The History Book Club discussion
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FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR
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by William M. Fowler Jr. (no photo)Synopsis:
On May 28, 1754, a group of militia and Indians led by twenty-two-year-old major George Washington surprised a camp of sleeping French soldiers near present-day Pittsburgh. Washington could not have known it, but the brief and deadly exchange of fire that ensued lit the match that, in Horace Walpole's memorable phrase, would "set the world on fire." The resultung French and Indian War in North America became part of the global conflict known as the Seven Years War, fought across Europe, India, and the East and West Indies. Before it ended, nearly one million men had died.
Empires at War captures the sweeping panorama of this first world war, especially in its descriptions of the strategy and intensity of the engagements in North America, many of them epic struggles between armies in the wilderness. William M. Fowler Jr. views the conflict both from British prime minister William Pitt's perspective-- as a vast chessboard, on which William Shirley's campaign in North America and the fortunes of Frederick the Great of Prussia were connected-- and from that of field commanders on the ground in America and Canada, who contended with disease, brutal weather, and scant supplies, frequently having to build the very roads they marched on. As in any conflict, individuals and events stand out: Sir William Johnson, a baronet and a major general of the British forces, who sometimes painted his face and dressed like a warrior when he fought beside his Indian allies; Edward Braddock's doomed march across Pennsylvania; the valiant French defense of Fort Ticonderoga; and the legendary battle for Quebec between armies led by the arisocratic French tactical genius, the marquis de Montcalm, and thegallant, if erratic, young Englishman James Wolfe-- both of whom died on the Plains of Abraham on September 13, 1759.
For many, the French and Indian War has been merely the backdrop for James Fenimore Cooper's famous novel, "The Last of the Mohicans. William M. Fowler Jr.'s engrossing narrative reveals it to have been a turning point of modern history, without which the American Revolution as we know it might well not have occurred.
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by Ruth Sheppard (no photo)Synopsis:
The warfare of the French-Indian War was diverse, ranging from savage warfare in the forests and plains of the North American frontier to city sieges and open battles. The British Army struggled with the terrain and the tactics of the opposing American Indians. As the war progressed, the British Army learned from their allies, initiated reforms and eventually triumphed over the French and Canadians. The implications of this conflict reached across the world, contributing to the outbreak of the Seven Years' War in Europe and on the Indian subcontinent. This highly illustrated book charts the campaigns of the war, detailing the different troops raised and involved, the evolving tactics, the fortresses and battles.
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by Walter R. Borneman (no photo)Synopsis:
In the summer of 1754, deep in the wilderness of western Pennsylvania, a very young George Washington suffered his first military defeat, and a centuries-old feud between Great Britain and France was rekindled. The war that followed would decide the fate of the entire North American continent—not just between Great Britain and France, but for the Spanish and Native Americans as well.
Fought across virgin wilderness, from Nova Scotia to the forks of the Ohio River, the French and Indian War is best remembered for dogged frontier campaigns to capture such strategic linchpins as Forts Ticonderoga, Duquesne, and Niagara; legendary treks by Rogers' Rangers; and the momentous battle of Quebec on the Plains of Abraham. Here are the stories of Jeffery Amherst, the loyal soldier who did his king's bidding at the expense of his home and family; the marquis de Montcalm, Canada's champion who had to fight his own governor as well as the British; and William Pitt, the man who brashly proclaimed that only he could save England. We also encounter George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, William Shirley, Edward Braddock, and, of course, Major Robert Rogers, a legend misunderstood who stands both revered and damned.
Against the backdrop of Fortress Louisbourg in Nova Scotia, the forests surrounding Lake George in upstate New York, the Caribbean, and the fall of Quebec, Borneman poses interesting what-if questions, examining controversies that continue to this day: Did the dashing Brigadier General James Wolfe frantically wave his hat to signal retreat or to urge his troops onward to victory? What if Spain had come to the aid of France sooner? What if the affable Lord Howe had lived?
The French and Indian War: Deciding the Fate of North America presents the triumphs and tragedies of this epic struggle for a continent, placing them in the larger context of France and Great Britain's global conflict—what Samuel Eliot Morison called truly the first world war—and emphasizes that the seeds of discord sown in its aftermath would give root to the American Revolution.
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by Richard J. Berleth (no photo)Synopsis:
In this narrative history of the Mohawk River Valley and surrounding region from 1713 to 1794, Professor Richard Berleth charts the passage of the valley from a fast-growing agrarian region streaming with colonial traffic to a war-ravaged wasteland. The valley's diverse cultural mix of Iroquois Indians, Palatine Germans, Scots-Irish, Dutch, English, and Highland Scots played as much of a role as its unique geography in the cataclysmic events of the 1700sthe French and Indian Wars and the battles of the American Revolution. Patriots eventually wrenched the valley from British interests and the Iroquois nations, but at fearsome cost. When the fighting was over, the valley lay in ruins and as much as two-thirds of its population lay dead or had been displaced. But by not holding this vital inland waterway, the gateway to the West, "the river between the mountains"America might have lost the Revolution, as well as much or all of the then poorly defined province of New York.
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by Fred Anderson (no photo)Synopsis:
In this vivid and compelling narrative, the Seven Years' War, long seen as a mere backdrop to the American Revolution, takes on a whole new significance. Relating the history of the war as it developed, Anderson shows how the complex array of forces brought into conflict helped both to create Britain's empire and to sow the seeds of its eventual dissolution.
