virginian Governor issued Washington as a lieutenant colonel in command to secure the Virginians’ claim to the disputed lands. His detachment of 150 militiamen firing first on a small patrol of French troops 40 miles from Fort Duquesne. In due time, the French returned with reinforcements surrounding Washington’s hastily made encampment and was forced to surrender on July 4th, 1754. However, Washington was allowed to march his men with the full honors of war. Without delay, the British authorities in Nova Scotia had begun to exile the French Acadians, whom Britain had conquered in 1713, fearing the possible backstab in the future due to rising conflicts with France again. Most deportees were scattered as far south as Lousiana, where the descendants of the French-speaking Acadians now called …show more content…
“Cajuns.”
Sometimes known as the French and Indian war in the Americas, the Seven Years’ War had begun across Europe from the Philippines to Africa and on the oceans. The adversaries pitted against each other were Britain and Prussia versus France, Spain, Austria, and Russia. The bloodiest of the fighting was done in Germany where Frederick the Great had won his title repelling forces that outnumbered his 3 to 1. As a result, the French had focused much of its resources on the European theater that it was no longer able to muster an adequate force into the new world.
In 1754 the British government had summoned am intercolonial congress to Albany, New York, near the Iroquois Indian Country. Only 7 delegated from the 13 colonies appeared and their purpose was to keep the Iroquois tribes loyal to the British in the developing war. The long-term goal at Albany was to strengthen colonial unity. Benjamin Franklin would later go on to post his famous cartoon of a disjointed snake representing the 13 colonies captioned “Join, Or Die” In the Pennsylvania Gazette. Benjamin Franklin was also the leading figure of the Albany Congress.
The French and Indian war at first went badly for the British colonists. Then General Edward Braddock, a 60-year-old and experienced officer in European warfare was sent to Virginia with a strong regiment of Britsh regulars. He set about capturing Fort Duquesne in 1755 with about 2,000 men but were later ambushed by a small force of French soldiers and Indians. Mortally wounded, Braddock’s expedition was halted, even with the help of George Washington who even had 2 horses shot from underneath him along with 4 bullets piercing his coat. Under those circumstances, the Indians took to a wider warpath. The entire frontier of Pennsylvania to North Carolina was left virtually undefended by Braddock's bloody defeat. In desperation, local authorities offered bounties to Indian scalps: $50 for a woman’s and $130 for a warrior’s. George Washington with only 300 men had unsuccessfully tried to defend most of the scorched frontier. The British later launched a full-scale invasion of Canada in 1756, now that the undeclared war in America had finally merged into a world conflict.
During this dilemma, Britain brought forth a superlative leader-William Pitt.
Who was popularly known as the “Great Commoner.” Pitt used the common people as the backbone of his strength, who in turn admired him greatly. In 1757 Pitt had become a foremost leader in the London government and earned the title “ Organizer of Victory.” The British had won a significant victory in 1758 against the Louisbourg sending a powerful force to attack the even more strengthened fort. Next on Pitt’s list was Québec, assigning the 32-year-old James Wolfe to this task to take Québec. James Wolfe had successfully sent a force scaling a poorly guarded part of the rocky elevation face of the cliff. The 2 armies met on the Plains of Abraham on the outskirts of Québec. Both commanders of the British under Wolfe and the French commanded by Marquis de Montcalm both fell, but ultimately the French were defeated. The battle of Québec in 1759 was one of the most important engagements in British and American history and when Montréal fell in 1760, the French flag was kept raised for the last time in Canada. From the Treaty of Paris in 1763, French power was thrown completely off the continent of North America. Then to compensate for their ally Spain, France had to give up most of its claimed territories which were ceded to
Spain.
There were also many reluctant revolutionary activists. Americans considered themselves English and thought they deserved the same rights as Englishmen. However, the Governors and Generals did not believe the Americans were Englishmen. They treated the Americans badly. William Pitt’s policy of impressments upset many Americans. He took men off boats and forced them into the army where they were not treated like Englishmen. He also seized supplies for his men from the American citizens. However, Americans did not want to secede from Britain. Benjamin Franklin, a reluctant revolutionary, believed that Americans should have the same English rights, but should still be loyal to the Crown.
Afterwards, the French and Indian war caused debts among the British. The British realized that during the war the income from the colonies was rather insufficient. Furthermore, the British needed certain ways in which to gain revenue for its major costs in the war effort. They imposed taxes on the Colonists; the Sugar Act, the Currency Act, and the Stamp Act. These taxes, in turn, caused a stir among Americans. The Stamp Act was a tax imposed on the colonists without their representation. Their rights as English citizens were being contradicted. Radical Whigs saw this as a conspiracy because the French did not have rule by law or trial juries. French were Catholic, and Americans saw this as a deal between the corrupt papacy and King George to return to Catholicism. This had caused even more unrest within the colonies.
The removal of the French menace in Canada affected the Anerucab attitudes along with the Spanish and Indian threat being substantially removed. The Treaty of Paris had also dealt a major blow to the Iroquois, Creeks, and other interior tribes. Accordingly, with the rivalry among European powers gone, England remained dominant ruling out the Indians most powerful diplomatic weapon. The ability to use the European’s rivalries against each other as leverage and would have to exclusively negotiate with the British. This lead to Pontiac’s uprising which laid siege to Detroit in the spring of 1763. Killing some 2,000 soldiers and settlers out west from the Appalachians. Consequently, the British acted swiftly and waged a primitive biological warfare on the Indians by distributing infected blankets amongst them killing them with smallpox. With Pontiac’s plans ruined, he perished in 1769 to the hands of another rival chieftain.
The proclamation of 1763 supposedly prohibited settlement beyond the Appalachians, but the document was not meant to actually keep the colonists out and was made just to temporarily solve the Indian problem. Most colonists in defiance in the 1,000s rolled their wagons towards the westward frontiers rejecting British authority being in no mood to being controlled. The British as well being overconfident from their recent victories were beginning to get fed up with their colonist's brash ways. Which set the stage for a bloody conflict and quarrel over the colonies independence.