LESSON 10 - CLASSWORK LECTURE

Please copy following onto your composition books:  Due 9/13/13

The French and Indian War, 1754-1763

The French increasingly worried about losing their land claims west of the Appalachian Mountains to land-hungry British colonists. The French no longer merely wanted to protect their colonies; they wanted complete control of the frontier lands west of the Appalachian Mountains.
In the late 1740's Britain encouraged colonial investors to stake out huge tracts of land in the Ohio Valley.
In the early 1750s the French sent troops from Canada to occupy the Ohio Valley. French soldiers engraved messages on lead plates and placed them along major rivers. The messages warned travelers to stay out. When British settlers ignored the warnings, the French took firmer action. They built a string of forts just west of the Appalachian Mountains. Both the French and the British ignored the fact that they were fighting over land that belonged to the American Indians.
A showdown finally took place in 1754. Clashes between the British and French over their land claims in North America exploded into a full-scale war. That war would include both the colonists and the native Americans (Indians).
As the British and French squared off against each other, both sides stood ready to defend their empires. They had come to believe that the loss of colonies would hurt them politically and economically. Overseas colonies brought increased power and prestige. Colonies brought economic wealth because they supplied raw materials for a country's industries as well as expanding markets for its manufactured goods.
In Europe (and America), France held the advantage with its huge, well-trained armies. The British controlled the seas. But the British seemed to have more military advantages than the French colonies. By 1754, approximately 1,485,000 British citizens lived in the thirteen colonies
whereas 75,000 French made New France their home.
New France had a single colonial government to direct its affairs, an advantage over the thirteen colonies owned by England that had separate assemblies. These separate English assemblies beckoned frequent quarrels as British colonies seemed more suspicious of each other than of the French colonists.
As British and French colonists became caught up in European wars for empire, they courted the support of various Indian groups. The French forged strong alliances with their long-time trading partners, the Algonquins and Hurons. The Iroquois (Seneca, Mohawk, Caiyuga, Oneida, Onondaga, and Tuscarora) joined the British.