Stages Of The French And Indian War

Before the end of the seventeenth century the French and the English had coexisted relatively peacefully in North America for nearly a century. By the 1750 's, however, as both English and French settlements increased, religious and commercial frictions began to produce bitterness and new quarrels. The French had already discovered and claimed a massive region of North America, stretching from Louisiana in the South to the Canadian border in the north. The British were busy exploiting and controlling the Natives, which eventually led to them rebelling. The British victory in the French and Indian War had an enormous influence on North America, causing the colonies to become more unified and break away from Britain’s iron grip and causing much …show more content…
Throughout the first stage, from the Fort Necessity disaster in 1754 until the development of the war in Europe in 1756, it was mainly a native, North American Struggle1, and the English did not thrive during these years. The British nautical fortifications were scarce so the colonists fought the war essentially on their own. Practically all-Indian tribes were then also united with the French. Only the Iroquois had seen their people forced to the British side, but they did not engage and kept themselves as neutral as possible.2 The second stage of the war began in 1756 when the governments of France and England officially released aggressions towards the colonists and a truly intercontinental conflict started. The warfare expanded now to the West Indies, India, and Europe itself. However the primary conflict remained the one in North America where England so far had experienced next to nothing but irritation and loss. Starting in 1757, however, William Pitt, the English secretary of state, started to change the war struggle by placing it for the first time entirely under British rule. He did this at first by demanding provisions, gear, housing, and manpower from the colonists. This was the root for much dislike among the colonists, who defied this new obligation and confidently, at times even aggressively, opposed them. By early 1758, the turmoil amid the British powers …show more content…
Fast-forward a year, in September 1760, the French militia officially surrendered to Amherst in Montreal.5 The British victory in the French and Indian War had profound effects on both the British Empire as well as the American colonists. At first, it lead to development of British territorial claims in the New World, but the price of the war had drastically increased Britain 's debt. The war also caused significant hatred towards the colonists among the English leaders, who were not pleased with the sometimes meager economic and military help they had received from the colonists throughout the entire battle. All these elements joined to convince many English leaders that the colonies needed a huge reformation and that the dominant ruling power should be in London. Great Britain now “possessed nearly the entirety of eastern North America-an Empire unimaginable a few decades earlier”. 3 Next the English leaders set in motion strategies to give London more of a grip over the government of the colonies and these tactics were ultimately a large part of the colonial hatred towards the British imperial powers. A hatred that partly lead the way towards the American Revolution. The war had a similarly reflective but very distinctive effect on the American colonists. Initially, the colonists had learned to unite against a common enemy. Before the war, the thirteen colonies had discovered that they had