The French and Indian War

Origins

• In 1753 the French began building forts to back their claim to the land between Lake Erie and the Ohio River (Ohio)

• The Virginia colony also claimed this land• To sort things out the governor sent George

Washington and a militia to tell the French to leave.

• The French rejected the offer

• The next year Washington was sent to present day Pittsburgh to build a fort where the Ohio River is formed

• Too Late! The French had already built a fort there

• Washington’s forces meet a large French army and they are forced to surrender. The French sends them back to Virginia

Preparing for War

• Most Native American tribes sided with the French

• English government met in Albany, New York

• Benjamin Franklin believed the colonies had to succeed and he drew up the Albany Plan of Union

Early British Defeats

• England government sent General Edward Braddock to led the British army– Washington is with him– Trying to push French out of the Ohio valley

• Ambushed at Fort Duquesne and defeated badly by the French and their allies

• Braddock is killed!• A similar scenario occurred by Lake Ontario

• Iroquois were happy not joining England

• In May 1756, England officially declares war on France!

English begins Winning!

• Things begin changing when William Pitt becomes Prime Minister of England and appoints James Wolfe to be his top general

• In 1758, the British capture Fort Duquesne and renames it Fort Pitt

• After this the Iroquois began supporting the British

Quebec

• The capital of New France (present day Canada)

• 4,000 British defeat 4,500 French soldiers– Wolfe dies in this battle– 2,000 wounded or killed

• After this, France loses its stronghold on the rest of North America

• Soon after, Montreal falls

Treaty of Paris

• Signed in 1763 ending the war• France lost much of its territory in Canada and

some in the United States• England gained control of all of the French

land east of the Mississippi except New Orleans. Also gained control of Spanish Florida

• Spain took control of New Orleans and the French land West of the Mississippi River

• Without the help of France, Native Americans could not stop British settlers from coming West

Proclamation of 1763

What is it?

• England was looking to avoid further confrontation with the Native Americans

• British government issues the Proclamation to help avoid that

• It banned Colonial settlement West of the Appalachian Mountains

• Settlers were forced to move East• This was impossible for Great Britain to

enforce• It was widely ignored by the Colonists

• Colonists believed that they had the right to live wherever they wanted

• The Proclamation of 1763 only angered the Colonists more

The Stamp Act

• Act imposed by Great Britain that placed a direct tax on the colonies

• Required that many printed materials be produced on a stamped paper produced in London

• These included legal documents, magazines, playing cards, newspapers, and many other types of paper used in the colonies

• The stamp tax had to be paid in British currency

Colonial Reaction to the Stamp Tax

• Many colonists believed it violated their rights to be taxed without their consent

• The Colonists protested the stamp tax• The tax collectors were often intimated by

these protests which led to very little taxes being collected

• England eventually reverses the Stamp Tax

The Boston Patriots

• These were men and women that stood up against the abuses by England on the colonies

• Even though there were Patriots in all 13 Colonies, Boston was at the center of many major events

About Boston

• It was home to the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party

• Many important figures in the fight for freedom including James Otis, Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Hancock, and Paul Revere

Townshend Act

• Series of acts past by the English Parliament• The purpose of this act was to tax the colonies

more and to pay the colonial governors more money so that they would remain loyal to Great Britain

• This was to show the colonies that England was still in charge and that they had to abide by whatever rules were set

• The colonies continued to reject Great Britain’s taxes because they did not have any representatives in the English parliament

• The colonies refused to go along with any of these provisions

• John Dickinson began writing essays describing that raising taxes for the sake of raising taxes was unconstiutional

• This would be a main contributor to the Boston Tea Party and the Boston Massacre

The Boston Massacre

• Occurred in Boston in 1770• It gave each side a taste of what was to come• The British army had a strong presence in

Boston in hopes to prevent any uprising from taking place

• On March 5th a mob assembled upon the British troops

• The mob began throwing rocks and snow balls at the English army

• Without orders, the British fired at the mob killing five

• African American Crispus Attucks was the first casualty– He is significant because he was the first American to

die for the cause– It shows that African Americans played a tremendous

role in the establishment of the United States

Aftermath of the Boston Massacre

• The men stood trial for the killings but faced a very minimal sentence

• This showed that the English were willing to use violence in order to get the colonies to cooperate with them