French and Indian War

1754 – 1763

Overview

The French and Indian War is the name used in the United States for the last and largest of the colonial wars between Britain and France in North America. The name comes from the British colonists' two enemies, though Native peoples fought on both sides and for their own ends. In Canada and Europe the conflict is usually treated as part of the Seven Years' War, which was formally declared in 1756.

The fighting began over the Ohio country. In 1754 a Virginian force under George Washington ambushed a French party at Jumonville Glen and was then forced to surrender at the Battle of Fort Necessity. In 1755 Britain sent regular troops under General Edward Braddock, whose column was destroyed at the Battle of the Monongahela.

The early years went badly for Britain. The Marquis de Montcalm took Oswego on Lake Ontario in 1756 and won the Siege of Fort William Henry in 1757. The balance changed after William Pitt took charge of the British war effort and sent far larger forces and more money to America. In 1758 the British took the fortress of Louisbourg, Fort Frontenac and Fort Duquesne, though an assault on Fort Carillon at Ticonderoga failed with heavy loss. In 1759 they took Niagara and Ticonderoga, and on 13 September General James Wolfe's army defeated Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec. Both commanders were mortally wounded. Montreal surrendered in September 1760, which ended the fighting in Canada. The Treaty of Paris of February 1763 confirmed the result.

Arms of the French and Indian War

British regulars and many provincial troops carried the Brown Bess Musket with the Socket Bayonet. Regular soldiers were also issued a short sword, the Infantry Hanger, though it was often left behind on campaign. French regular battalions carried the army musket described under Charleville Musket. The Canadian militia favored a lighter hunting gun, the Fusil de Chasse, which was also used by many of France's Native allies along with cheaper trade guns.

Native warriors of both alliances combined firearms with traditional hand weapons, above all the Tomahawk and wooden clubs such as the Gunstock War Club. Some frontiersmen from Pennsylvania and the colonies to the south carried rifles of the type later known as the Kentucky Long Rifle, but the smoothbore musket remained the usual weapon on both sides.

Forts decided most campaigns, so artillery mattered as much as small arms. Heavy cannon and the Siege Mortar were dragged through the woods or carried by boat to batter timber and stone walls, and light pieces such as the Swivel Gun were mounted in forts and on lake boats.

Why It Mattered

By the peace of 1763 France gave up Canada and its claims east of the Mississippi to Britain. Spain gave Florida to Britain and received French Louisiana west of the Mississippi. France's empire on the North American mainland was gone.

The victory created new problems. Native nations of the Great Lakes and Ohio country, who had not been defeated, rose against British garrisons in 1763 in the conflict known as Pontiac's War. Britain tried to limit settlement west of the Appalachians by the Proclamation of 1763, which angered colonists. The war had also been very costly, and the British government's attempts to tax the colonies to help pay for their defense began the quarrel that led to the American Revolution. Many officers of that later war, George Washington among them, had learned their trade in this one.

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