The French and Indian War began with a small skirmish in western Pennsylvania in 1754 and grew into a global conflict. This episode follows young George Washington from his first military mission to his near-death at Braddock's defeat, and traces how Britain's victory left it with a national debt so staggering that Parliament turned to the colonies for revenue, planting the seeds of the American Revolution.

Key Takeaways

• George Washington was just 21 years old when he delivered an ultimatum to the French at Fort Le Boeuf in 1753, and 22 when his sneak attack on a French detachment helped start the wider war.

• Washington had two horses shot from under him and four bullet holes in his coat at Braddock's defeat on July 9, 1755, but was unharmed, an event that made him a legend in the colonies.

• Britain won Canada and the eastern Mississippi Valley but nearly doubled its national debt in the process.

• The war was part of the Seven Years War, which spanned five continents and involved most of the major European powers.

• Parliament's plan to have the American colonies help pay down the war debt directly led to the Stamp Act of 1765 and the opening of the revolutionary crisis.

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FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: Why is it called the French and Indian War?

The name reflects the two main adversaries the British colonists faced: the French military and the native tribes allied with France. From the British colonial perspective, they were fighting against a French-native alliance. In Europe, the same conflict is known as the Seven Years War, which more accurately reflects its global scope, as it involved most major European powers and was fought on five continents.

Q2: What role did George Washington play in starting the French and Indian War?

Washington's involvement was central to the war's beginning. He delivered the British ultimatum to the French in 1753, led the 1754 sneak attack on a French detachment that killed their commander, and commanded Fort Necessity when it fell. His early military actions helped escalate a territorial dispute into a full-scale colonial and then global conflict. He was 22 years old when the fort fell.

Q3: What was Braddock's defeat and why did it matter?

On July 9, 1755, General Edward Braddock led about 1,400 British and colonial troops toward Fort Duquesne. French forces and their native allies ambushed them in wooded terrain where British-style linear tactics were ineffective. Braddock was mortally wounded and the force was routed. Washington, who served as Braddock's aide, helped organize the retreat and emerged from the battle with a legendary reputation after having two horses shot under him and surviving four bullet holes in his coat.

Q4: How did the French and Indian War lead to the American Revolution?

Britain won the war but at enormous financial cost, nearly doubling its national debt. To service that debt and pay for the troops needed to manage its expanded North American empire, Parliament began taxing the colonies. The Proclamation Line of 1763, the Sugar Act of 1764, and the Stamp Act of 1765 were all products of this fiscal crisis. Colonial resistance to these measures, especially the Stamp Act, produced the political arguments and organizations that became the revolutionary movement.

Q5: Who were France's native allies in the French and Indian War?

France had cultivated alliances with many native nations over decades of fur trading, including the Algonquin, Ojibwe, Ottawa, and many others who had longstanding trade and diplomatic relationships with the French. The Iroquois Confederacy initially tried to stay neutral but eventually shifted toward the British. Native involvement was decisive in the war's early years, particularly in engagements like Braddock's defeat.

A Skirmish in Pennsylvania Ignites a World War

The French and Indian War began on May 28th, 1754, with a skirmish in a remote area of western Pennsylvania. The battle helped ignite the Seven Years' War, which spanned five continents. In the American colonies, it launched the military career of young George Washington. By the end of the war, Britain's national debt had nearly doubled. The cost of maintaining her expanded empire was now rising. Somebody had to pay. Parliament's eyes turned toward the American colonies. Thirteen years later, an older George Washington and his fellow colonists would return the look and say no.

Ever since the Norman invasion in 1066, France and Great Britain had warred with each other repeatedly. They had so far avoided conflict in North America. Then in the 1750s, things changed. About 60,000 settlers occupied French territory on the continent. By contrast, there were over 1 million settlers in the British colonies. Competing claims to the upper Ohio River Valley began to raise tensions. The French prized the area for the fur trade. A key strategic area for control was the forks where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers meet to form the Ohio River. By this point all 13 of the British colonies were established, the result of more than a century of settlement we cover from Jamestown's founding forward.

Washington's First Command

As English colonists ventured into the Ohio River Valley, the French responded by building forts from Lake Erie down to the forks, where Fort Duquesne was established. Under orders from the British government to protect His Majesty's possessions in North America, Virginia's royal governor, Robert Dinwiddie, sent an emissary to the French with a message: withdraw from the Ohio River Valley or face British military action. His representative was a 21-year-old major in Virginia's provincial militia, George Washington. In December 1753, Washington delivered Dinwiddie's ultimatum to the French at Fort Le Boeuf, 15 miles east of Lake Erie in present-day Waterford, Pennsylvania. The French rejected it. In May of 1754, with 40 men, a combination of Virginians and Iroquois warriors, Washington pulled off a sneak attack on a force of about 30 French soldiers hiding in a forested glen.

Among those killed was Joseph Coulon de Jumonville, the French envoy for whom the battle was later named. About eight miles away, Washington and his men built Fort Necessity. In July, it was attacked. Washington and his men were roundly defeated by a significantly larger French force led by Captain Louis Coulon de Villiers, Jumonville's half-brother. The crushing debt Britain emerged from this war with would soon push Parliament toward the taxes that ignited revolution, as we cover in our episode on the Stamp Act crisis.

The War Expands Across the Globe

The British persisted. General Edward Braddock led a march from Alexandria, Virginia to the Forks. In July 1755, his troops suffered defeat at the Battle of the Monongahela. Braddock was fatally wounded. Before he died, he bequeathed his officer's sash to aide-de-camp George Washington.

Only in May of 1756, after two years of skirmishes, was war officially declared between Britain and France. The conflict, more broadly known as the Seven Years' War, extended across Europe, colonial America, India, the Philippines, Africa, the Caribbean, and South America. In the North American theater, the French and Indian War engaged a wide range of native tribes. The Algonquian-speaking people largely supported the French, as did the Huron and Wyandot tribes. The Iroquois Confederacy, comprising the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora, sided with the British.

British Victory and a Mounting Debt

In August 1757, the French defeated the British at Fort William Henry. On July 25th, 1758, the British earned a much-needed win at Louisbourg, the easternmost point of conflict in the American theater. One month later, the French surrendered Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario. That loss destroyed the French forces' ability to communicate with their troops across the Ohio River Valley. On November 25th, the British captured Fort Duquesne, or what remained of it, as the French had burned most of it before retreating. They built Fort Pitt nearby, named for British Prime Minister William Pitt.

Today, the outline of Fort Duquesne can be seen in downtown Pittsburgh, also named after Pitt. Between June 1759 and September 1760, British forces won battles at Fort Ticonderoga, Fort Niagara, Quebec, and Montreal. In the Battle of Quebec, British General James Wolfe was shot three times. Before he died, news came that the French were retreating. "Now, God be praised," he said. "I will die in peace." The Treaty of Paris concluding the Seven Years' War was signed in 1763. Britain's national debt rose from 74 million to 133 million pounds, over 32 billion in current value. The British Parliament thought it was high time to tax the American colonies. The colonists would have something to say about that. The young Virginia officer at the center of this war would go on to become America's first president, a story we tell in our episode on Washington as America's Cincinnatus.