Beginning with a skirmish in the Pennsylvania backcountry involving an inexperienced George Washington, the Iroquois chief Tanaghrisson, and the ill-fated French emissary Jumonville, Anderson reveals a chain of events that would lead to world conflagration. Weaving together the military, economic, and political motives of the participants with unforgettable portraits of Washington, William Pitt, Montcalm, and many others, Anderson brings a fresh perspective to one of America's most important wars, demonstrating how the forces unleashed there would irrevocably change the politics of empire in North America.
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by Dan Snow (no photo)Synopsis:
Perched on top of a tall promontory, surrounded on three sides by the treacherous St Lawrence River, Quebec - in 1759 France's capital city in Canada - forms an almost impregnable natural fortress. That year, with the Seven Years War raging around the globe, a force of 49 ships and nearly 9,000 men commanded by the irascible General James Wolfe, navigated the river, scaled the cliffs and laid siege to the town in an audacious attempt to expel the French from North America for ever.
In this magisterial book which ties in to the 250th anniversary of the battle, Dan Snow tells the story of this famous campaign which was to have far-reaching consequences for Britain's rise to global hegemony, and the world at large. Snow brilliantly sets the battle within its global context and tells a gripping tale of brutal war quite unlike those fought in Europe, where terrain, weather and native Indian tribes were as fearsome as any enemy. 'I never served so disagreeable campaign as this,' grumbled one British commander, 'it is war of the worst shape.' 1759 was, without question, a year in which the decisions of men changed the world for ever. Based on original research, and told from all perspectives, this is history - military, political, human - on an epic scale.
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Release date: April 24, 2014
All Canada in the Hands of the British: General Jeffery Amherst and the 1760 Campaign to Conquer New France
by Douglas R Cubbison (no photo)Synopsis:
In 1760, General Jeffery Amherst led the British campaign that captured Montreal and began the end of French colonial rule in North America. All Canada in the Hands of the British is a detailed account of Amherst’s successful military strategy and soldiers’ experiences on both sides.
Newly promoted general Jeffery Amherst took command of British forces in North America in 1759 and soon secured victories at Fort Duquesne, Louisbourg, Quebec, Fort Ticonderoga, and Niagara. In 1760 William Pitt, head of the British government, commanded Amherst to eliminate French rule in Canada. During the ensuing campaign, Amherst confronted French resurgence at Quebec and mounted sieges at Isle aux Noix and Fort Lévis, both of which were made difficult by French strategic placements on nearby islands. As historian Douglas R. Cubbison demonstrates, however, Amherst was well before his time in strategy and tactics, and his forces crushed French resistance.
In this first book-length study of Amherst’s campaign, Cubbison examines the three principal columns that Amherst’s army comprised, only one of which was under his direct command. Cubbison argues that Amherst’s success against the French relied on his employment of command, control, communications, and intelligence. Cubbison also shows how well Brigadier General James Murray’s use of what is today called population-centric counterinsurgency corresponded with Amherst’s strategic oversight and victory.
Using archival materials, archaeological evidence, and the firsthand accounts of junior provincial soldiers, Cubbison takes us from the eighteenth-century antagonisms between the British and French in the New World through the Seven Years’ War, to the final siege and its historic significance for colonial Canada. In one of the most decisive victories of the Seven Years’ War, Amherst was able, after a mere four weeks, to claim all of Canada. All Canada in the Hands of the British will change how military historians and enthusiasts understand the nature of British colonial battle strategy.
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Release date: May 20, 2014
The French and Indian War and the Conquest of New France
by William R. Nester (no photo)Synopsis:
The French and Indian War was the world’s first truly global conflict. When the French lost to the British in 1763, they lost their North American empire along with most of their colonies in the Caribbean, India, and West Africa. In The French and Indian War and the Conquest of New France, the only comprehensive account from the French perspective, William R. Nester explains how and why the French were defeated. He explores the fascinating personalities and epic events that shaped French diplomacy, strategy, and tactics and determined North America’s destiny.
What began in 1754 with a French victory—the defeat at Fort Necessity of a young Lieutenant Colonel George Washington—quickly became a disaster for France. The cost in soldiers, ships, munitions, provisions, and treasure was staggering. France was deeply in debt when the war began, and that debt grew with each year. Further, the country’s inept system of government made defeat all but inevitable. Nester describes missed diplomatic and military opportunities as well as military defeats late in the conflict.
Nester masterfully weaves his narrative of this complicated war with thorough accounts of the military, economic, technological, social, and cultural forces that affected its outcome. Readers learn not only how and why the French lost, but how the problems leading up to that loss in 1763 foreshadowed the French Revolution almost twenty-five years later.
One of the problems at Versailles was the king’s mistress, the powerful Madame de Pompadour, who encouraged Louis XV to become his own prime minister. The bewildering labyrinth of French bureaucracy combined with court intrigue and financial challenges only made it even more difficult for the French to succeed. Ultimately, Nester shows, France lost the war because Versailles failed to provide enough troops and supplies to fend off the English enemy.
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by William R. Nester (no photo)Synopsis:
For more than a century and a half, from 1607 to 1763, Britain and France struggled to master the eastern half of North America. They fought five blood-soaked wars and continuously provoked various Indian tribes to raise arms against each other's subjects for the mastery of the land. The last French and Indian War, from 1754 to 1760, would dwarf all previous conflicts in the number of troops, expense, geographical expanse, and total casualties. Placing the French and Indian War in a broad historical context, this study examines the struggle for North America during the two preceding centuries and includes not only the conflict between France and Britain, but also the parts played by various Indian tribes and the other European powers.
The last French and Indian War makes for colorful reading with its array of inept and daring commanders, epic heroism among the troops, far-flung battles and sieges, and creaking fleets of warships. Ironically, America's most famous founder, George Washington, helped to spark the war, first by trudging through the wilderness in the dead of winter with a message from Virginia Governor Dinwiddie to the French to abandon their forts in the upper Ohio River valley, then a half year later by ordering the war's first shots when his troops ambushed Captain Jumonville, and finally when he ignominiously surrendered his force at Fort Necessity and unwittingly signed a surrender document in French naming himself Jumonville's assassin. Topical chapters discuss the economic, political, social, and military attributes of the participants, and narrative chapters examine the campaigns of the war's first two years.
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by William R. Nester (no photo)Synopsis:
By 1756 the wilderness war for control of North America that erupted two years earlier between France and England had expanded into a global struggle among all of Europe's Great Powers. Its land and sea battles raged across the North American continent, engulfed Europe and India, and stretched from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, Indian, and Pacific waters. The new conflict, now commonly known as the Seven Years' War of 1756-1763, was a direct continuation of the last French and Indian War. This study explores the North American campaigns in relation to events elsewhere in the world, from the ministries of Whitehall and Versailles to the land and sea battles in Europe, Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean.
Few wars have had a more decisive effect on international relations and national development. The French and Indian War resulted in France's expulsion from almost all of the Western Hemisphere, except for some tiny islands in the Caribbean and St. Lawrence. Britain emerged as the world's dominant sea power and would remain so for two centuries. Finally, within a generation or two the vast debts incurred by Whitehall and Versailles in waging this war would help to stimulate revolutions in America and France that would forever change world history.
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by Stephen Brumwell (no photo)Synopsis:
In North America's first major conflict, known today as the French and Indian War, France and England-both in alliance with Native American tribes-fought each other in a series of bloody battles and terrifying raids. No confrontation was more brutal and notorious than the massacre of the British garrison of Fort William Henry--an incident memorably depicted in James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans. That atrocity stoked calls for revenge, and the tough young Major Robert Rogers and his "Rangers" were ordered north into enemy territory to take it. On the morning of October 4, 1759, they surprised the Abenaki Indian village of St. Francis, slaughtering its sleeping inhabitants without mercy. When the raiders returned to safety, they were hailed as heroes by the colonists, and their leader was immortalized as "the brave Major Rogers." But the Abenakis remembered Rogers differently: To them he was Wobomagonda--"White Devil."
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by Ben Hughes (no photo)Synopsis:
Immortalized in The Last of the Mohicans, the true story of a pivotal battle in the British and French war for the North American continent.
The opening years of the French and Indian War were disastrous for the British. In 1755 General Braddock’s troops were routed at the Battle of Monongahela and by the middle of 1756 Fort Oswego on Lake Ontario had fallen. Hindered by quarrelsome provincial councils, incompetent generals, and the redcoats’ inability to adapt to wilderness warfare, Britain was losing the war. In 1757 the 35th Regiment of Foot stepped into the breach. A poorly trained assortment of conscripts, old soldiers, and convicted criminals led by Lieutenant Colonel George Monro, the regiment was destined to take center stage in the most controversial event of the war. Fort William Henry on the southern shore of New York’s Lake George was a key fortification supporting British interests along the frontier with French America. Monro and his regiment occupied the fort in the spring of 1757 while Britain planned its attack on the key French fortress at Louisbourg, Nova Scotia. Learning that most of Britain’s military resources were allocated to Louisbourg, the French launched a campaign along the weakened frontier. French Commander Louis-Joseph de Montcalm and his American Indian allies laid siege to Fort William Henry; Monro could not hold out and was forced to surrender. As part of the terms, the British regiment, colonial militia, and their camp followers would be allowed safe passage to nearby Fort Edward. The French watched in horror, however, as their Indian allies attacked the British column after it left the fort, an episode that sparked outrage and changed the tactics of the war.
Seen through the eyes of participants such as Louis Antoine de Bougainville, a scholarly young aide-de-camp, Jabez Fitch, an amiable Connecticut sergeant, and Kisensik, a proud Nipissing chief whose father once met Louis XIV in the marbled halls of Versailles, The Siege of Fort William Henry: A Year on the Northeastern Frontier uses contemporary newspaper reports, official documents, private letters, and published memoirs to bring the narrative to life. From Indian councils on the banks of the Saint Lawrence River and bustling military camps in northern New York to the narrative’s bloody denouement on the shores of Lake George, the reader is immersed in the colorful, yet brutal world of eighteenth-century northeastern America.
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by John F. Ross (no photo)Synopsis:
Hailed as the father of today’s elite special forces, Robert Rogers was not only a wilderness warrior but North America’s first noteworthy playwright and authentic celebrity. In a riveting biography, John F. Ross reconstructs the extraordinary achievements of this fearless and inspiring leader whose exploits in the early New England wilderness read like those of an action hero and whose innovative principles of unconventional warfare are still used today.
They were a group of handpicked soldiers chosen for their backwoods savvy, courage, and endurance. Led by a young captain whose daring made him a hero on two continents, Rogers’s Rangers earned a deadly fame among their most formidable French and Indian enemies for their ability to appear anywhere at any time, burst out of the forest with overwhelming force, and vanish just as quickly. This swift, elusive, intelligence-gathering strike force was the brainchild of Robert Rogers, a uniquely American kind of war maker capable of motivating a new breed of warrior.
The child of marginalized Scots-Irish immigrants, Robert Rogers learned to survive in New England’s dark and deadly forests, grasping, as did few others, that a new world required new forms of warfare. Marrying European technology to the stealth and adaptability he observed in native warriors, Rogers trained and led an unorthodox unit of green provincials, raw woodsmen, farmers, and Indian scouts on “impossible” missions that are still the stuff of soldiers’ legend. Covering heartbreaking distances behind enemy lines, they traversed the wilderness in whaleboats and snowshoes, slept without fire or sufficient food in below-freezing temperatures, and endured hardships that would destroy ordinary men.
With their novel tactics and fierce esprit de corps, the Rangers laid the groundwork for the colonial strategy later used in the War of Independence. Never have the stakes of a continent hung in the hands of so few men. Rogers would eventually write two seminal books whose vision of a unified continent would influence Thomas Jefferson and inspire the Lewis and Clark expedition.
In War on the Run, John F. Ross vividly re-creates Rogers’s life and his spectacular battles, having traveled over much of Rogers’s campaign country. He presents with breathtaking immediacy and painstaking accuracy a man and an era whose enormous influence on America has been too little appreciated.
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by John R. Maass (no photo)Synopsis:
Though most of the events in the French and Indian War took place hundreds of miles away, North Carolina was not exempt from its impact. As the European forces of France, Spain, Great Britain and their American Indian allies brought war to the New World, the colony mobilized troops, raised money, built forts and participated in several arduous military campaigns. The war had a huge influence on the colony, including a dramatic conflict between the colonial Governor Arthur Dobbs and the colonial legislature over how many troops to raise and how it would be funded. This led to an increasing sense of independence from Britain that would continue to build after the war was over. Join historian and author John R. Maass as he chronicles a significant yet often overlooked North Carolina history.
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by Alan Axelrod (no photo)Synopsis:
Somewhere between chopping down the cherry tree and crossing the Delaware River-a triumph of the will that changed the course of the American Revolution-George Washington had the epiphany that turned him into one of the world’s greatest tacticians and leaders. Alan Axelrod presents a riveting argument that it happened at Great Meadows, a remote western Pennsylvania battlefield where the inexperienced 22-year-old lieutenant colonel from Virginia met a highly skilled French army and suffered a terrible defeat. When it was over, a third of his men lay fallen. Washington walked away, but in a sense left much of himself dead on the field as well, to be reborn as the great man we know as our founding president. His ability to use the experience of defeat to achieve eventual greatness is an inspirational tale that’s retold daily in the stories of the leaders of our own time. Blooding at Great Meadows features not only an exciting and thought-provoking narrative, but examines the significance of Washington’s actual dispatches, along with recent archeological findings from Great Meadows. This was essentially the battle that started the French and Indian Wars. Was it also the battle that "fathered” the father of our country? Fans of Washington and American history will surely want to find out.
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by David A. Clary (no photo)Synopsis:
“I heard the bullets whistle, and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound.” So said the young George Washington, something no veteran soldier would say. He had not been the target of enemy fire. Instead, he was papering over the fact that his men and Indian allies had just massacred a diplomatic party, setting off the French and Indian War of 1754–63. He had violated international law, something else he would not admit. Washington could, after all, tell a lie. That is but one revelation that acclaimed military historian and Washington expert David A. Clary offers in George Washington’s First War. Washington spent his adolescence in military service, starting as a colonel in command at the age of twenty-two. He came from a society without a military tradition, and had no training or battle-wise sergeants to keep him out of trouble. He was a young glory hound thrust into circumstances he was not prepared to handle by elders who should have known better. Leading reluctant amateur soldiers against French professionals, when he took command he was on his own. Accordingly, Washington survived a five-year ordeal unlike that endured by any other Founding Father. He emerged from it not yet the steady supreme commander of the Revolution, but he had started on the road that led him to become the great soldier and statesman of his age.
How he began his life’s journey is what George Washington’s First War is about. It is a dramatic story of frontier warfare played out against the anxieties and resentments of an ambitious adolescent. Here are accounts of harrowing ordeals in the wilderness, the decisive part played by the Indian nations whose continent this was, and the epic clash of empires. Others have looked at Washington’s activities during the French and Indian War without recognizing that he played his part in that history during his painful transition from boy to man. His repeated blunders and defeats arose from his youthful impetuosity and inexperience and weak support from his government. Clary has a sound understanding of eighteenth-century wilderness warfare, and his descriptions of battles are vivid, exciting, and laced with horrifying details. Brought to dramatic life are Washington’s harrowing wintertime journey into the wilderness to order the French to leave the territory, the Jumonville Massacre, his bloody defeat at Fort Necessity, his heroism at the Battle of the Monongahela (Braddock’s Defeat), his years of frustration commanding the Virginia Regiment, the Forbes Expedition of 1758, his insubordination to civil and military superiors, and his resignation from the army.
A revealing portrait of Washington during a crucial, formative period of his life, this is the indispensable backstory to the making of a great man.
