The Seven Years War
Paramount to these changing tides was an encounter involving a young George Washington, who inadvertently started a vitally important conflict in 1754. Not surprisingly, trade relations were a central factor. Although the conflict initially began as a squabble over control of a relatively small corner of the North American continent, it quickly expanded in scope to become what Fred Anderson has suggested was, in a sense, the first world war.20 Given that Europeans prized the warm and luxurious North American beaver above all other pelts, this war became a battle between age-old rivals France and Britain competing for primacy in the lucrative fur trade radiating from the Ohio River Valley. With the French looking to extend their influence beyond their Canadian land holdings, Washington, a surveyor by trade, was chosen as one who could traverse the woods and back roads and deliver a simple “No Trespassing” message to New France. Although rebuffed in his first attempt, he returned a year later to disastrous results. When a French diplomat was brutally killed by Tanaghrisson, a Native American ally from the Iroquois Confederacy and one supposedly under Washington’s command, the young commander soon found himself at the center of a global conflict that had far-reaching implications. For the next seven years, wherever France and England came in contact, be it North America, Europe, Africa or Asia, they would be at war.
It is important to note that the Seven Years’ War, a global conflict, began with the Battle of Fort Duquesne, near present-day Pittsburgh and ended, with Pontiac’s Rebellion, on the outskirts of Detroit. Following a pragmatic diplomacy policy of playing New France against the British crown, the Iroquois Confederacy thrived for the better part of a half century. As Fred Anderson states, “The story of the Anglo--French colonial war begins, therefore, not with Britain or France, nor even with their American colonies, but with the Six Nations of the Iroquois and indeed with a single chief: Tanaghrisson.”21
In this light, the Indians were anything but passive pawns in a larger story; they were the central protagonists in perhaps the most significant conflict the world had yet encountered.
An important outcome of the war was that it damaged British relations both with the Native American populations and equally, if not more so, with their colonists. While not the optimal foundation on which to build a bright future, British incredulity over the colonists’ strong reactions is somewhat understandable. However, as is so often the case, an underlying issue, perceived insults, had long been eroding the colonists feelings of goodwill towards their original home. Stemming from this conflict was a nagging sense for the colonists that somehow their provincial ways were looked down upon by those in the highly stratified British society. According to Gordon S. Wood,
In comparison with prosperous and powerful metropolitan England, America in the
middle of the eighteenth century seemed a primitive, backward place, disordered
and turbulent, without a real aristocracy, without magnificent courts or large urban
centers, indeed, without any of the attributes of the civilized world. Consequently,
the colonists repeatedly felt pressed to apologize for the crudity of their society, the
insignificance of their art and literature, and the triviality of their affairs.22
The attitudes and treatment of the British army during the Seven Years’ War only served to further alienate the colonists. General Edward Braddock, perhaps the epitome of British arrogance, summarily rejected the military and cultural advice of his provincial aides in how to engage an enemy that refused to fight in the Napoleonic style. When Washington urged him to consider that the absence of red in the forest strongly suggested a uniform modification among his troops, Braddock did nothing to hide his contempt for both Indians and provincials. He once said “These savages may, indeed be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia, but upon the king’s regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible to believe they should make any impression.”23 The years of snide comments, sideways glances and repeated slights experienced among the British regulars only served to reinforce what the colonists had feared all along - that although they were British subjects, that did not mean they measured up, and perhaps never could, to the upper reaches of British society to which they aspired. This nagging sense of inadequacy would hound the founding fathers in the post-war years as Britain brought an end to over a century of salutary neglect and exerted greater control over its American colonies. In light of this treatment, the transformation of many colonists into revolutionaries--as Parliament imposed taxes upon them without their consent--becomes much more understandable. Such treatment played right into a long simmering inferiority complex.
British successes early in the war were hard to come by under the enigmatic leadership of Braddock and a host of others. Largely at issue was the British high command’s refusal to recognize that, in the Native American forces, they were facing an enemy like none that they had previously encountered. As noted above, Washington and others tried to convince the high command that a significant change in battle tactics was in order. However, their pleas and proposals fell on deaf ears. Instead, they steadfastly stuck to their tactics and demanded that the enemy react to the tone that they set. And yet, the Indians, and their French allies were only too glad to wait and ambush the British as, in their bright red coats with brass buttons shining and drums beating a cadence, they noisily and colorfully marched through the close confines of the forest.
