The Duel for North America

I. France Finds a Foothold in Canada

a. France in the New World

i. Was a latecomer to colonization in the New World because it was busy with:

1. Foreign wars

2. Civil clashes between Roman Catholics and Protestant Huguenots

ii. England was a latecomer to the New World for similar reasons

b. Edict of Nantes Changes France

i. Granted limited toleration of French Protestants, As a result:

1. Religious wars ceased

a. France blossomed into the mightiest and most feared nation in Europe

c. France in New France (Canada)

i. King Louis XIV, a brilliant leader, reigned for 72 years (1643-1715)

ii. He took a deep interest in overseas colonies

iii. In 1608, a year after Jamestown, French settlement was established in Quebec

iv. The leading figure was a soldier and explorer named Samuel de Champlain

v. He entered into friendly relations with the nearby Huron Indian tribes. He joined them in battle against their foes, the federated Iroquois tribes. This would be a huge mistake for the French. The Iroquois:

1. Hampered French penetration of the Ohio Valley

2. Ravaged French settlements

3. Served as allies of the British (especially during the Seven Years’ War)

d. Government of New France

i. Fell under the direct control of the king after various commercial companies had faltered or failed

ii. The royal regime was autocratic. The people elected no representative assemblies, nor did they enjoy the right to trail by jury, as in the English colonies

e. Population Growth in New France

i. Went slowly. By 1750, only 60,000 whites inhabited Canada

ii. Landowning French peasants, unlike the dispossessed English tenant farmers, had little economic motive to move

iii. Protestant Huguenots, who might have had a religious motive to migrate, were denied a refuge in this colony

iv. The French government favored its Caribbean island colonies, rich in sugar and rum , over the snowy wilderness of Canada

II. New France Fans Out

a. Beaver Trade

i. New France contained one valuable resource – the beaver. People valued beaver-pelt hats for their warmth and appearance

ii. French fur-trappers ranged over the woods and waterways of North America in pursuit of beaver. They littered the land with scores of place names, including:

1. Baton Rouge (red stick)

2. Terre Haute (high land)

3. Des Moines (some monks)

iii. Indians entered the fur trade as well

iv. Consequences of the fur trade were:

1. Indians were decimated by the white man’s diseases and debauched (corrupted) by his alcohol

2. Slaughtering beaver by the boatload also violated many Indians’ religious beliefs and demonstrated the shattering effect that contact with Europeans wreaked on traditional Indian ways of life

3. Killing beaver all over Canada and America nearly extinguished the beaver population in many areas and inflicted incalculable ecological damage

b. Missionaries

i. French Catholic missionaries, notably the Jesuits, labored to save the Indians for Christ. Some of them suffered unspeakable horrors at the hands of the Indians

ii. Although they made few permanent converts, the Jesuits played a vital role as explorers and geographers

c. Thwarting English and Spanish Settlers

i. To thwart English settlers pursing into the Ohio Valley, Antoine Cadillac founded Detroit

ii. To check Spanish penetration into the region of the Gulf of Mexico, Robert de La Salle went to the Mississippi delta and named it Louisiana in honor his king, Louis XIV. He later tried to colonize the area, but mislead 4 ships into Spanish Texas. His crew led a mutiny against him and killed him

iii. However, French officials persisted in their efforts to block Spain on the Gulf of Mexico. They planted several forts in Mississippi and Louisiana, the most important of which was New Orleans (1718)

iv. Fertile Illinois country, where the French established forts and trading posts, was the garden of France’s North American empire. Surprising amounts of grain were floated down the Mississippi for shipment from New Orleans to the West Indies and Europe

III. The Clash of Empires

a. King William’s War (1689-1697) and Queen Anne’s War (1702-1713)

i. Both pitted British colonists against the French, with both sides recruiting whatever Indian allies they could

ii. Neither France nor Britain at this stage considered America worth the commitment of large detachments of regular troops, so the combatants waged a kind of primitive guerrilla warfare

iii. Spain eventually allied with France

iv. Britain and New Englanders eventually defeated France and Spain at the stronghold of Port Royal in Acadia (present-day Nova Scotia)

b. Peace Treaty (1713)

i. Britain was awarded:

1. Acadia (the British renamed it Nova Scotia or New Scotland)

2. Newfoundland

3. Hudson Bay

ii. A generation of peace ensued, with decades of “salutary neglect”

c. King George’s War or the War of Jenkins’s Ear (1739-1748)

i. By 1713, the British won limited trading rights in Spanish America, but it there were later disputes over smuggling

ii. British captain Jenkins, encountering Spanish revenue authorities, had one ear sliced off by a sword. The Spanish commander wanted him to take it home to the crown and said he would’ve done the same to the crown had he been in front of him

iii. This aroused furious resentment when he returned home to Britain

iv. This war broke out in 1739 between the British and the Spaniards. It was confined to the Caribbean Sea and to the buffer colony of Georgia. Philanthropist James Oglethorpe fought his Spanish foe to a standstill

v. This small-scale scuffle with Spain in America soon merged with the large-scale War of Austrian Succession in Europe, and came to be called King George’s War in America

vi. France allied itself with Spain and England with New Englanders

vii. The British captured the reputedly impregnable French fortress of Louisbourg, which was on Cape Breton Island and commanded the approaches to the St. Lawrence River

d. Peace Treaty (1748)

i. Handed Louisbourg back to their French foe. This outraged the victorious New Englanders. They felt betrayed by the English

ii. Louisbourg was still a strong fort of the French, ready to fight against Americans again

IV. George Washington Inaugurates War With France

a. Ohio Country

i. The Ohio Country became a bone of contention between the French and British

ii. The Ohio Country was the critical area into which the westward-pushing British colonists would inevitably penetrate. It was also key to the French if they were to link their Canadian holdings with those of the lower Mississippi Valley

iii. British colonists were determined to fight for their economic security and for the supremacy of their way of life in North America

b. George Washington

i. In 1749, a group of British colonial speculators, chiefly influential Virginians, including the Washington family, had secured shaky legal “rights” to some 500,000 acres in this region

ii. In the same disputed wilderness, the French were in the process of erecting a chain of forts commanding the strategic Ohio River. Especially formidable was Fort Duquesne, the pivotal point where two rivers join to form the Ohio (later the site of Pittsburgh)

iii. To secure the Virginians’ claims, George Washington (a 21-year old surveyor), was sent to the Ohio Country as a lieutenant colonel in command of about 150 Virginian militiamen

iv. The Virginians encountered French troops 40 miles from Fort Duquesne and fired on them, starting the Seven Years’ War

v. The French promptly returned with reinforcements, who surrounded Washington in his hastily constructed breastworks, Fort Necessity. He was forced to surrender on July 4, 1754. However, he was allowed to march away

c. Nova Scotia

i. With the shooting already started and in danger of spreading, the British authorities in Nova Scotia took vigorous action

ii. Understandably fearing a stab in the back from the French Acadians, the British brutally uprooted 4,000 of them in 1755

iii. These deportees were scattered as far south as Louisiana, where the descendants of the French-speaking Acadians are now called “Cajuns” and number nearly a million

V. Global War and Colonial Disunity

a. A True World War

i. The first three Anglo-French colonial wars had all started in Europe, but the 4^th started in America

ii. It continued on an undeclared basis for two years and then widened into the most far-flung conflict the world had yet seen. It was fought not only in America, but in:

1. Europe

2. West Indies

3. Philippines

4. Africa

5. On the ocean

b. War in Europe

i. Europe – Britain and Prussia against France, Spain, Austria, and Russia

ii. Bloodiest theater – Germany, where Frederick the Great repelled French, Austrian, and Russian armies, often with the opposing forces outnumbering his own 3 to 1

iii. The London government, unable to send him effective troop reinforcements, subsidized him with gold

iv. Luckily for the British colonists, the French wasted so much strength in this European bloodbath that they were unable to put an adequate force in the New World

c. Albany Plan

i. Colonists who were nearest the shooting had responded much more generously with volunteers and money than those enjoying the safety of remoteness. Again there was colonial disunity

ii. In 1754, the British government summoned an intercolonial congress to Albany, New York, near the Iroquois Indian country. Travel-weary delegates from only 7 of the 13 colonies showed up

iii. There were two purposes to the meeting:

