Great War for Empire
Understanding the "Great War for Empire," otherwise known as the Seven Years' War or the
French and Indian War, and its aftermath will be critical to your understanding of why the
American Revolution began.
The War Expands and the Tide Turns
In 1756 the war began in Europe.
Visit again the Website for the 2006 PBS program The War That Made America and click on the
"Interactive Timeline" and click on 1756.
http://www.thewarthatmadeamerica.org
What you see are British and French troop movements to Fort Oswego in western New York.
When you click on 1757, you zoom in on the Lake Champlain area in New York. In both
western and northern New York, the British suffered devastating defeats by the French
Canadians and their Indian allies while raids on frontier settlements in New York and New
England panicked British colonists. British military defeats from 1755 to 1757 resulted in a
change in government in Great Britain as William Pitt became Prime Minister.
Pitt dedicated himself to British victory. He subsidized his Prussian allies in the war in Europe in
order to dedicate British resources to winning the war in North America. As we know all too
well today with U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, wars are very expensive. Pitt committed
cash and over 20,000 regular British troops to join with colonial forces. The British and BritishAmerican forces defeated the French at Louisbourg and then took Quebec and Montreal.
Pitt not only bought colonial support with his money, but he convinced the powerful Iroquois
Confederacy to ally with the British on the promise that at war's end the British would limit the
colonies' westward expansion across Indian land.
Click on 1758, 1759, and 1760 in the "Interactive Timeline" and read about British military
victories that result in 1760 with Great Britain in control of North America.
By 1760, Britain was war weary and began peace negotiations with France, but the Spanish
restarted the war when the Spanish king talked the French into allying to fight the Brtiish in the
Caribbean. Britain then declared war on Spain in 1762 and drove France from more of its
Caribbean possessions and the Spanish from Havana, Cuba, and captured Manila in the
Philippines from the Spanish. In the remaining years of the war, the conflict shifted away from
North America as the British conquered French possessions in India, Africa, and the Caribbean.
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The War's Results
The Treaty of Paris ended the war in February 1763. Look again at the maps of North America
in 1760 and 1763. All of France's claims have been divided by 1763 between the British and the
Spanish.
France ceded to Britain the territories of Canada, Cape Breton Island (site of Louisbourg), and all
of Louisiana east of the Mississippi (except New Orleans). You read in the "North America in
1763" map that Britain returned to France the Caribbean sugar islands of Guadeloupe and
Martinique. France also retained fishing rights off Newfoundland and received two small islands
off the Newfoundland coast: St. Pierre and Miquelon.
Britain returned control of Manila to Spain and the Spanish assumed French claim to lands west
of the Mississippi. But, for their part in aiding the French, the Spanish ceded Florida to Britain.
Britain and France no longer vied for control of North America as Britain controlled from the
Atlantic to the Mississippi and from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. The Seven Years' War
ended the French-British rivalry that had dominated eastern North America since the 17th
century.
For France's Indian allies, who had not surrendered, they were shocked to learn of the treaty's
land transfer to Britain. In the map of 1763, notice the line labeled "Proclamation Line, 1763."
What was its purpose? Look above at the British promise to its Iroquois allies.
In 1763 would you guess that in just over a decade the effects of this war result in the American
colonists fighting for independence from Britain?
©Susan Vetter 2008, rev. 2011
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