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French and Indian War: The Final Clash of Empires in North America

The French and Indian War (1754-1763) was the last great colonial conflict waged between Great Britain and France in North America. Often considered a theater of the global Seven Years' War (1756-1763), it was sparked over a territorial dispute in the Ohio River Valley but escalated into a full-scale war of conquest and imperial domination. The war reached its climax at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in September 1759, which led to the British capture of Quebec City and the fall of New France. In the Treaty of Paris of 1763, France ceded Canada to Britain, ending the century-long struggle between the two empires for control of the North American continent.

Background

In the first half of the 18th century, the colonial empires of Great Britain and France struggled for dominance in North America. This imperialistic rivalry had already given rise to three almighty wars: King William's War, Queen Anne's War, and King George's War. Villages had been destroyed and farmsteads razed, while rivers of blood – English, French, and Indigenous alike – had watered the rocky fields of New England as well as the dark soil of the Virginian and Pennsylvanian backcountries. But the great appetites of the colonial powers were still unsatiated, and it was clear that another storm was coming, that one final, great war that would engulf Colonial America in its fury.

The trouble would begin along the banks of the Ohio River, a lush and fertile valley lusted after by both colonial powers. Of course, the Ohio Country was not unoccupied but was, at least nominally, controlled by the powerful Iroquois Confederacy and was home to several Indigenous peoples living under Iroquois protection; these included the Algonquin-speaking Delawares and Shawnees, and the Iroquoian-speaking Mingos. By midcentury, British traders had begun to operate in the Ohio Country, building commercial ties with various Native American villages. This activity threatened the French, who had spent decades weaving a delicate web of Indigenous alliances that could quickly unravel should the British gain too much influence.

The British, however, did not only want to establish a trading presence along the Ohio but were interested in something more permanent. The British colony of Virginia was particularly interested in expanding westward. Not only did Virginia already claim the Ohio Country – indeed, its colonial charter grandly proclaimed that its western border reached all the way to the shores of the Pacific – but it desperately needed the fertile lands along the river. Virginia's economy centered around the production of tobacco, a crop that depleted the nutrients of the soil it was planted in. As such, Virginian planters were in constant need of fresh lands and naturally turned toward the untouched soil of the Ohio Valley. Wealthy investors pooled their funds to form land speculation companies, like the Ohio Company, that quickly bought up land.

The French looked on this development with apprehension, for they had every reason to fear Anglo-American westward expansion. So long as the British colonies were contained to the east of the Appalachian Mountains, a certain balance of power could be maintained in North America. But if the British penetrated the interior of the continent, French trading interests could easily be upset. Moreover, the French relied on the Ohio River as a waterway connecting the two disparate parts of New France, including Canada to the north and Louisiana to the south. They could not afford to lose control of the river. In June 1747, the French sent a military expedition to the region under Pierre-Joseph de Céloron, both to ward off the pesky British traders and to remind the Indigenous peoples where their loyalties should lie.

Céloron's expedition failed to scare off the British, who continued to be active in the Ohio Country in the early 1750s. In 1752, the new governor-general of New France, the Marquis de Duquesne, dispatched a new expedition into the Ohio Country with the goal of punishing the Indigenous village of Pickawillany for ignoring his orders and continuing to trade with the British. The French brought fire and blood to the village, capturing three British traders and killing 14 Native Americans. The following spring, the French acted with even more aggression and began building a series of fortresses along the river. This directly interfered with the interests of the Ohio Company; if they could not convince the French to stand down, they would lose all the land they had purchased.

Lt. Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia was an investor in the company and was determined to use his office to enforce Britain's claims to the land. He decided to send a diplomatic mission to the newly built Fort LeBeuf to remind the French that the land did not belong to them and to demand that they leave immediately. The only question was who Dinwiddie would choose to lead this sensitive expedition.

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