1. The immediate purpose was to keep the Iroquois tribes loyal to the British in the spreading war. The chiefs were bribed with many gifts

2. The longer-range purpose was to achieve greater colonial unity and thus bolster the common defense against France. A month before the meeting took place, Benjamin Franklin published in his Pennsylvania Gazette the most famous cartoon of the colonial era

iv. Franklin was the undeclared leader of the Albany Congress. His contribution was a well-devised, but premature scheme for colonial home rule, called the Albany Plan. Although the Albany delegates unanimously adopted the plan, the individual colonies spurned it, as did the crown. To the colonists, it did not seem to give enough independence; to the British officials, it seemed to give too much. However, it was an important precedent for the concept of uniting

v. Albany Plan:

1. Annual congress of delegates (representatives) from each of the 13 colonies

2. Have the power to:

a. Raise a military and navy

b. Make war and peace with Native Americans

c. Regulate trade with N.A.

d. Tax

e. Collect customs duties

VI. Braddock’s Blundering and Its Aftermath

a. Early British Defeats

i. The opening clashes of the French and Indian War went badly for the British colonists

ii. General Braddock, a 60-year old officer experienced in European warfare, set out in 1755 with 2,000 to capture Fort Duquesne

iii. However, a considerable part of his force contained ill-disciplined colonial militiamen

iv. A few miles from Fort Duquesne, Braddock encountered a much smaller French and Indian army. At first, the enemy force war repulsed, but it quickly melted into the thickets and poured a murderous fire into the ranks of British. The entire British force was routed after appalling losses

v. This left the whole frontier from PA to NC open. Indians surged to the colonist’s western frontier and scalped people as close to 80 miles from Philadelphia

vi. George Washington, with only 300 men, tried desperately to defend the scorched frontier

b. Invasion of Canada

i. In 1756, the British launched a full-scale invasion of Canada

ii. They unwisely tried to attack a number of exposed wilderness posts simultaneously, instead of throwing all their strength at Quebec and Montreal. If these strongholds had fallen, all the outposts to the west would have withered for lack of riverborne supplies

VII. Pitt’s Palms of Victory

a. William Pitt

i. An excellent British military leader who was known as the “Great Commoner,” because he drew much of his strength from the common people, who admired him so greatly that they kissed his horses. A splendid orator with a majestic voice, he believed passionately in his cause, in his country , and in himself

ii. In 1757, Pitt became the Prime Minister in England

iii. He decided against attacking the French West Indies, which were causing heavy casualties. Instead, he decided to concentrate on the vital areas of Canada – the Quebec-Montreal area (headquarters of the French)

iv. In an attack against Louisbourg in 1758, the fort fell after a blistering siege. This marked the first significant British victory in the entire war

b. James Wolfe and Quebec

i. Pitt chose James Wolfe, who had been an officer since the age of 14

ii. The British attackers were making woeful progress when Wolfe, in a daring night move, sent a detachment up a poorly guarded part of the rocky cliff protecting Quebec. They scaled the cliff, pulled themselves upward by the bushes, and showed the way for the others

iii. In the morning the two armies faced each other on the Plains of Abraham on the outskirts of Quebec. Wolfe was fatally wounded, but the French were defeated and the city surrendered

c. The End of the War

i. When Montreal fell in 1760, the French were defeated

ii. The peace settlement was called the Treaty of Paris (1763)

iii. French power was thrown completely off the continent of North America, leaving a French population that is a strong minority in Canada to this day

iv. Spain turned Florida over to Britain in return for Cuba, where Havana had fallen to the British

v. To compensate their Spanish ally for its losses, France ceded to Spain all trans-Mississippi Louisiana, plus the outlet of New Orleans

