PART I: FOUNDING THE NEW NATION A.

Agbay

FRANCE FINDS A FOOTHOLD IN CANADA

 Late in New World real estate
o Foreign Wars and Domestic Strife (1500s)
 E.g. Roman Catholics vs. Protestant Hugeuenots
 St. Bartholomew’s Day, 10,000 Huguenots were butchered in cold blood
(1572)
o Edict of Nantes (1598)- Granted toleration to French Protestants
 Religious wars ceased
o Religious Reign
 King Louis XIV, enthroned at 5 years old, reigned for 72 years (1643-1715)
o France in the New World
 Establishment of Quebec (1608)
 Lead by Samuel de Champlain- “Father of New France”
 Indian relations
 Huron Indians- joined them in battle with foes, the federated
Iroquois Tribes.
 Federated Iroquois- lasting enmity led to preventing French
penetration of Ohio Valley, ravaging French Settlements, and
aiding British in their supremacy of the continent.
 New France- “Canada”
 Direct control of king after commercial companies failed.
 Royal regime was autocratic.
o Lack of elected representative assemblies and right to trial
by jury.
 Catholic New France
 Only 60 thousand inhabited New France.

Chapter 6: The Duel for North America 1608-1763

 French peasants had no economic motive to move.
 Protestant Huguenots- denied refuge in raw colony.
 Favored Caribbean island colonies, which was rich in sugar and rum, in
contrast to Canada’s snow-cloaked wilderness.
NEW FRANCE FANS OUT
 Valuable resource- Beaver.
o French fur-trappers hunted beaver. (a.k.a. Coureurs de bois, or runners of the
woods”)
 Two-fisted drinkers, free spenders, free livers and lovers.
 Baton Rouge (red stick), Terre Haute (high land), Des Moines (some
monks), and Grand Teton (big breast)
o French voyageurs recruited Indians into fur business

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A. Agbay PART I: FOUDNING THE NEW NATION

 Indian fur flotilla arrived in Montreal with 4 hundred canoes (1693)

 Indians were decimated by white man’s diseases and debauched by
alcohol.
 Slaughtering beaver by boatload violated religious beliefs and shattered
traditional Indian ways of life.
o Fur Trading’s effects on environment
 Trekked across Great lakes, into present0day Saskatchewan and
Manintoba; along valleys of Platte, Arkansas, Missouri; west through
Rockies; south to border of Spanish Texas
 Extinguished beaver population in many areas.
o French Catholic missionaries (Jesuits)
 Save Indians for Christ and from fur-trappers.
 Suffered unspeakable tortures at hands of Indians.
 Vital role as explorers and geographers.
 Empire-seeking explorers
o Antoine Cadillac, founder of Detroit “city of Straits” (1701)
 Prevent English settlers pushing into Ohio Valley
o Robert de La Salle traveled down Mississippi to Gulf of Mexico and named
interior basin “Louisiana” (1682)
 Check Spanish penetration in Gulf of Mexico
 Returned 3 years later with colonizing expedition, but failed to find
Mississippi Delta, landed in Spanish Texas and was murdered by his own
men (1687)
o Forts
 Mississippi and Louisiana- block Spanish on Gulf of Mexico
 New Orleans (1718)
Chapter 6: The Duel for North America 1608-1763

 Illinois- fertile; “garden of Frances North American empire”

 Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Vincennes
THE CLASH OF EMPIRES
 King William’s War (1689-1697) & Queen Anne’s War (1702-1713)
o British colonists against French Coureurs de bois, both having Indian allies.
 Bloody violence on British villages of Schenectady, New York, and
Deerfield, Massachusetts.
o Spain allied France and pushed from Florida into South Carolina
o British failure against Quebeck and Montreal, but seized Port Royal in Acadia
(Nova Scotia)
 Peace signed at Utrecht (1713)