Despite their early tactical blunders, British fortunes turned for the better with two great victories in 1758. Of course, the Ohio country would be key to their success. At the mouth of the St. Lawrence River sat the French fortress of Louisbourg, from which all navigation into the interior of Canada and the Ohio River Valley was controlled. After a protracted siege by British naval and ground forces, Louisbourg finally fell in July of 1758, clearing the way for British forces to pressure the interior of New France. The pivotal battle came at the French fortifications at Quebec, situated on a lofty perch overlooking the St. Lawrence River. In 1759, General James Wolfe directed a surprise attack on the French forces commanded by General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm. Sailing under the cover of darkness, Wolfe’s troops overpowered the few sentries watching the cliff approaches, and mobilized forces for an attack the next morning. Unlike the hit-and-run guerilla fighting at which the Indian forces excelled, Quebec’s open ground at the Plains of Abraham offered the perfect chess board for Wolfe to direct a strategic campaign to capture the last significant French stronghold. Although mortally wounded as depicted so dramatically in Benjamin West’s masterful painting, Wolfe’s victory was, in many ways, the turning point of the war.24
After the victories at Louisbourg and Quebec, it seemed all that remained was for England and Spain to dictate the terms of capitulation and for France to sign away all its North American holdings with the Treaty of Paris of 1763. Yet, instead of a slow fade to a happy ending, from a Eurocentric perspective, it may be easy to overlook what now seems the next obvious phase of the conflict. It is quite telling that the Seven Years’ War, although fought on nearly every continent, would begin and end in the Ohio River Valley. Because the Indians were and had always been the central protagonists, the French presence receding from the North American continent, certainly did not mean that the Indians accepted this as the end of the line for their fortunes. Although the end of a French presence in North America created the vacuum that eliminated the play-off system so vital to Native America’s control of the continent, this absence also left England solely responsible for managing the lucrative fur trade and forging a lasting peace between the Indians and colonists. With Parliament hastily making policy decisions that affected a land half a world away, this would prove to be a monumental task. In previous dealings with British traders where they had been swindled of both their land and furs, the Indians experienced nothing to give them any hope of better days ahead. So, in the absence of their French allies, the Native Americans turned to full-scale war. Anderson states,
The native peoples of the interior were the first to react negatively to changes
imposed from above. They did it by launching attacks that grew into the most
successful pan-Indian resistance movement in American history...Pontiac’s
Rebellion.25
Instead of a peaceful end to the war, the escalating violence had an astounding effect on stability in the region. The next three years, from 1763 to 1766, saw allied Indian forces sack all but three of the British forts west of the Appalachians. Across the backcountry of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, more than 2,000 colonists perished.26
It was a matter of considerable pride that all British subjects, no matter where they might reside, could sleep safely in their beds. Therefore when word reached London of the latest mayhem occurring at the hands of the Native Americans, they understandably sought to bring about an expedient end to the hostilities by returning to the diplomacy that had so fragily held Native American relations intact. In response to General Thomas Gage re-instituting the granting of gifts and accommodations, the Indians gave control of the forts back to the British yet not without the following admonition from Chief Pontiac,
We tell you now [that] the French never conquered us, neither did they purchase a
foot of our Country, nor have they a right to give it to you. We gave them liberty to
settle for which they always rewarded us & treated us with great Civility…[I]f you
expect to keep these Posts, we will expect to have proper returns from you.27
In their rush to respond to the violence of Pontiac’s Rebellion, the British instituted policies that were not only less than equitable for all parties involved, but incredibly short-sighted as well. Many British policy makers presumed that only a standing army could guarantee a lasting peace in this remote yet troublesome corner of their empire.28
Ill-judged measures continued to pour forth from London, leading to colonial frustration in the short-term, and rebellion in the long run. Those in Parliament, far removed from the colonies, failed to grasp the intricate political web that had developed so far from their legislative reach. Therefore, a likely supposition was that, if the cause of all this violence was the Ohio River Valley, then a land grant would quell the ill will and restore order. Paul Johnson notes that the Royal Proclamation of 1763 which forbade Americans to settle past the Appalachians,
...was anathema to the colonies -- it destroyed their future, at a stroke...The
Proclamation was one of Britain’s cardinal errors, just at the moment when the
expulsion of the French had entirely removed American dependence on British
military power, and any conceivable obstacle to the expansion of the boundless
lands of the interior, the men in London were proposing to replace the French by
the Indians and deny the colonies access. It made no sense, and it looked like a
deliberate insult to American sensibilities.29
To the colonist mindset, Parliament’s decision to return the Ohio country to the Indians--the land for which they had just spent seven years fighting, and the enemy whom in their minds they had just defeated--was absurdly insulting. However, few could foresee that with these fiscal and military policies, the seeds of revolution had been sown.
Comments: