Before the Revolution,

There was the French and Indian War

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You can't get around it, the French & Indian War is the reason we all speak English! That's right, the Revolutionary War may not have ever been fought had it not been for a little war fought over the largest rodent in North America, the Beaver.

In the 1740's the French, in North America  (Canada), began to establish a string of forts in the Ohio country west of the Allegheny Mountains. Their reason was to keep beaver fur-trapping and trading activities in the hands of the French and away from land-hungry American colonists.

In the 1740s a group of Virginians received  a huge land grant for lands in the Ohio valley from the King. The Ohio Company was established for the purpose of investing in western lands and for getting into the fur trade. With the French in the same territory, it's no wonder that things were about to heat up!

The setting gets even more tense when it came to the area Native Americans. As a rule, most of the tribes tended to favor the French who enjoyed a reputation for conducting business more fairly than the British. In addition, the French trappers and traders did not threaten to settle the region, (unlike the British colonists), they just wanted to trap some beavers, do some business and move on.

In 1753, George Washington and a small group of men were sent into the conflicted territory by Virginia lieutenant governor Robert Dinwiddie, himself a member of the Ohio Company, as were Washington and his brother Lawrence. The intent was to deliver a letter to French officials telling them to leave! Unfortunately for George, the French refuse to follow Dinwiddie's order.

On his journey, Washington spotted (and wrote down in his report) a great site located where the two rivers, the Allegheny and Monongahela river, came together. This was a great site because it is where the Ohio River is formed ( and is the location of present-day Pittsburgh.) Later, when British officials sent a small force back to the French (since they didn't leave), they used George's site to construct a fort. Right in the middle of their fort-building, a large troop of French Soldiers interrupt their work and chased them away. The French completed the fort and named it Fort Duquesne (Du-cane). Now things are really heating up between the two!

The Battle of Great Meadows

In 1754, Governor Dinwiddie tried, but failed to get any help from other colonies to help get rid of the pesky French who were in their territory. He turned again to George Washington, then 22 years old, and asked him to lead his men back into the territory and try again to expel the French. Washington gladly accepted the job.

On May 28, Washington’s forces surprised a group of French and Indians, shots rang out and in a flash, there were casualties and captives. The colonial forces then quickly constructed the appropriately named Fort Necessity, in the Great Meadows not far from Fort Duquesne.

On July 3, the French forces struck back. After a day-long battle — the first of the French and Indian War — Washington signed terms of surrender and returned with his defeated men to Virginia. The French commander treated his opponents mercifully in the hope of avoiding more fighting but nothing doing...the shots of the French and Indian War had been fired.

While Washington was fighting the French in western Pennsylvania, colonial delegates gathered in Albany in  to prepare for the coming war.

The conflict then proceeded through three phases:

1. Early on the war was just fought in North America and began with Washington's loss at Fort Necessity. Neither side made much headway.  Most of the action was limited to trying to capture the each other's  positions on the frontier.
2. A middle phase began with the declaration of war between France and Britain, and touched off the first true world war (Seven Years’ War). The North American conflict could have stayed between France and England, but friends and foes of each country wanted in on the action, adding fuel to Great Britain and France.

3. The final phase was highlighted by the British decision to concentrate on the North American phase of the war. With the help of lots of money and new military talent the British barely won the war. Just think, if the French had won, we all may be speaking French! Also keep in mind, that the Revolutionary War may not have been fought had it not been for this war. Remember, the taxes imposed on the colonies was to pay off the French and Indian War. All of this fuss over the rights to the trapping of beaver!
    

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