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o Britain was rewarded with Acadia, renamed Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and
Hudson Bay, limited trading rights in Spanish America.
o Britain gave American colonies with decades of “salutary neglect”, which began
roots of independence.
 War of Jenkin’s Ear (1739) a.k.a. King George’s War
o British vs. Spaniards.
o Caribbean sea and the colony of Georgia.
o Merged with the large-scale war of Austrian Succession in Europe
o France allied with Spain.
o New Englanders invaded New France
 British fleet captured French fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Brenton
Island and commanded approaches to St. Lawrence River.
o Peace Treaty of 1748
 Louisbourg goes back to French, New Englanders outraged.
GEORGE WASHINGTON INAUGURATES WAR WITH FRANCE
 French and British continues to battle over Ohio Valley
o Ohio Valley was critical area for French to keep in order to link Canadian holdings
with that of lower Mississippi Valley.
o Mid 1700s, British colonies were determined to fight for economic security and
supremacy of their way of life in North America.
o 1749, British colonial speculators from Virginia, including Washington family,
secured legal “rights” to 500,000 acres in Ohio Valley.
 French were in process of erecting chain of forts commanding the Ohio
River.
 Fort Duquesne at Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers join to form
Ohio (later, Pittsburgh)

Chapter 6: The Duel for North America 1608-1763

o Beginnings of the War
 George Washington, governor of Virginia.
 Sent to Ohio Country as lieutenant colonel in command of 150
militiamen (1754).
 Britain fired first shots at French troops 40 miles from Fort Duquesne.
 French leader was killed and men retreated.
 French returned and surrounded Fort Necessity.
 10-hour siege and forced Washington to surrender his command
(July 4th, 1754)
 British authorities in Nova Scotia brutally uprooted 4 thousand French
Acadians in fear of mutiny (1755)

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A. Agbay PART I: FOUDNING THE NEW NATION

 French scattered as south as Louisiana, where descendants of

French-Speaking Acadians are called “Cajuns” and number nearly
a million.
GLOBAL WAR AND COLONIAL DESTINY
 Anglo-French colonial wars
o 3 in Europe
o French and Indian War- America (1754)
 Undeclared for 2 years
 a.k.a. 7 years war
 Europe, America, West Indies, Philippines, Africa, and on the ocean.
o French and Indian War in Europe
 Britain and Prussia vs. France, Spain, Austria, and Russia
 Germany- Frederick the Great repelled French, Austrian and Russian
armies with opposing forces outnumbering his own 3:1.
 Subsidized with gold.
 French focused on war at home, and not in New World.
o French and Indian War in Colonies
 Americans had lack of unity.
 Albany, NY
 British gov. summoned intercolonial congress (1754)
o 7 representatives of the 13 colonies showed up.
o Purpose was to keep scalping knives of Iroquois tribes
loyal to British.
 Provided chiefs with 30 wagonloads of gifts,
including guns.
Chapter 6: The Duel for North America 1608-1763

o Wanted to achieve greater colonial unity and thus bolster

common defense against France.
 Benjamin Franklin
 Pennsylvania Gazette- “Join or Die” cartoon
 Leading spirit of Albany Congress
 Had a plan for colonial home rule that was unanimously adopted
by Albany delegates, but spurned by individual colonies and
London.
o Not enough independence according to colonies.
o British officials thought it gave too much.
BRADDOCK’S BLUNDERING AND ITS AFTERMATH
 General Braddock
o 60 Year old officer experienced in European warfare.

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o After foraging supplies from colonists, he set out with 2 thousand men to
capture Fort Duquesne (1755)
o “Buckskins”- Colonial militiamen that were ill-disciplined.
o Brought militia towards Duquesne and encountered small French and Indian
army.
 George Washington comes to aid, but fails. Pennsylvania nd North
Carolina were left naked by Braddock’s bloody defeat.
 Invasion of Canada (1756)
o Unwisely attacked a number of exposed posts simultaneously, instead of
throwing all strength at Quebec and Montreal.
o Lack of good strategy lead to defeat in both America and Europe.
PITT’S PALMS OF VICTORY
 William Pitt “Great Commoner”
o Admired by common people.
o Became foremost leader in the London government (1757)
o “Organizer of Victory”
 Focused less on West Indies and more on Quebec-Montreal area.
 Picked energetic and young leaders, rather than old and cautious
generals.
o Expedition against Louisbourg (1758)
 Successful first victory of the war
o Expedition against Quebec (1759)
 James Wolf as officer.
 Sent a detachment up a poorly guarded part of the rocky
eminence protecting Quebec.
 2 armies faced each other on Plains of Abraham: British under Wolfe, and

