| The French and Indian War is the U.S. name for a nine-year
conflict (1754-1763) in North America which was one of the theatres of the Seven Years' War. In Canada, the designation French and Indian War is nearly unknown: English Canadians typically refer to the war as the Seven Years' War, while French Canadians refer to it as the Guerre de la conquête (War of the
Conquest), since it is the war in which New France was conquered by the British
and became part of the North American portion of the British
Empire.
The conflict was between Britain and its colonies on one side and France, with Indian allies, on the other. The war soon spread to Europe itself and Britain and France continued battling. Native Americans fought for both sides but primarily alongside the French. The major battles include
French victories at Fort
William Henry, Fort Ticonderoga, and against the Braddock Expedition and British victories at Louisburg, Fort
Niagara, Fort Duquesne, and at the Plains of Abraham outside of Quebec City, in which James Wolfe defeated a French garrison led by Louis-Joseph de Montcalm. The French had outnumbered the English but not for long.
The war resulted in the French loss of all French possessions in North America except for some Caribbean islands and Saint
Pierre and Miquelon, two small islands off Newfoundland. The British
acquired Canada while the Spanish gained Louisiana in
compensation for its loss of Florida to the British. The result of the war is that
Britain acquired a large Francophone population in Lower Canada and, near
the beginning of the war in 1755, expelled French speaking populations in Acadia to
Louisiana, creating the Cajun population.
The war officially ended with the signing of the 1763 Treaty
of Paris on February 10, 1763.
France agreed to cede Canada to Britain, preferring to keep the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe because of its rich sugar crops and the ease with which it
could be controlled.
The decisive result of the war meant that it was the last of the French and Indian Wars and helped create conditions that led to the American Revolutionary War. The British colonists no
longer needed British protection from the French and resented the taxes imposed by Britain to pay for its military commitments as
well as limitation on colonial settlements imposed by the British Royal Proclamation of 1763 in the newly acquired French territories in the
Ohio Country and Illinois Country in the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys.
List of battles and expeditions
- Battle
of Jumonville Glen (May 28, 1754)
- Battle of Fort Necessity, aka the Battle of Great Meadows (July 3, 1754)
- Braddock Expedition (Battle of the Monongahela aka Battle
of the Wilderness) (July 9, 1755)
- Battle of Lake
George (1755)
- Battle of
Great Cacapon (April 18, 1756)
- Battle of Fort Oswego (August, 1756)
- Kittanning Expedition (climax about September 8, 1756)
- Battle on
Snowshoes (January 21, 1757)
- Battle of Sabbath Day Point (July 26, 1757)
- Battle of Fort William Henry (August 9, 1757)
- Battle of Louisburg (July 27, 1758)
- Battle of Fort Frontenac (August, 1758)
- Battle of Ticonderoga (1758)
(August 8, 1758)
- Battle of
Fort Ligionier (October 12, 1758)
- Forbes Expedition
(climax on November 25, 1758 with the
British occupation of the ruins of Fort Duquesne)
- Battle of Ticonderoga (1759)
- Battle of Fort
Niagara (1759)
- Battle of Beauport
(July 31, 1759)
- Battle of the Plains of Abraham
(September 13, 1759)
- Battle of Sainte-Foy (April 28, 1760)
- Battle of Montreal
(1760)
External links
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