The French and Indian WarJournal Topic:

Make an educated guess and write it down in your journal for the following questions.

1) What nations fought in the French and Indian War?

2) What were the causes of the war?

The French and Indian WarTHE FINAL COLONIAL WAR

The French and Indian War (1754–63) was a conflict between France and Great Britain that resulted in Britain taking over all French lands in North America. It was also the last war fought between European powers in North America before the American Revolution (1775–83; a conflict in which the American colonies gained independence from Great Britain)..

The French & Indian War1754-1763

ALSO KNOWN AS… The Seven Years War

• The French and Indian War, which is the name given to the American theater of a massive conflict involving Austria, England, France, Great Britain, Prussia, and Sweden called the Seven Years War. The conflict was played out in Europe, India, and North America.

Colonial Domination

In Europe, Sweden , Austria, and France were allied to crush the rising power of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia. The English and the French battled for colonial domination in North America, the Caribbean, and in India.

The English did ultimately come to dominate the colonial outposts, but at a cost so staggering that the resulting debt nearly destroyed the English government.

Why did it escalate?

• It was that debt that caused the escalation of tensions leading to the Revolutionary War. Parliament was desperate to obtain two objectives;

• To tax the colonies to recover monies expended on the battle over North America

• To restore the profitability of the East India Company in an effort to recover monies spent on the battle over India.

• During the French and Indian War, American colonists fought with the British army against the French.

• The French and Indian War officially ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1763.

• For Britain, victory meant control of all French lands in Canada and territories east of the Mississippi River except for the city of New Orleans.

• New Orleans was given to Spain, along with French holdings west of the Mississippi;

• Spain had become an ally of France in 1762.

• In exchange for Havana, Cuba,

…Spain turned over Florida to Britain.

• France had once controlled a vast region of North America, now it retained only two small islands off the coast of …

Newfoundland, Canada, and two Caribbean islands, Martinique and Guadeloupe

Colonial resistance to British control took many forms, perhaps

the most effective was the general success of the non-importation agreements. Such agreements appeared as early as 1766. They had a chilling effect on the British Merchants who traded with the colonies. The Stamp Act was repealed, eventually, based on appeals from Merchants who lost money shipping goods to a land that would not receive them.

Not incidentally, the customs offices in the colonies could not collect taxes on goods that were either not allowed ashore at all, or were never sold. Non-importation agreements reached ultimate effect in response to the Townshend Revenue Act, when in 1768 Boston passed an act. Every port city and nearly every region would soon adopt acts like this one. Finally, in 1774, the first Continental Congress of the colonies would pass The Association, a colony-wide prohibition against any trade with Great Britain.

STAMP ACT

• The Stamp Act, sponsored by George Grenville, was the first direct tax imposed by Britain on its

American colonies. To help cover the cost of maintaining troops in the colonies, Parliament

levied a tax on legal and commercial documents as well as printed material such as newspapers

and pamphlets, all of which had to carry a special stamp.  Benjamin Franklin and other

American agents in London offered alternative measures, but conceded the need for revenue

from America.

• The act took effect in November 1765.  Americans, who did not elect members of Parliament, opposed the act because of :

• their inability to pay the tax

• "No taxation without representation."  This measure aroused the grievances of the colonists, and their concerted action in response paved the way for the American Revolution.

TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION !!!

Protest against the Stamp ActThe sign in the background reads:"The Folly of England and the Ruin of America"