Chapter 6: The Duel for North America 1608-1763

French under Marquis de Montcalm.
 Both died, but French were defeated.
 Most significant engagements in British and American history
o Expedition against Montreal (1760)
 French defeat.
o Peace settlement at Paris (1763)
 French power thrown off North America.
 French were allowed to retain several small but valuable sugar islands in
West Indies and two never-to-be-fortified islets in Gulf of St. Lawrence
for fishing.
 French ceded to Spain all trans-Mississippi Louisiana, and outlet of New
Orleans.

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A. Agbay PART I: FOUDNING THE NEW NATION

 Spain turned Florida to Britain in return for Cuba.

 Great Britain became dominant power in North America and took place
as leading naval power of the world.
RESTLESS COLONISTS
 Colonists emerged with increased confidence in military strength.
 F & I war shattered the myth of British invincibility.
 Friction developed between arrogant British officers and raw colonial “boors”.
 American militia had commission above rank of captain.
 American settlers believed themselves to be the cutting edge of British civilization and
felt they deserved credit rather than contempt for risking their lives.
 American shippers established a treasonable trade in foodstuffs with enemy ports
during the war, keeping the hostile islands from starving when British navy was trying to
subdue them.
o Forbade export of all supplies from New England and middle colonies.
 Colonists that were self-centered and alienated by the distance from the war refused to
provide troops and money for conflict.
o Demanded rights for Englishmen without duties of Englishmen.
o Pitt offered to reimburse colonies for their expenditures 900,000 euros.
 Intercolonial disunity
o Caused by enormous distances
o Geographical barriers like rivers
o Conflicting religions
o Varied nationalities
o Differing types of Colonial governments
o Boundary disputes
Chapter 6: The Duel for North America 1608-1763

o Resentment of crude backcountry settlers against aristocratic bigwigs.

 Soldiers and statesmen from separated colonies conversed, they found that they were
all fellow Americans who generally spoke the same language and shared common
ideals.
WAR’S FATEFUL AFTERMATH
 Removal of French allowed colonists to have an idea of independence.
 French believed that their loss would also be the fate of British’s American empire.
 Spain was pushed out of the east coast, but still possessed much of western North
America.
 Indians suffered from the removal of Spanish and French- their most diplomatic
weapon.
o No other choice than to negotiate with Britain.

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 Chief Pontiac led several tribes with some French traders to drive British of Ohio
Country (1763)
o Successful in Detroit (Spring 1763)
o Over ran all but 3 British posts west of Appalachians.
o British retaliated with biological warfare.
 Blankets infected with small pox were given to Indians.
o British found that they needed to stabilize relations with Indians and keep
regular troops stationed along the frontier.
 Allowed American colonists to travel past Appalachian Mountains.
o e.g. Daniel Boone and other pioneers that were already in Tennessee and
Kentucky.
o Some prepared for the trek over the mountains.
 London government issued Proclamation of 1763, prohibiting settlement beyond
Appalachians.
o Created to work out the Indian problem fairly and prevent another uprising.
o Colonists were angered and wanted to push the frontier.
 Believed it was theirs because they purchased it with their blood in the
war.
 Westward Ho!
o 1765, estimated 1 thousand wagons rolled through Salisbury, North Carolina
westward bound.
 New vision of Destiny
o With path cleared for continent conquest, high birthrate and boundless energy,
they believed they were the most potent people and could not be restrained.

Chapter 6: The Duel for North America 1608-1763