vi. The treaty would mark the end of salutary neglect

VIII. Restless Colonists

a. America’s Military

i. Increased confidence in their military strength

ii. Fought well alongside British regulars

iii. Gained experience

iv. Early defeats shattered the myth of British invincibility

v. 20,000 American recruits by the end of the war

b. Friction Between British Officers and American Militia

i. The British showed the contempt of the professional soldier for amateurs

1. The British refused to recognize any American militia commission above the rank of captain

ii. Since they were from the civilized Old Country, they showed contempt for the colonists, who were “scum” who had fled to the “outhouses of civilization”

iii. Energetic and hard-working American settlers, in contrast, believed themselves to be the cutting edge of British civilization. They felt that they deserved credit rather than contempt for risking their lives to secure a New World empire

iv. British officials were further distressed by the reluctance of the colonists to support the common cause wholeheartedly

1. Smuggling

a. American shippers, using fraudulent papers, smuggled goods to the enemy ports of the Spanish and French West Indies

b. This treasonable trade in foodstuffs actually kept some of the hostile islands from starving at the very time when the British navy was trying to subdue them

c. In the final year of the war, the British authorities, forced to resort to drastic measures, forbade the export of all supplies from the colonies

2. Lack of Troops

a. Self-centered and alienated by distance from the war, colonists refused to provide troops and money for the conflict

b. Not until Pitt had offered to reimburse the colonies for a substantial part of their expenditures did they move with some enthusiasm

c. Colonial Disunity

i. Present from early days and continued throughout the recent hostilities

ii. Caused mainly by enormous distances and geographical barriers

iii. Conflicting religions

iv. Varied nationalities

v. Different types of colonial government

vi. Boundary disputes

vii. Resentment of crude backcountry settlers against the aristocratic bigwigs

d. Colonial Unity

i. When soldiers and statesmen from widely separated colonies met around common campfires and council tables, they were often surprised by the fact that they shared the same ideals and spoke the same language

ii. Barriers of disunity began to melt, although a long and rugged road lay ahead before a coherent nation would emerge

IX. War’s Fateful Aftermath

a. Indians After the War

i. In a sense, the history of the United States began with the fall of Quebec and Montreal

ii. The Spanish and Indian menaces were also new substantially reduced. Spain was eliminated from Florida, but it was still in possession of Louisiana and much of western North America

iii. The French removal from Canada deprived the Indians of their most powerful diplomatic weapon – the ability to play off the rival European powers against one another

b. Chief Pontiac

i. Sensing the newly precarious position of the Indian peoples, the Ottawa chief Pontiac in 1763 led several tribes, aided by a handful of French traders who remained in the region, in a violent campaign to drive the British out of the Ohio Country. Pontiac’s forces overran all but 3 British posts west of the Appalachians

ii. The British retaliated swiftly and cruelly. One British commander ordered blankets infected with smallpox to be distributed among the Indians. Such tactics crushed the uprising and brought an uneasy truce to the frontier

iii. Result - The bloody uprising convinced the British that they needed to keep regular troops stationed along the restless frontier, a measure for which they soon asked the colonists to foot the bill. This helped to precipitate the American Revolution

c. Western Lands

i. Land-hungry American colonists were now free to go west of the Appalachian Mountains

ii. A tiny band of pioneers like Daniel Boone had already trickled into Tennessee and Kentucky

d. Proclamation of 1763

i. It flatly prohibited settlement in the area beyond the Appalachians and that Native Americans owned the land on which they were residing

ii. It wasn’t designed to oppress the colonists, but to work out the Indian problem fairly and prevent another bloody eruption like Pontiac’s uprising

iii. In complete defiance, many colonists went west. The colonists questioned:

1. Was not the land beyond the mountains their birthright?

2. Had they not purchased it with their blood in the recent war?

e. British and American Tension

i. The colonists began to develop a new vision of their destiny. With a path cleared for the conquest of a continent, with their birthrate high and lots of energy, they were in no mood to be restrained

ii. The British, who were puffed up by their recent victories and huge land gain, were already annoyed with their colonial subjects