Mordaunt, Charles (1697—1780), was the general in command of the unsuccessful attack against Rochefort in 1757.
Mouet de Langlade, Charles-Michel (1729-1801), was born in Michili-mackinac (Mackinaw City). He was an officer in the Troupes de la Marine and led the attack against Pickawillany.
Murray, James (1722—94), was a British officer who served with Wolfe at Quebec and later commanded the city.
Neolin, known as The Delaware Prophet (?—1763), was a religious leader among the Delaware who preached a return to traditional native ways. His message helped inspire Pontiac's rebellion.
Newcastle, Thomas Pelham Hollis, Duke (1693—1768), served almost continuously in high office and as prime minister until his death in 1768.
Oconostota (1712-83), was war leader of the "Overhill" Cherokee. He allied himself with the British and led his people in union with Attakullakulla.
Payen de Noyan et de Chavoy, Pierre-Jacques (1695—1771), was born in Trois-Rivieres. He was an officer in the Troupes de la Marine who commanded at both Detroit and Crown Point. On August 27, 1758, he surrendered Fort Frontenac to John Bradstreet.
Pecaudy de Contrecoeur, Claude-Pierre (1705—75), was born in Montreal. He was an officer in the Troupes de la Marine who commanded the force that occupied the forks of the Ohio in April 1755.
Pelham, Henry (1695—1754), served as prime minister until his death and was succeeded by his brother the duke of Newcastle.
Peter III (1728-62), the Czar of Russia, allied himself with Frederick II. His sudden death brought Catherine II, "The Great," to the throne.
Pocock, George (1706-92), commanded the fleet that captured Havana in 1762.
Pompadour, Jeanne Antoinette Poisson le Normant D'Etoiles (1721—64), was mistress to Louis XV and influenced him to oppose Frederick the Great.
Pontiac (1712(?)-69), was the Ottawa chief who led a rebellion that began near Detroit in 1763. As the rebellion spread it took on his name.
Pouchot, Pierre (1712—69), was the French officer who surrendered Fort Niagara in 1759 and delayed Amherst's advance at Fort Lévis in 1760.
Rigaud de Vaudreuil, François-Pierre de (1703—79), was born in Montreal. The son of a governor of New France and brother to governor Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil de Cavagnial, he was also a soldier in the Troupes de la Marine.
Rigaud de Vaudreuil de Cavagnial, Pierre de, Marquis de Vaudreuil (1698—1778), was born in Quebec. He was the son of the governor of New France and served as governor of Louisiana and New France.
Rodney, George (1719-92), was a British admiral who served in the West Indies and captured Martinique.
Rogers, Robert (1781-95), born in New Hampshire, organized a group of colonials and trained them in wilderness warfare. The organization became known as Rogers Rangers.
Russell, John, fourth Duke of Bedford (1710-71), was a diplomat and ally of Lord Bute. He negotiated the Treaty of Paris in 1763.
Saunders, Charles (1718—75), commanded the fleet that supported Wolfe at Quebec.
Scarouady (?—1758), was the Oneida chief who succeeded Tanaghrisson as Half King.
Shirley, William (1694-1771), served as governor of Massachusetts and succeeded Braddock as commander in chief in North America.
Stobo, Robert (1727—70?), was an officer in the Virginia militia. He was with Washington at Fort Necessity and stayed with the French as a hostage for the safe return of French prisoners.
Suraj-Ud-Dowlah (?—1757), the nawab of Bengal, was responsible for the "Black Hole of Calcutta."
Taffanel de La Jonquière, Jacques-Pierre de, Marquis de la Jonquiere (1685-1752), was the governor of New France from 1749 to 1752.
Tanaghrisson, The Half King (?—1754), was a Seneca chief who led the Iroquois, often referred to as Mingo, in the Ohio Valley. He was with Washington at Fort Necessity.
Teedyuscung (1700-63), was a Delaware leader best known as an orator. A friend to both the English and the French, he was deeply involved in a number of controversial land deals.
Testard de Montigny, Jean-Baptiste-Philippe (1724—86), was born in Montreal. He was an officer in the Troupes de la Marine and was present at Braddock's defeat. He served as second in command during the attack on Fort Bull.
Theyanoguin, Hendrick (1680—1755), was a Christian Mohawk and close friend to William Johnson. Often critical of the English, he worked to keep the Mohawks allied with them. He died at the Battle of Lake George on September 8, 1755.
Townshend, George (1724—1807), was an army officer and politician who served with Wolfe at Quebec.
Vauban, Sebastian le Prestre de (1633—1707), was the masterful architect of fortifications throughout Europe. His style was imitated in North America.
Wall, Richard (1694—1778), was an Irish expatriate who served as foreign minister to King Ferdinand VI of Spain. Wall favored a pro-English policy.
Walpole, Horace (1717—97), was a British author and gadfly whose memoirs and letters are important in understanding eighteenth-century English society and politics.
Webb, Daniel (1700—73), British commander, refused to send assistance to Fort William Henry when it was under attack.
William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland (1721-65), was the son of George II and commander in chief until summarily relieved by his father in 1757.
Winslow, John (1708—74), major general in the Massachusetts militia, was principally responsible for deporting Acadians.
Yorke, Philip, Earl of Hardwicke (1690—1764), was an ally of Newcastle and a noted jurist who rose to become lord chancellor of England.
Chronology
1689—97 War of the League of Augsburg; known in North America as King William's War
1702—13 War of the Spanish Succession; known in North America as Queen Anne's War
1713 April 11—Treaty of Utrecht
September 2—Louisbourg founded
1784 French establish fort at Crown Point on Lake Champlain
1789 Anglo-Spanish War
1744—48 War of the Austrian Succession; known in North America as King George's War
1748 October 18—Treaty of Aix la Chapelle
1749 March 16—Ohio Company formed
June—Halifax founded
Summer—Céloron's expedition into the Ohio Valley
1750 August 31—Boundary commissioners meet in Paris
1752 June 21—French and Indians attack Pickawillany
July 1—Duquesne arrives as governor of New France
1753 Spring—Marin enters Ohio Valley with large French force
Fall—Washington warns French to leave Ohio Valley
1754 April 16—French seize forks of Ohio River and build Fort Duquesne
May 28—Washington attacks French at Jumonville Glen
June—July—Albany Congress
July 4—Washington surrenders at Fort Necessity
1755 June 9—Boscawen intercepts French ships
June 16—Fort Beausejour surrenders to English
June—Vaudreuil arrives as governor of New France
July 9—Braddock is defeated at Monongahela
Summer-Fall—Acadian expulsion
September 8—Battles at Lake George
1756 March 27—Fort Bull falls to French
May 12—Montcalm arrives in Quebec
May 18—England declares war on France
May 20—French defeat Admiral Byng off Minorca
June 20—Suraj ud Dowla captures Calcutta and allegedly confines British prisoners in "Black Hole"
July 23—Lord Loudoun arrives in New York as new commander in chief
August 14—Oswego surrenders to French
August 29—Prussia invades Saxony
November—Pitt enters government
1757 March 17—French attack Fort William Henry but fail to capture it
March 23—Clive captures Chandernagor
April 6—Pitt leaves government
April 9—Cumberland leaves to take command in Germany
June—Anson appointed first lord
June 18—Prussia defeated at Battle of Kolin
June 23—Battle of Plassey Grove, British defeat Suraj ud Dowla
June 29—Pitt returns to office
July 26—Battle of Hastenbeck, Cumberland is defeated
August—Loudoun abandons Louisbourg campaign
August 9—Fort William Henry surrenders to French
September 8—Cumberland and Richelieu sign agreement at convention of Klostersevern
October—British attempt against Rochefort fails
December 1—James Abercromby succeeds Loudoun as commander in chief in North America
1758 February 28—Admiral Henry Osbourne defeats French fleet off Cartagena
April 24—French surrender Fort St. Louis on Senegal River to British
April 29—British (Admiral Pocock) and French (Admiral d'Ache) fleets fight indecisive battle off Pondicherry
June 1—General Forbes meets with Cherokee in Philadelphia
June 2—French capture Fort St. David
July 8—British fail to capture Fort Ticonderoga
July 27—British capture Louisbourg
August 3—British (Pocock) and French (d'Ache) fleets engage in second indecisive battle off Pondicherry
August 3—First British contingents arrive in Germany
August 27—British capture Fort Frontenac
September 14—British force under James Grant is defeated near Fort Duquesne
October 7—26—Easton Conference
October 12—Lignery attacks British at Loyal Hannon
November 25—British capture Fort Duquesne
December 13—French besiege Madras
1759 January 19—British fail to capture Martinique
January 23—British land on Guadeloupe
February 17—Siege of Madras is lifted
May 1—Guadeloupe surrenders to British
June 26—British open siege of Quebec
July 26—British capture Fort Niagara
July 31—British are repulsed at Montmorency
August 1—Battle of Minden
August 12—Battle of Kunersdorf
August 18—Boscawen defeats French off Lagos
September 13—British victory at Quebec
September 18—Quebec surrenders
October 4—Rogers Rangers attack St. Francis
November 20—Battle of Quiberon Bay
1760 February 16—Cherokee attack Fort Prince George April 28—Battle of Sillery Woods (St. Foy), French fail to retake Quebec
August 7—Cherokee capture Fort Loudoun
September 8—Montreal surrenders to Amherst
September 16—Canadian Iroquois meet with William Johnson at Montreal
October 16—Battle of Kloster Kamp
October 25—Death of George II
1761 June 7—British capture Dominica
August 15—Spain and France sign the Family Compact
September 23—Cherokee sign peace treaty
October 5—Pitt resigns from cabinet
November—Spain enters war on side of France
1762 January 5—Death of Czarina Elizabeth of Russia
February 13—British capture Martinique
June 18—Conference at Easton with Delaware and Iroquois
June 24—French capture St. John's, Newfoundland
August 11—British capture Havana
September 18—British retake St. John's, Newfoundland
October 6—British capture Manila
1763 February 10—Treaty of Paris
April 19—Teedyuscung and his wife die in a mysterious fire
1763—64—Pontiac's rebellion
May 7, 1763—Pontiac fails to retake Detroit by deception
May 16—Indians capture Fort Sandusky
May 25—Indians capture Fort St. Joseph
May 28—Indians capture Fort Miamis
June 2—Indians capture Fort Michilimackinac
August 6—Indians are defeated at Edge Hill
October 7—King George III issues proclamation setting boundaries for new territory in North America
November 17—General Thomas Gage succeeds Amherst as commander in chief in North America; Amherst returns to England
1766 July 23—Pontiac meets with William Johnson at Oswego
1769 April 20—Pontiac assassinated
Prologue
Americans know it as the French and Indian War. Some Canadians, particularly those of French descent, refer to the conflict as the War of the Conquest. In Europe it is called the Seven Years War. None of these titles is fully accurate, for in fact the struggle that raged between 1754 and 1763 (hostilities preceded the formal declarations of war by two years) was the first world war.
The war pitted the world's two superpowers, France and England, against each other in a titanic struggle for imperial domination. This was hardly the first time the French and English had grappled. Ancient enmities going back at least to 1066 had often driven these two nations to conflict, but this time the struggle was not about the usual familial claims to thrones or who should control some petty duchy or principality or even who would dominate the continent of Europe. It was a competition to determine who would dominate the other continents of the world.
At sea, and on battlefields in Europe, North America, the West Indies, Asia, India, and Africa, fleets and armies fought. Every major power in Europe joined the fray. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers, sailors, and civilians died. At the final peace, weary combatants traded territories vaster than all of Europe. England emerged victorious, and its triumph laid the foundation for a global empire from which it would draw the wealth and resources to fuel the industrial revolution and transform the world.
