Transcript The Duel for North America 1608-1763

A.P. U.S. History
Chapter 6: The Duel for North
America
1608-1763
• 3 Nations vied for world
domination in the 17th and
18th centuries: Spain,
France, and England
• The French established
Quebec in 1608 as their first
colony (New France) in the
new world.
• New France was under total
control of the French crown
and the colonists enjoyed
much less freedom and selfrule than the British colonies
in America.
• By 1750 only 60,000
colonists inhabited New
France compared to over 2
million in the 13 British
American colonies.
• The French were allied with
the Huron Indians, and
helped them fight the
Iroquois Confederation in the
upper N.Y. area.
• So the Iroquois allied
themselves with the British.
• New France’s one valuable
commodity was furs,
especially beaver.
• See map of fur posts in North
America on pg 108
• The fur trappers trapped the
beaver to near extinction and
exposed Native Americans to
white culture, disease, trade
goods, and alcohol.
• Antoine Cadillac founded
Detroit in 1701
• Robert de La Salle floated
down the Mississippi to the
Gulf of Mexico in 1682 and
named the interior basin
Louisiana in honor of Louis
XIV.
• The French founded New
Orleans in 1718.
• The French founded trading
posts at Kaskaskia, Cahokia,
and Vincennes in the Ohio
River area.
• King William’s War (1689-1697)
and Queen Anne’s War (17021713) were early clashes between
British colonists and French in
North America.
• Neither France nor Britain
committed any troops to these as
they didn’t see these colonies
worth the expense.
• The real money was coming from
the Caribbean at that point.
• Spain sided with France in these
early wars.
King William III of Prussia
• The War of Jenkin’s Ear (1739)
was fought between the British and
Spanish in the Caribbean and
Georgia, where James Oglethorpe
earned his reputation as a soldier.
• British captain Jenkins was
captured by the Spanish and had
his ear cut off and his captures
sent him packing with the ear and
threatened to do the same to his
king.
• The War of Jenkin’s Ear merged
with the larger War of Austrian
Succession in Europe and was
called King George’s War in
America.
• France allied itself with Spain
again.
• New England colonists
invaded New France and
took the French fort at
Louisbourg (see map on pg
112) but the peace
settlement gave it back to the
French.
• Importance: American
colonists resented politics in
Europe dictating politics and
life in America
The Ohio Valley
• American (British) colonists
had been pushing into this
area to expand their land
holdings, especially the
Virginia planters.
• The French wanted it to link
their Canadian land with that
of the lower empire.
• Control of the Ohio Valley
meant control of all of North
America.
French and Indian War
• The French built Fort
Duquesne at the site of
present day Pittsburg, which
is where the Allegheny River
and the Monongahela River
join to form the Ohio River.
• In 1754 the Governor of VA
sent 21 year old George
Washington and 150 VA
militiamen to secure
Virginia’s claim to this land.
1754  The First Clash
The
Ohio Valley
British
Fort Necessity
* George Washington
French
Fort Duquesne
* Delaware & Shawnee
Indians
• His party and a group of Indians
ambushed a French scouting
party.
• The Indians killed the French
commander, a number of French
troops and took even more
prisoner.
• Washington probably had little
command over the situation and
the French and Indian War had
begun.
• Washington quickly built Fort
Necessity and asked for
reinforcements, which never came.
• The French did come
with reinforcements,
surrounded the fort and
pounded it in a torrential
downpour for 10 hours
before Washington
surrendered.
– The French allowed he
and his men to march
away.
• With the war underway, the
British uprooted some 4,000
French Acadians in 1755
(because they had acquired
the land in 1713 in an earlier
squirmish) and deported
them in Louisiana- the
original Cajuns.
• The French and Indian War
was the 4th Anglo-French
colonial war and the only one
which started in America, in
1754.
• It was an undeclared war
for 2 years until it spread
to all corners of the
globe, but especially in
America, Europe, the
West Indies, the
Philippines, Africa, and
the open seas.
• The French and Indian
War is also known as the
Seven Years’ War.
• In Europe it was mainly
Britain and Prussia
against France, Spain,
Austria, and Russia.
• France spent most of its
troops in Germany
instead of America,
where Frederick the
Great earned his title
fighting for the British.
The Albany Plan of Union
• The British bought the
Iroquois loyalty against
the French.
• Seven of the 13 colonies
sent representatives.
1754  Albany Plan of
Union
Ben Franklin  representatives from
New England, NY, MD, PA
A
Albany Congress  failed Iroquois
broke off relations with
Britain & threatened to
trade with the French.