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by Thomas E. Crocker (no photo)Synopsis:
n January 1755, Major General Edward Braddock was sent by Great Britain on a mission to drive France once and for all from the New World. Accompanied by the largest armed expeditionary force ever sent to North America, Braddock’s primary target was the Forks of the Ohio, where he planned to seize Fort Duquesne (at present-day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), and then march north into Canada. After landing in Alexandria, Virginia, and organizing his troops and supply chain, Braddock and his expedition began its nearly 250-mile trek, heroically cutting through uncharted wilderness, fording rivers, and scaling the Appalachian mountains, all while hauling baggage and heavy artillery. Braddock was joined on this epic mission by a young Virginia colonel, George Washington, and others who would later play major roles in the American Revolution, including Horatio Gates, Thomas Gage, and Charles Lee; among those driving the expedition’s wagons were Daniel Boone and Daniel Morgan. Having withstood the harsh frontier and finally marching upon Fort Duquesne on a hot July morning, Braddock’s exhausted column was ambushed by a combined French and Indian force. Over two-thirds of Braddock’s British and colonial troops were killed or wounded, including Braddock himself, struck by a bullet in the chest while attempting to rally his disoriented troops. George Washington miraculously escaped harm despite four bullet holes through his clothing. With this battle, North America became the greatest stake in the global war between France and Great Britain.
In Braddock’s March: How the Man Sent to Seize a Continent Changed American History, Thomas E. Crocker tells the riveting story of one of the most important events in colonial America. Not only did Braddock’s expedition have a profound impact on American political and military developments, this fateful march laid the foundation for the “National Pike,” the major road for westward expansion, launched the career of George Washington, and sowed the seeds of dissent between England and its colonies that would ultimately lead to the American Revolution.
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by D. Peter Macleod by D. Peter Macleod (no photo)Synopsis:
Nominated for the J.W. Dafoe Foundation Book Prize, Northern Armageddon presents a new and fascinating interpretation of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, one of the most dramatic and most important events in North American and global history.Featuring never-before-seen quotations and images obtained through extensive research, this "definitive account of the battle" (Canadian Geographic) sees the campaign, battle and siege through the eyes of American, British, Canadian, French and First Nations participants ranging from Major General James Wolfe to a teenage Huron warrior. The final chapters trace the battle's impact on Canada, the U.S., both countries' native peoples and the world.
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Release date: May 15, 2014
George Washington and the Half-King Chief Tanacharison: An Alliance That Began the French and Indian War
by Paul R Misencik (no photo)Synopsis:
George Washington and the Half King Chief Tanacharison is a detailed account of the singular events in western Pennsylvania that precipitated the French and Indian War. In particular, it describes the interpersonal relationship between twenty-two year old, inexperienced, but self-assured George Washington and the fifty-four year old wily Iroquois half-king, Chief Tanacharison, and how their interaction resulted in, as Horace Walpole quipped, Washington firing "a volley in the backwoods of America that set the world on fire." The book explores the history of the French and English rivalry for the trans-Allegheny territory, and its impact on the Indians in the area. It details how Washington and Tanacharison each sought to influence the other to gain support for their respective agendas. Washington wanted the Indians to endorse Virginia's claim to the Ohio territory, while Tanacharison wanted nothing less than a war between England and France so that the Iroquois could maintain their dominance over the Ohio Indians. The book describes in detail the sequence of events through which the crafty half-king manipulated Washington into starting the war he wanted, and by his actions implicated Washington in nothing less than a cold-blooded murder.
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by Douglas R. Cubbison (no photo)Synopsis:
This is the first complete military study of the campaign directed by Brigadier General John Forbes in 1758 to drive the French out of the forks of the Ohio River. The author details the leadership, supply tactics, artillery, training and discipline that led to the campaign's success and its role in American Colonial history.
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by Ian K. Steele (no photo)Synopsis:
On the morning of August 9, 1757, British and colonial officers defending the besieged Fort William Henry surrendered to French forces, accepting the generous "parole of honor" offered by General Montcalm. As the column of British and colonials marched with their families and servants to Fort Edward some miles south, they were set upon by the Indian allies of the French. The resulting "massacre," thought to be one of the bloodiest days of the French and Indian War, became forever ingrained in American myth by James Fenimore Cooper's classic novel The Last of the Mohicans.
In Betrayals, historian Ian K. Steele gives us the true story behind Cooper's famous book, bringing to life men such as British commander of Fort William Henry George Monro, English General Webb, his French counterpart Montcalm, and the wild frontier world of Natty Bumppo. The Battle of Lake George and the building of the fort marked the return of European military involvement in intercolonial wars, producing an explosive mixture of the contending martial values of Indians, colonials, and European regulars. The Americans and British who were attacked after surrendering, as well as French officers and their Indian allies (the latter enraged by the small amount of English booty allowed them by the French), all felt deeply betrayed. Contemporary accounts of the victims--whose identities Steele has carefully reconstructed from newly discovered sources--helped to create a powerful, racist American folk memory that still resonates today. Survivors included men and women who were adopted into Indian tribes, sold to Canadians in a well-established white servant trade, or jailed in Canada or France as prisoners of war.
Explaining the motives for the most notorious massacre of the colonial period, Steele offers a gripping tale of a fledgling America, one which places the tragic events of the Seven Years' War in a fresh historical context. Anyone interested in the fact behind the fiction will find it fascinating reading.
