International Conflict: The French and Indian/Seven Years War

American history classes often treat this War (1755-1762) as a windup to the American Revolution.  Further, Americans have their own name for it, the French and Indian War, which makes things all the more confusing.  Worse yet, if you look at a list of the combatant countries, expecting to see just France and England, you'd be surprised to see a much longer list of Kingdoms and Principalities, most of which don't exist as separate units anymore.  And, what did this have to do with the Native peoples of North America, who probably weren't aware of the wider conflict?  Everything. 

To sum up this vast war in a nutshell, it was about colonial possessions throughout the world and maintaining a delicate balance of power among the larger countries in Europe.  Narrowed to just North America, and still trying to keep it simple, the War was about English versus French control of North America.  Prior to 1755, England controlled the Eastern Seaboard, at least as far as the Appalachians, and Maritime Canada, including Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.  France's portion stretched, in theory, from the Province of Quebec down to New Orleans.  Disputed areas included Acadia, which consisted of portions of New Brunswick and Maine, roughly.  Also, the eastern Bank of the Mississippi to the Appalachian Mountains.  On paper, these boundaries were easy to define.  In reality, they were subject to the interpretation of whichever English or French commander, Colonial land speculator, or individual settler happened to need or want to make of them.  Enter Colonial officials and wealthy landowners such as George Washington, to name one example, who had invested heavily in land speculation in the disputed areas between the Mississippi and the Appalachians.  Enter also, Colonial governments who believed that their original land grants stretched beyond the Appalachians and into the backcountry.  Virginia claimed land from the Ohio Valley all the way to Tennessee, for example.  As for the people who actually lived on the land and depended on it for game and crops to sustain their daily lives, no one asked their opinion.

From their vantage point, Native Americans knew that there was friction between England and France.  Most of them also knew with whom they preferred to deal.  It was usually the country that provided the mot lucrative trade incentives in the form of trade goods for the beaver and other skins the Natives harvested.  Natives had become dependent on European goods to make their lives simpler.  Guns were much more efficient then bows and arrows.  Cloth was more comfortable and washable than skins.  Cooking pots, mirrors and needles had their uses.  It was also the power who could provide greater protection for their hunting ranges and protect them against encroachment from White settlers and other tribes, who were often facing eviction from their own lands and having to move West to get out of the way.  European powers would come to realize that there were two quick ways to raise conflict with the Natives on the ground, skimping on the trade goods and encroaching on their land.  

European powers were also aware of the various loyalties and alliances between the tribes and could use them to their advantage.  The Iroquois had constant friction with the Abenaki, in Maine and upper New England, and the Shawnee, in the Ohio Valley.  William Johnson, British Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Northern Colonies was ordered to recruit Iroquois warriors to fight for Britain on the understanding that they would receive more land from enemy tribes as well as greater trade concessions.  French commanders and Indian Agents were promising the same thing to the Abenaki and other Algonquian-speaking tribes who were already enemies of the Iroquois.  Exploiting Native American alliances provided several benefits to France and England.  Their armies were already stretched thin fighting in Europe and India.  By taking advantage of the Natives and local militias, they could field fewer men in North America.  They could also tap into local knowledge of ground conditions and the experience of men used to living and fighting in North America. 

Despite the initial disaster of Braddock's Retreat in July 1755, the British soon got the upper hand of the French, taking one fort after another in some of the bloodiest fighting in history up to that time.  Men such as William Johnson, George Washington and Robert Rogers made their names in the war.  So, too, did men such as Buckongahelas of the Lenape/Delaware, Guyasuta of the Seneca, Pontiac of the Ottawa and others.  The names and exploits of European victors and vanquished, Montcalm versus Wolfe, for example, are immortalized in paintings and statues.  Some Native leaders also had statues, erected years after the honorees were dead and their descendants pushed further West.  Buckongahelas mourns over his dead son in a park in Buckhannon, West Virginia, commemorating an incident that happened years after the War.  Guyasuta confers with Washington while overlooking Pittsburgh.  Pontiac became a car brand. 

What's not reflected in these monuments is the reality of life on the contested ground when one Colonial power switches places with another.  By the Treaty of Paris of 1763, France gave up most of its possessions in North America to England.  Native stakeholders were not invited to Paris to represent their interests.  They were left to deal with the fallout on the frontier.  Indians who had sided with the French faced punitive raids or seizures of their land, sometimes by English troops but more often by local militias or rival tribes with their own scores to settle.  Pontiac and Guyasuta soon revolted against Britain over the sale of arms and ammunition, among other things, to Natives as well as cession of their hunting ranges to the Iroquois, not to mention Settlers who were coming every day to carve their own farms out of land they were supposed to be forbidden to settle on by the Proclamation of 1763. 

The French and Indian War set the stage for the Revolution in many ways.  The most important here was the Proclamation of 1763, which forbade White settlement beyond the Appalachian Mountains.   Despite the efforts of British troops and Natives to enforce this edict be removing squatters or attacking frontier settlements, the Settlers kept coming and the Natives kept fighting.  Land speculators were worried more for their investments in claims of backcountry land, above and beyond the strife on the frontier.  Great Britain knew that the anger of the Natives toward White settlers could be exploited, if and when the time came.  The stage was being set, not jut for Revolution, but for further encroachment on Native land under the guise of punitive sanctions for raids and rebellions by Native leaders trying to preserve their people's hunting ranges.  The anger and reprisals kept growing.  It was only a matter of time.