French & Indian War

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French Indian & War

 

Time Period

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French_and_Indian_War

 

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1758
In 1758 two of the British expeditions were successful, with Fort Duquesne and Louisbourg falling to sizable British forces.

Forbes Expedition
The Forbes Expedition was a British campaign in September - October 1758, with 6000 troops led by General John Forbes to drive the French out of the contested Ohio Country (the upper Ohio River valley). After an advance party was repulsed on Sept. 14, the French withdrew from Fort Duquesne, at the site of present-day Pittsburgh. The Forbes Campaign was a success when the French and their Indian allies burned and abandoned the fort in October leaving the British in control of the Ohio River Valley.[47]

Louisbourg
The great French fortress at Louisbourg in Nova Scotia was captured after a siege.[48]

Carillon/Fort Ticonderoga
The third invasion was stopped with the improbable French victory in the Battle of Carillon, in which 3,600 Frenchmen famously and decisively defeated Abercrombie's force of 18,000 regulars, militia and Native American allies outside the fort the French called Carillon and the British called Ticonderoga. Abercrombie saved something from the disaster when he sent John Bradstreet on an expedition that successfully destroyed Fort Frontenac, including caches of supplies destined for New France's western forts and furs destined for Europe. Abercrombie was recalled and replaced by Jeffrey Amherst, victor at Louisbourg.

French strategy
In the aftermath of generally poor French results in most theaters of the Seven Years' War in 1758, France's new foreign minister, the duc de Choiseul, decided to focus on an invasion of Britain, to draw British resources away from North America and the European mainland. The invasion failed both militarily and politically, as Pitt again planned significant campaigns against New France, and sent funds to Britain's ally on the mainland, Prussia, and the French Navy failed in naval battles at Lagos and Quiberon Bay. In one piece of good fortune, some French supply ships managed to reach New France, eluding blockades on both sides of the Atlantic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Indian_War

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1759-60 British victory

British General Jeffrey AmherstBritish victories continued in all theaters in the Annus Mirabilis of 1759, when they finally captured Ticonderoga, James Wolfe defeated Montcalm at Quebec (in a battle that claimed the lives of both commanders), and victory at Fort Niagara successfully cut off the French frontier forts further to the west and south. The victory was made complete in 1760, when, despite losing outside Quebec City in the Battle of Sainte-Foy, the British were able to prevent the arrival of French relief ships in the naval Battle of the Restigouche while armies marched on Montreal from three sides.

In September of 1760, Governor Vaudreuil negotiated a surrender with General Amherst. Amherst granted Vaudreuil's request that any French residents who chose to remain in the colony would be given freedom to continue worshiping in their Roman Catholic tradition, continued ownership of their property, and the right to remain undisturbed in their homes. The British provided medical treatment for the sick and wounded French soldiers and French regular troops were returned to France aboard British ships with an agreement that they were not to serve again in the present war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Indian_War

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Outcome

The descent of the French on St. John's, Newfoundland, 1762Most of the fighting between France and Britain in continental North America ended in 1760. The notable exception was the French seizure of St. John's, Newfoundland. When General Amherst heard of this surprise action, he immediately dispatched troops under his nephew William Amherst, who regained control of Newfoundland after the Battle of Signal Hill in September.[49]

Many troops from North America were reassigned to participate in further British actions in the West Indies, including the capture of Spanish Havana when Spain belatedly entered the conflict on the side of France, and a British expedition against French Martinique in 1762.[50]

General Amherst also oversaw the transition of French forts in the western lands to British control. The policies he introduced in those lands disturbed large numbers of Indians, and contributed to the outbreak in 1763 of the conflict known as Pontiac's Rebellion.[51] This series of attacks on frontier forts and settlements required the continued deployment of British troops, and was not resolved until 1766.[52]

