Online Encyclopedia
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War was a nine-year conflict (1754-1763) in North America and was one of the conflict theatres of the Seven Years' War. The conflict was between Britain and its colonies on one side and France 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 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 Quebec 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. The treaty saw France cede Canada to Britain, preferring to keep the territory of Guadeloupe for its rich sugar crops.
The decisive result of the war meant that it was the last of the French and Indian Wars and thereby set the stage for 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
- Battle of Fort Necessity (July 3, 1754)
- Braddock Expedition (Battle of the Monongahela, 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)
- 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 Fort Ligionier (October 12, 1758)
- Battle of Ticonderoga (1758) (August 8, 1758)
- 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)
See also
- Military history
- Rogers' Rangers
- French and Indian Wars (four different wars lumped under this name)