3.2 The Seven Years' War (The French and Indian War)

The Ohio River Valley sat between the British colonies and France's trading network along the Great Lakes and the Mississippi. Virginia land speculators wanted it for settlement, the French wanted to protect their fur trade, and Native nations such as the Shawnee, Delaware (Lenape) and Mingo lived there and wanted to keep it.

In 1754 the French built Fort Duquesne where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers meet (today's Pittsburgh). Virginia sent a young militia officer, George Washington, to drive them out. After a skirmish in May, Washington was forced to surrender at Fort Necessity in July 1754. The fighting spread, and in 1756 war was declared in Europe, beginning the Seven Years' War (1756–1763).

In 1754 delegates from seven colonies met at Albany, New York, to strengthen ties with the Iroquois and plan a common defense. Benjamin Franklin proposed the Albany Plan of Union, a council of delegates from each colony with power over defense, Native relations and western lands. His newspaper ran the famous 'Join, or Die' cartoon, a snake cut into pieces representing the colonies.

Colonial assemblies rejected the plan because they did not want to give up their own power, and British officials did not want a strong colonial union either. The plan still matters as an early idea of intercolonial cooperation.

The war went badly for Britain at first; General Edward Braddock's army was crushed near Fort Duquesne in 1755. Things turned after William Pitt took charge of the British war effort in 1757 and poured in money and troops. The British captured Quebec in 1759 and Montreal in 1760.

In the Treaty of Paris (1763), France gave Britain Canada and its claims east of the Mississippi River, except New Orleans. Spain, France's ally, gave Florida to Britain, and France gave Spain New Orleans and Louisiana west of the Mississippi. France was essentially removed from mainland North America.

For Native nations, France's defeat was a disaster: they could no longer play two European powers against each other.

• War debt: Britain's national debt nearly doubled during the war, to about £130 million. Parliament decided the colonies should help pay for their defense (3.3).
• Pontiac's Rebellion (1763): Pontiac, an Odawa (Ottawa) leader, led a coalition of Native nations that attacked British forts and settlements in the Great Lakes region after the British cut back on gifts and trade and settlers pushed in.
• Proclamation of 1763: to calm the frontier and avoid more costly wars, Britain banned colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. Colonists, especially land speculators and farmers, resented it and often ignored it.
• A standing army: Britain kept about 10,000 troops in North America, which many colonists distrusted.
• Changing attitudes: colonists gained military experience and felt they had earned the West; many British officers thought colonial soldiers were undisciplined and that colonists were ungrateful.