The war in North America officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on February 10, 1763, and war in the European theatre of the Seven Years' War was settled by the Treaty of Hubertusburg on February 15, 1763. The British offered France a choice of either its North American possessions east of the Mississippi or the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, which had been occupied by the British. France chose to cede Canada, and was able to negotiate the retention of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, two small islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and fishing rights in the area. The economic value of the Caribbean islands to France was greater than that of Canada because of their rich sugar crops, and they were easier to defend. The British, however, were happy to take New France, as defense was not an issue, and they already had many sources of sugar. Spain, which traded Florida to Britain to regain Cuba, also gained Louisiana, including New Orleans, from France in compensation for its losses. Navigation on the Mississippi was to be open to all nations.[53]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Indian_War

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Consequences
The war changed economic, political, and social relations between three European powers (Britain, France, and Spain), their colonies and colonists, and the natives that inhabited the territories they claimed. France and Britain both suffered financially because of the war, with significant long-term consequences.

Britain gained control of French Canada and Acadia, colonies containing approximately 80,000 primarily French-speaking Roman Catholic residents. The deportation of Acadians beginning in 1755 resulted in land made available to migrants from Europe and the colonies further south. The British resettled many Acadians throughout its North American provinces, but many went to France, and some went to New Orleans, which they had expected to remain French. Some were sent to colonize places as diverse as French Guiana and the Falkland Islands; these latter efforts were unsuccessful. Others migrated to places like Saint-Domingue, and fled to New Orleans after the Haitian Revolution. The Louisiana population contributed to the founding of the modern Cajun population.[54]

Following the peace treaty, King George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763 on October 7, 1763, which outlined the division and administration of the newly conquered territory, and to some extent continues to govern relations between the government of modern Canada and the First Nations. Included in its provisions was the reservation of lands west of the Appalachian Mountains to its Indian population,[55] a demarcation that was at best a temporary impediment to a rising tide of westward-bound settlers.[56] The proclamation also contained provisions that prevented civic participation by the Roman Catholic Canadians.[57] When accommodations were made in the Quebec Act in 1774 to address this and other issues, religious concerns were raised in the largely Protestant Thirteen Colonies over the advance of "popery".

The Seven Years' War nearly doubled Britain's national debt. The Crown, seeking sources of revenue to pay off the debt, attempted to impose new taxes on its colonies. These attempts were met with increasingly stiff resistance, until troops were called in so that representatives of the Crown could safely perform their duties. These acts ultimately led to the start of the American Revolutionary War.[58]

France attached comparatively little value to its North American possessions, especially in respect to the highly profitable sugar-producing Antilles islands, which it managed to retain. Minister Choiseul considered he had made a good deal at the Treaty of Paris, and philosopher Voltaire wrote that Louis XV had only lost "a few acres of snow".[59] For France however, the military defeat and the financial burden of the war weakened the monarchy and contributed to the advent of the French Revolution in 1789.[60]

For many native populations, the elimination of French power in North America meant the disappearance of a strong ally and counterweight to British expansion, leading to their ultimate dispossession.[60] The Ohio Country was particularly vulnerable to legal and illegal settlement due to the construction of military roads to the area by Braddock and Forbes.[61] Although the Spanish takeover of the Louisiana territory (which was not completed until 1769) had only modest repercussions, the British takeover of Spanish Florida resulted in the westward migration of tribes that did not want to do business with the British, and a rise in tensions between the Choctaw and the Creek, historic enemies whose divisions the British at times exploited.[62] The change of control in Florida also prompted most of its Spanish Catholic population to leave. Most went to Cuba, including the entire governmental records from St. Augustine, although some Christianized Yamasee were resettled to the coast of Mexico.[63]

The history of the Seven Years' War, particularly the siege of Quebec and the deaths of British Brigadier General James Wolfe and French General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, generated a vast number of ballads, broadsides, images, maps and other printed materials, which testify to how this event continued to capture the imaginations of the British and French publics long after their deaths in 1759.[citation needed]

France returned to North America in 1778 with the establishment of a Franco-American alliance against Great Britain in the American War of Independence. This time France succeeded in prevailing over Great Britain, in what historian Alfred Cave describes as "French [...] revenge for Montcalm's death".[64]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Indian_War