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by Matthew C. Ward (no photo)Synopsis:
Even as the 250th anniversary of its outbreak approaches, the Seven Years' War (otherwise known as the French and Indian War) is still not wholly understood. Most accounts tell the story as a military struggle between British and French forces, with shifting alliances of Indians, culminating in the British conquest of Canada. Scholarly and popular works alike, including James Fennimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans, focus on the action in the Hudson River Valley and the St. Lawrence Seaway. Matthew C. Ward tells the compelling story of the war from the point of view of the region where it actually began, and whose people felt the devastating effects of war most keenly-the backcountry communities of Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Previous wars in North America had been fought largely on the New England and New York frontiers. But on May 28, 1754, when a young George Washington commanded the first shot fired in western Pennsylvania, fighting spread for the first time to Virginia and Pennsylvania. Ward's original research reveals that on the eve of the Seven Years' War the communities of these colonies were isolated, economically weak, and culturally diverse. He shows in riveting detail how, despite the British empire's triumph, the war brought social chaos, sickness, hunger, punishment, and violence, to the backcountry, much of it at the hands of Indian warriors.
Ward's fresh analysis reveals that Indian raids were not random skirmishes, but part of an organized strategy that included psychological warfare designed to make settlers flee Indian territories. It was the awesome effectiveness of this "guerilla” warfare, Ward argues, that led to the most enduring legacies of the war: Indian-hating and an armed population of colonial settlers, distrustful of the British empire that couldn't protect them. Understanding the horrors of the Seven Years' War as experienced in the backwoods thus provides unique insights into the origins of the American republic.
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by Matthew C. Ward (no photo)Synopsis:
The definitive history of the campaigns in Canada between the British and French Empires during the Seven Years War. On September 13, 1759, British and French forces fought one of the most decisive battles of history, on the Plains of Abraham outside the Canadian capital of Quebec. The British force decisively routed the French, seized the city and ultimately all of Canada. Both the French and British commanders fell in the battle, and ever since the pathos and heroism of the encounter have engrossed historians. The struggle for Quebec was far more than one climactic battle. The campaign involved an immense military and naval operation, an 18th-century D-Day, which had begun the year before.
Matthew Ward has researched extensively in archives in Britain and Canada to look at the entire campaign for Quebec, from its inception in Whitehall to its ultimate culmination in Montreal in 1760. He has probed beyond the actions of commanders and generals, to examine the experiences of the campaign for the ordinary soldier and civilian. What emerges is not just a picture of bravery and heroism, but also of a campaign which became increasingly brutal and cruel, both sides resorting to practices such as the routine scalping of enemy dead. It is also a surprising picture of the day-to-day, often mundane, lives of civilians and troops many thousands of miles from home.
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Release date: October 28, 2014
Montcalm and Wolfe: Two Men Who Forever Changed the Course of Canadian History
by Roch Carrier (no photo)Synopsis:
One of Canada's most beloved raconteurs tells the story of Wolfe and Montcalm and the Plains of Abraham.
In September 1759, a small band of British troops led by James Wolfe scaled the tall cliff overlooking a farmer's field owned by Abraham Martin and overpowered the French garrison that protected the area, allowing the bulk of the British army to ascend the cliff behind and attack the French who, led by Louis-Joseph Montcalm, were largely unaware of Wolfe's tactics. The battle that ensued on what would become known as the Plains of Abraham would forever shape the geography and politics of Canada.
Montcalm and Wolfe, written by one of the finest writers this country has ever produced, is the epic story of this battle told through the lives of the two generals, Wolfe and Montcalm. The book is a dual biography of the men and their most famous battle written by a master storyteller. What kind of life did they have before they took up arms? What were the two men really like? And, most importantly, what forces brought the two men to face each other in a battle that forged a nation?
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by Fred Anderson (no photo)Synopsis:
Apart from The Last of the Mohicans most Americans know little of the French and Indian War—also known as the Seven Years’ War—and yet it remains one of the most fascinating periods in our history.
In The War That Made America Anderson deftly shows how the expansion of the British colonies into French territory in the 1750s and the ongoing Native American struggle for survival would erupt into seven years of bloodshed and unrest spreading from the backwoods of Pennsylvania to the high courts of Europe, eventually overturning the balance of power on two continents and laying the groundwork for the American Revolution. Beautifully illustrated, richly detailed, and utterly compelling, this is the story of how America as we know it today emerged from a series of fractured colonies and warring tribes into a nation ripe for independence—and nobody tells this story better than Fred Anderson.
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by Francis Jennings (no photo)Synopsis:
Empire of Fortune focuses on the so-called 'French and Indian War'--the bitter last-ditch struggle between the British and the French empires in the New World. Challenging traditional historians, Francis Jennings reveals in absorbing detail the political and military realities behind the myths.
This riveting, massively documented epic overturns textbook cliches concerning the struggle. Jennings argues that the Indians made every effort to avoid taking up arms; that they were forced into battle by land frauds, assaults and direct interference; that certain generals, far from being gallant heroes, used terror against their own troops and civilians. Here is Thomas Penn, renouncing his father William's Quaker faith and launching conspiracies that fueled fighting; George Washington lying to the Delawares; Ben Franklin supporting expansionism to his own political ends. Colonists' anger at war taxes and conscription sowed the seeds of the American Revolution.
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Release date: July 3, 2015
Braddock's Defeat: The Battle of the Monongahela and the Road to Revolution
by David L Preston (no photo)Synopsis:
On July 9, 1755, British and colonial troops under the command of General Edward Braddock suffered a crushing defeat to French and Native American enemy forces in Ohio Country. Known as the Battle of the Monongahela, the loss altered the trajectory of the Seven Years' War in America, escalating the fighting and shifting the balance of power. An unprecedented rout of a modern and powerful British army by a predominantly Indian force, Monongahela shocked the colonial world--and also planted the first seeds of an independent American consciousness.
