United States

An English engraving from 1775 celebrating the blockade of Louisbourg, Nova Scotia, during the French and Indian War.Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.Despite the fact that they were outnumbered 15 to 1 by the British colonial population in America, the French were nevertheless well equipped to hold their own. They had a larger military organization in America than did the English; their troops were better trained; and they were more successful than the British in forming military alliances with the Indians. The early engagements of the war went to the French; the surrender of George Washington to a superior French force at Fort Necessity, the annihilation of Gen. Edward Braddock at the Monongahela River, and French victories at Oswego and Fort William Henry all made it seem as if the war would be a short and unsuccessful one for the British. Even as these defeats took place, however, the British were able to increase their supplies of both men and matériel in America. By 1758, with its strength finally up to a satisfactory level, Britain began to implement its larger strategy, which involved sending a combined land and sea force to gain control of the St. Lawrence and a large land force aimed at Fort Ticonderoga to eliminate French control of Lake Champlain. The first expedition against the French at Ticonderoga was a disaster, as Gen. James Abercrombie led about 15,000 British and colonial troops in an attack against the French before his forces were adequately prepared. The British assault on Louisburg, the key to the St. Lawrence, was more successful. In July 1758 Lord Jeffrey Amherst led a naval attack in which his troops landed on the shores from small boats, established beachheads, and then captured the fort at Louisburg.

French military leader the marquis de Montcalm dying during the Battle of Quebec, in the French and Indian War, 1759.The New York Public Library Digital Collection (b13504202)

In 1759, after several months of sporadic fighting, the forces of James Wolfe captured Quebec from the French army led by the marquis de Montcalm. This was probably the turning point of the war. By the fall of 1760, the British had taken Montreal, and Britain possessed practical control of all of the North American continent. It took another two years for Britain to defeat its rivals in other parts of the world, but the contest for control of North America had been settled.

In theTreaty of Paris of 1763" class="md-crosslink"> Treaty of Paris of 1763, Great Britain took possession of all of Canada, East and West Florida, all territory east of the Mississippi in North America, and St. Vincent, Tobago, and Dominica in the Caribbean. At the time, the British victory seemed one of the greatest in its history. The British Empire in North America had been not only secured but also greatly expanded. But in winning the war Britain had dissolved the empire’s most potent material adhesives. Conflicts arose as the needs and interests of the British Empire began to differ from those of the American colonies; and the colonies, now economically powerful, culturally distinct, and steadily becoming more independent politically, would ultimately rebel before submitting to the British plan of empire. Richard R. Beeman

The Native American response

The other major players in this struggle for control of North America were, of course, the American Indians. Modern historians no longer see the encounters between Native Americans and Europeans through the old lens in which “discoverers of a New World” find a “wilderness” inhabited by “savages.” Instead they see a story of different cultures interacting, with the better-armed Europeans eventually subduing the local population, but not before each side had borrowed practices and techniques from the other and certainly not according to any uniform plan.

The English significantly differed from the Spanish and French colonizers in North America. Spain’s widespread empire in the Southwest relied on scattered garrisons and missions to keep the Indians under control and “usefully” occupied. The French in Canada dealt with “their” Indians essentially as the gatherers of fur, who could therefore be left in de facto possession of vast forest tracts. English colonies, in what would eventually become their strength, came around to encouraging the immigration of an agricultural population that would require the exclusive use of large land areas to cultivate—which would have to be secured from native possessors.

PocahontasPocahontas—daughter of Chief Powhatan, who presided over the Powhatan empire—painting c. 1800.MPI/Hulton Archive/Getty Images