Although the war was fought all over the world, its most decisive battles were in North America. The struggle for this continent among Indians, French, Canadians, British, and British colonials was the hinge upon which the outcome of the war swung. Americans studying their own history commonly describe this war as the prelude to the American Revolution. Aside from being provincial, that interpretation both exaggerates and understates its real significance. The ideological split between England and its colonies began in earlier generations. Furthermore, the political, economic, and social forces that drove the colonies toward revolution were in operation long before the war began. The American habit of viewing the French and Indian War backward through the lens of the Revolution masks its true importance as a world-shaping event.
From the very first days of permanent settlement in North America the French and English had been at each others throats. Competition for trade, uncertain boundaries, and a rambunctious population of frontiersmen kindled violence on both sides. Men in Paris and London knew full well that there was an absence of peace in North America, but minor skirmishes, a raid here and there, a few homes burned, were petty events hardly worthy of notice when compared to the pageants of Europe. Indeed, on those several occasions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when wars between the great powers came to North America, they arrived as imports from Europe.
In 1689 the War of the League of Augsburg began in Europe. By the time it reached America it was known as King Williams War. In 1702 the War of Spanish Succession erupted, to be titled Queen Anne's War when the shooting began in America. The War of the Austrian Succession swept Europe in 1744 and crossed the Atlantic the next year as King George's War. The last and greatest of these struggles, however, followed a very different pattern. The French and Indian War reversed the traditional course of events; beginning in America, it was exported to Europe.
Both England and France had firm footholds in North America by the early eighteenth century. English settlement was ensconced along the Atlantic coast from Maine to Georgia. Tendrils of settlement, particularly in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas, were beginning to creep farther west. The white population of these colonies numbered nearly one million, mostly farmers, nearly all En
glish-speaking Protestants.
Canada was colonized differently. Although the French king claimed a vast territory stretching from the Arctic Circle to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Appalachians across the Mississippi, in fact French settlement was confined to the valley of the St. Lawrence between Quebec and Montreal and to the mouth of the Mississippi at New Orleans. Altogether not more than sixty thousand French lived in all this territory. From New Orleans and the St. Lawrence Valley a fragile web of control maintained by peripatetic priests, soldiers, and fur traders extended deep into the interior of North America. Linked by rivers and lakes, and anchored by a series of forts and trading posts in the west (at places like Niagara, Detroit, and Michilimackinac); in the Ohio region (at Presque Isle, Le Boeuf, and Venango); and in the south (Fort Toulousse), French dominion was strong at its center in the St. Lawrence Valley but weak on the edges. It was precisely along these rough edges—in Acadia, along Lake Ontario, and in the Ohio Valley—where trouble brewed. Everywhere along this jagged edge Indian nations stood between two poles: French and English. Depending upon shifting circumstances, particularly their own self-interest, native peoples allied with one or the other European rivals. In time of declared war such alliances were open as regular soldiers and colonial militia accompanied their native allies on marches into the enemy homeland. But once the declared war ended—an event marked usually by diplomatic folderol in European capitals, an exchange of territory, regulars sailing home, and the return of French and English settlers to their towns and villages—native allies, parties to the war but not to the peace, continued to be used by the colonial powers as surrogates to bring instability and violence to the frontier.
Louis XV, king of France
Neither the British nor the French could properly define the boundaries of Acadia. Lying north of New England, it stretched between present-day eastern New Brunswick and across the Bay of Fundy to the western shore of Nova Scotia. The region was home to the Micmac and Abenaki, Algonquin-speaking Indians. Early in the seventeenth century the French began to settle there. Within a few generations several thousand Acadians were farming along the shores and tidal estuaries of the Bay of Fundy and the Northumberland Strait. But at the conclusion of Queen Anne's War in 1713, France surrendered Acadia to England. As a result, the Acadians found themselves suddenly living in a land called Nova Scotia, subject to an alien culture whose laws, religion, and language were thoroughly unfamiliar to them. Sullenly and silently, the Acadians assented to their fate, while their new British masters looked upon them with disdain and suspicion.1
Empires at War Page 2