The culmination of a failed attempt to capture Fort Duquesne from the French, Braddock's Defeat was a pivotal moment in American and world history. While the defeat is often blamed on blundering and arrogance on the part of General Braddock--who was wounded in battle and died the next day--David Preston's gripping new work argues that such a claim diminishes the victory that Indian and French forces won by their superior discipline and leadership. In fact, the French Canadian officer Captain Beaujeu had greater tactical skill, reconnaissance, and execution, and his Indian allies were the most effective and disciplined troops on the field.
Preston also explores the long shadow cast by Braddock's Defeat over the 18th century and the American Revolution two decades later. The campaign had been an awakening to empire for many British Americans, spawning ideas of American identity and anticipating many of the political and social divisions that would erupt with the outbreak of the Revolution. Braddock's Defeat was the defining generational experience for many British and American officers, including Thomas Gage, Horatio Gates, and perhaps most significantly, George Washington.
A rich battle history driven by a gripping narrative and an abundance of new evidence, Braddock's Defeat presents the fullest account yet of this defining moment in early American history.
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Release date: January 14, 2016
The Struggle for North America, 1754-1758: Britannia's Tarnished Laurels
by George Yagi (no photo)Synopsis:
At the end of 1758, Britons could proudly boast of the numerous victories which had been achieved against the forces of King Louis XV. Although the Seven Years' War, or French and Indian War, was far from over, 1758 marked a significant turning point. Uniquely, this book provides an insight into the initial stages of the Seven Years War, and explains why Britain failed, despite the many advantages which it enjoyed.
George Yagi Jr. employs an immense amount of varied primary material in order to provide the most thorough analysis yet of British failure during the early stages of the Seven Years' War. In doing so, it aims to dispel commonly held misconceptions and prove that the reasons for failure are much more complicated than has been assumed.
Luke Gridleys Diary of 1757: While in Service in the French and Indian War
by Luke Gridley (no photo)Synopsis:
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone.
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by Hugh Boscawen (no photo)Synopsis:
Louisbourg, France's impressive fortress on Cape Breton Island's foggy Atlantic coast, dominated access to the St. Lawrence and colonial New France for forty years in the mid-eighteenth century. In 1755, Great Britain and France stumbled into the French and Indian War, part of what (to Europe) became the Seven Years' War—only for British forces to suffer successive defeats. In 1758, Britain and France, as well as Indian nations caught in the rivalry, fought for high stakes: the future of colonial America.Hugh Boscawen describes how Britain's war minister William Pitt launched four fleets in a coordinated campaign to prevent France from reinforcing Louisbourg. As the author shows, the Royal Navy outfought its opponents before General Jeffery Amherst and Brigadier James Wolfe successfully led 14,000 British regulars, including American-born redcoats, rangers, and carpenters, in a hard-fought assault landing. Together they besieged the fortress, which surrendered after forty-nine days. The victory marked a turning point in British fortunes and precipitated the end of French rule in North America.
Boscawen, an experienced soldier and sailor, and a direct descendant of Admiral the Hon. Edward Boscawen, who commanded the Royal Navy fleet at Louisbourg, examines the pivotal 1758 Louisbourg campaign from both the British and French perspectives. Drawing on myriad primary sources, including previously unpublished correspondence, Boscawen also answers the question "What did the soldiers and sailors who fought there do all day?" The result is the most comprehensive history of this strategically important campaign ever written.
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Release date: March 14, 2017
Backs to the Wall: The Battle of Sainte-Foy and the Conquest of Canada
by D. Peter Macleod (no photo)Synopsis:
The Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759 and the subsequent capitulation of Quebec set the stage for an equally significant French-British engagement in the struggle for northeastern North America, the Battle of Sainte-Foy.
In the spring of 1760, after having suffered a brutal winter, Quebec garrison commander James Murray's troops were vulnerable and reduced to an army of skeletal invalids due to malnutrition and scurvy. Trapped in hostile territory and lacking confidence in the fortifications of Quebec, Murray planned to confront French attackers outside the walls. Instead of waiting at Montreal for the British to attack, Montcalm's successor, François-Gaston de Lévis, returned to the plains for a rematch accompanied by every combatant available--French regulars, Canadian militia and First Peoples warriors. The ensuing Battle of Sainte-Foy was less a battle for territory than a struggle for survival between two equally desperate adversaries. If the British lost the battle, they would lose Quebec. If the French lost the battle, they would very likely lose Canada--both the French and the British had their backs to the wall.
MacLeod presents this historical event in riveting detail, from the preparation and day-by-day actions during the engagement to the compelling siege of Quebec by land and ship. Backs to the Wall is an accessible and engaging account of an important episode in Canadian history
French & Indian Wars in Maine
by Michael Dekker (no photo)Synopsis:
For eight decades, an epic power struggle raged across a frontier that would become Maine. Between 1675 and 1759, British, French and Native Americans clashed in six distinct wars to stake and defend their land claims. Though the showdown between France and Great Britain was international in scale, the decidedly local conflicts in Maine pitted European settlers against Native American tribes. Native and European communities from the Penobscot to the Piscataqua Rivers suffered savage attacks. Countless men, women and children were killed, taken captive or sold into servitude. The native people of Maine were torn asunder by disease, social disintegration and political factionalism as they fought to maintain their autonomy in the face of unrelenting European pressure. This dark, tragic and largely forgotten struggle laid the foundation of Maine.
