France’s Beginnings in the New World

• Samuel de Champlain- Founds Quebec in 1608• Befriends the Huron Indians and helps them

against the Iroquois. Earns the French a very formidable enemy

• Had colonies in the Caribbean and in Canada

Spread of French Influence• French fur-trappers (coureurs de bois) spread out

across the continent (Terre Haute, Baton Rouge, Des Moines)

• Spread of the fur trade takes the French across the Great Lakes, into Central and Western Canada, and into the Great Plains from Missouri and Arkansas to the Rockies

• Jesuit missionaries tried to convert Native Americans to Catholicism, but mostly failed. Exploring and map-making were two of their most important roles

Other French Explorations

• Antoine Cadillac (1701)- founder of Detroit• Robert de La Salle (1682)- goes down the

Mississippi River to its mouth at the Gulf of Mexico. Names the land Louisiana in honor of Louis XIV

• Found New Orleans in 1718.• Allows the French to send grain from Illinois

down the Mississippi for export

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Map 6.1: France's American Empire at Its Greatest Extent, 1700

Early Wars

• King William’s War (1689-1697) and Queen Anne’s War (1702-1713)– British colonists against French coureurs de bois– Guerrilla warfare tactics– Native Americans ally with the French to harass

British settlements on the frontier– Spanish ally with France to harass South Carolina

settlements– Treaty of Utrecht ends the wars

• England gets Nova Scotia, Newfounland, and the Hudson Bay area

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Map 6.3: British Territory After Two Wars, 1713

Important legacy of the Treaty of Utrecht

• 40 years of peace between the British and French

• During this period, the British pretty much ignore the colonies (“salutary neglect”)

• British win some trading rights in Spanish America, but this causes problems with smuggling and leads to the War of Jenkins’s Ear

King George’s War

• War of Jenkins’s Ear merges with the War of Austrian succession in Europe to form King George’s War in the Americas (1740-1748)

• France allies with Spain…again.• New Englanders invade into New France…again.

– They capture the French fort of Louisbourg, overlooking the St. Lawrence River

• Peace treaty in 1748 gives the fort back to the French, the New Englanders are beyond mad

Conflict with the French…Again

• Competition between the French and British over the Ohio Valley

• Group of Virginians lay claim to 500,000 acres in the upper Ohio Valley (Western PA and Eastern OH

• The French had already begun building forts along the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers, most notably Fort Duquesne

George Washington comes on the scene

• George Washington sent with 150 militiamen to secure the huge claim of land

• Virginians open fire on a small group of French troops and kill their leader

• French attack Washington’s troops at Fort Necessity and force him to surrender.

• The Seven Years War (French and Indian War) had begun.

• The British forces the Acadians in Nova Scotia to leave. Cajuns in Louisiana

French and Indian War

• Major war in Europe causes the French to not be able to send enough troops to fight in the Americas

• Prior to this, the Americans had shown a lack of unity in wars

• 1754- Albany Congress– Immediate purpose is to keep the Iroquois loyal to

the British– Long-term purpose is to achieve a higher level of

colonial unity for the defense against France (Franklin’s cartoon)

The F and I War in America

• Starts off badly for the colonists• The British General Braddock loses at Fort Duquesne

in 1755. Easy victory for the French and Indians• The whole frontier from Pennsylvania to North

Carolina was now open to Indian attack• Washington tries to defend the frontier with only

300 men• The British invade Canada in 1756. Should have

attacked Quebec and Montreal, but they don’t so defeat after defeat occur

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Map 6.6: Events of 1755–1760

The influence of William Pitt

• Makes the decision for the British to concentrate on the Quebec/Montreal portion of Canada

• Louisbourg falls (again) in 1758• Quebec falls in 1759• Montreal falls in 1760, and the French are finished in Canada• Treaty of Paris 1763 ends the war, and the French are thrown

off the North American continent• France cedes all of Louisiana territory to Spain• Florida given to England by Spain in return for Cuba• Great Britain is now the dominant power in North America

and the dominant naval power in the world

The Impact on the Colonists

• More confident in their military strength• Myth of British invincibility shattered• Tension and conflict between the British officers

and the colonial militias• The colonists didn’t support the cause

wholeheartedly. Shippers traded with the Spanish and the French West Indies during the war

• Americans had to be bribed to defend the colonies against the French and Indians

More Impact

• Intercolonial disunity continues• BUT, some of the barriers are beginning to be

broken down when colonial soldiers and statesmen meet during the war at various times and see all they have in common

Aftermath of the War

• Spanish, French, and Indians much less of a threat

• Chief Pontiac of the Ottawa led a group of tribes to try and drive the British out of Ohio Country– Detroit under siege in 1763– All but three British posts west of the Appalachians

are taken– British react by distributing smallpox infected

blankets among the Natives

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Map 6.8: North America After 1763 (after French losses)

Proclamation of 1763

• British station troops west of the Appalachian Mountains

• Colonists begin to move West• The Proclamation of 1763 bans settlement in

the area west of the Appalachians• Angers Americans

– View that Americans had fought in the war and deserved to expand West

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Map 6.9: Settled Areas at End of French and Indian War, 1763