The French and Indian War

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Recommended: Conflict between the British and American colonies

The French and Indian War, a continuation of the Seven Years War that ransacked Europe from 1756 to 1763, had turned out to be the bloodiest and one of the most destructive American wars in the 18th century. Taking more lives than the American Revolution, it cosisted of people living on three continents, including the Caribbean islands. The war was a product of an imperial skirmish, between the French and English over colonial territory and wealth. Within these world powers, the French and Indian War can also be apprised of as an aftermath of the localized rivalry between British and French colonists.

The English and the French had co-existed somewhat peacefully in America for nearly a hundred years. But by the 1750's, as both English and French settlements spread throughout the frontier, economic and religious tensions began to produce new conflicts and frictions within the populations. The French had explored and claimed an ample amount of land of the continental interior, ranging from the Great Lakes to Louisiana. To protect their land on these vast claims, they created a new line of communities, missions, trading channels, and forts. The region occupied by the French was surrounded by the four major cities of: Detroit, Montreal, New Orleans, and Quebec, which was the heart of the French rule in America.

France’s arch enemy and rival, England, in the meanwhile were preparing for the great population expansion across the Appalachians Mountains and beyond. In 1749, about 500,000 acres of Ohio valley land was bought by Virginian businessmen who had secured a grant for settlement purposes. This forced the French, in an effort to keep the English from expanding into French territory, to construct new forts in the Ohio valley reg...

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...ly, the Iroquois nation was never to come to a point where they could have gained enough ground to deal with their European foes.

In early winter of 1763, the Treaty of Paris of 1763 was signed, which acknowledged that all of North America east of the Mississippi River, other than New Orleans and the land to the west of the Mississippi to Spain. There was finally peace in North America after the conclusion of The Pontiac Rebellion and other Indian Hostiles which lasted until the end of 1764.

In conclusion, the French and Indian War was a paramount event in the development of the United States of America. The French and Indian War was part of a larger war known as the Seven Year's War. England and France had been enemies throughout time, and The French and Indian War was a culmination of their much different, yet similar ambitions and ideologies for North America.

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