• The British sent General Braddock
to capture Fort Duquesne.
• Braddock hacked a road through
the wilderness, which wasted a lot
of time, money, and resources.
• The French and Indians ambushed
the British redcoats and the
American militia and slaughtered
them.
• George Washington was in charge
of the militia and had 2 horses shot
from under him and 4 bullets
pierced his clothing, but he was
one of the few who lived.
• After this defeat, the French and
Indians ravaged the frontier from
Pennsylvania to North Carolina.
British-American
Colonial Tensions
Colonials
Methods of
Fighting:
British
• Indian-style guerilla • March in formation or
bayonet charge.
tactics.
Military
• Col. militias served
Organization: under own captains.
• Br. officers wanted to
take charge of colonials.
Military
Discipline:
• No mil. deference or
protocols observed.
• Drills & tough
discipline.
Finances:
• Resistance to rising
taxes.
• Colonists should pay
for their own defense.
Demeanor:
• Casual,
non-professionals.
• Prima Donna Br.
officers with servants
& tea settings.
• The British invaded
Canada in 1756.
• The British tried to attack
a number of French forts
in the wilderness all at
the same time with small
forces and failed at
nearly every attempt
instead of concentrating
on the larger forts at
Quebec and Montreal.
• William Pitt became Prime
Minister in 1757 and
changed the tactics of the
war.
• He put the Caribbean on the
back burner and focused on
taking Quebec and Montreal.
• Pitt chose young and
energetic generals instead of
the old and cautious ones
that favored European tactics
that proved not to work in
America.
1758-1761  The Tide
Turns for England
* By 1761, Sp. has become an ally of Fr.
• In 1758 the British took the Fort at
Louisbourg.
• The British attacked Quebec under
the dashing General James Wolfe
who sent a detachment to scale
the cliffs surrounding the city.
• The French and British duked it out
on the Plains of Abraham outside
of the city. Both Wolfe and the
French commander were killed, but
the British took Quebec in 1759.
• The British took Montreal in 1760.
• France ceded all of its land
west of the Mississippi
(Louisiana) to the Spanish,
and lost almost all of it’s
North American land claims,
except for a couple of islands
in the St. Lawrence and a
few in the West Indies.
• The Treaty of Paris 1763
settled the French and Indian
War.
• 20,000 American colonists
fought for the British in the
war.
• During the war the British
regular army showed
contempt for the American
militia as raw, and
unrespectable.
• The British refused to
recognize any American
milita commission above the
rank of captain, which was
humiliating to Colonel
George Washington.
• Many American shippers
broke British blockades
during the war and exported
food to besieged French and
Spanish islands in the
Caribbean.
• Overall, the American
colonies were not united in
the French and Indian War
and didn’t take up the cause
for the British empire.
• American ambivalence
during the French and Indian
War was caused by:
– Geographical barriers like
rivers,
– Conflicting religions, from
Catholic to Quaker,
– Varied nationalities: German,
English, Irish, Scots-Irish, etc
– Differing types of colonial
governments
– Many boundary disputes,
– The resentment of crude
backcountry settlers against the
aristocratic bigwigs.
• However, soldiers and statesmen,
brought together during the war
found that they were all fellow
Americans who generally spoke
the same language and shared
common ideals.
• With the French threat gone,
Americans felt much more
confident.
• The Spanish were forced to give
up Florida to Britain.
• Native Americans were no longer
able to play off the Europeans
against one another after 1763.
Pontiac’s Rebellion- 1763
• Led by the Ottawa chief and
a handful of French traders.
• They tried to drive the British
out of the Ohio country.
• Overran all but 3 British
posts and killed 2,000
soldiers and settlers.
• The British spread smallpox
infected blankets to the
Indians, which brought a
truce.
• Pontiac died in battle with
another Indian tribe in 1769.
• Pontiac’s rebellion convinced the
British that they needed to spend
more money and attention on
keeping the Indian’s subdued
along the western frontier, they
also wanted the colonists to pay for
it.
• The Proclamation of 1763- forbade
settlement west of the
Appalachians.
– The British intention was to work
out Indian problems in the area
and prevent another Pontiac’s
Rebellion.
• American’s saw the western land
as their birthright and deeply
resented (and ignored) the British
proclamation.
Theories of
Representation
Real Whigs
Q-> What was the extent of Parliament’s
authority over the colonies??
Absolute?
OR
Limited?
Q-> How could the colonies give or
withhold consent for parliamentary
legislation when they did not have
representation in that body??