For those that own a Kindle (and possibly for other e-readers), it is currently on sale for $2.99:French and Indian Wars
by Francis Russell (no photo)Synopsis:
In the colonization of North America, Great Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Sweden each sought a share. By the eighteenth century, only Great Britain and France remained as rivals for the heart of the continent.
Three times, beginning in 1690, warfare arose between New France and New England. Settlements were destroyed, and armies clashed, yet nothing was settled. Each country regarded the Ohio Valley as its own. A small skirmish in 1754 touched off a war that spread to Europe, then to Africa, Asia, and even to islands in the Atlantic and Pacific. The fate of North America hung in the balance. This conflict, the Great War for the Empire, may well be called the first of the world wars.
Here, award-winning historian Francis Russell brings to life the vast panorama that formed the background for this struggle in which the English redcoats fought side by side with American colonists against French soldiers and their Indian allies.
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Release date: October 20, 2020
To Risk It All: General Forbes, the Capture of Fort Duquesne, and the Course of Empire in the Ohio Country
by Michael N. McConnell (no photo)Synopsis:
General John Forbes’s campaign against Fort Duquesne was the largest over-land expedition during the Seven Years’ War in America. While most histories of the time period include the Forbes Campaign as an aside, McConnell documents how and why Forbes and his army succeeded, and what his success meant to the subsequent history of the mid-Atlantic colonies, native inhabitants of the Ohio Country, and the empire he represented.
A close look at the Forbes Campaign and its personnel reveals much about both British relations with native peoples and the nature of Britain’s American empire during a time of stress. Unlike other campaigns, this one was composed largely of colonial—not professional British—troops. In addition, individual colonies negotiated their role in the campaign and frequently placed their own local interests ahead of those of the empire as a whole. The campaign thus suggests the limits of imperial power and how Britain’s hold over its American frontiers was, at best, tenuous and helped lead to an eventual break-down of empire in the 1760s and 1770s.
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John Mix Stanley, artist's impression of how Pontiac may have looked, mid-1800s. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
Pontiac"s Uprising:
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanitie...
Uproar over the Stamp Act
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanitie...
Political cartoon showing a mock funeral procession for the Stamp Act, 1766. Library of Congress
Practice - Prelude to the Revolution
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanitie...
A newspaper posting of the Stamp Act, 1765.
Image credit: [Library of Congress] Link: (http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/british/b...)
Discussion Thoughts and Questions (what do you think?)
1. What does the phrase “no taxation without representation” mean? Is it still relevant today?
2. Explain the theory of virtual representation in your own words. Was it valid?
3. Why did the colonists react so vehemently to the passage of the Stamp Act? How important do you think the Stamp Act was in the eventual outbreak of the American Revolution?
4. Why do you think the outcome of the French and Indian War was significant?
5. How did the British differ from the French in their relations with Native American tribes?
6. Do you sympathize with Pontiac? Was he a hero or a villain?
7. In your opinion, what was the most consequential result of Pontiac’s uprising?
More:
by Fred Anderson (no photo)
by William R. Nester (no photo)
by
Karen Ordahl Kupperman
by Gregory Evans Dowd (no photo)
by C. Richard Middleton (no photo)
by Zachary McLeod (Hutchins (no photo)
by
Edmund S. MorganSource: Khan Academy, Library of Congress, Wikimedia Commons
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Release date: June 1, 2021
Ranger Raid: The Legendary Robert Rogers and His Controversial Frontier Battle in the French and Indian War
by
Phillip Thomas TuckerSynospis:
A figure of legendary, almost mythic proportions, Robert Rogers is widely considered the father of U.S. Army Rangers. He gained his fame during the French and Indian War, fighting in the American and Canadian wilderness for the British colonies against the French and Indians, but a decade later, during the Revolution, he was almost a man without a country. George Washington didn’t trust him—indeed, he had Rogers arrested—nor did the British, who, desperate, gave him a command anyway, and Rogers was pivotal in arresting and executing American spy Nathan Hale. Rogers’ story begins in the French and Indian War.
Ranger Raid digs deep into Rogers’ most controversial battle: the raid on St. Francis in Canada during the French and Indian War. On October 4, 1759, Rogers and 140 Rangers raided the Native American town of St. Francis, Canada, as part of British general Jeffrey Amherst’s plan to gain intelligence in the St. Lawrence region. At the time, and for many decades thereafter, this was seen as a great victory—but now it seems like more of a massacre.
Philip Thomas Tucker refreshes this story, combining the biography of Robert Rogers, the history of his Rangers, and the history of the native peoples in this region, to tell a new story of the St. Francis raid and its influence in the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War, and ever after.
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Release date: July 21, 2022
John Bradstreet's Raid, 1758: A Riverine Operation in the French and Indian War
by Ian Macpherson Mcculloch (no photo)Synopsis:
A year after John Bradstreet’s raid of 1758—the first and largest British-American riverine raid mounted during the Seven Years’ War (known in North America as the French and Indian War)—Benjamin Franklin hailed it as one of the great “American” victories of the war. Bradstreet heartily agreed, and soon enough, his own official account was adopted by Francis Parkman and other early historians.
In this first comprehensive analysis of Bradstreet’s raid, Ian Macpherson McCulloch uses never-before-seen materials and a new interpretive approach to dispel many of the myths that have grown up around the operation. The result is a closely observed, deeply researched revisionist microhistory—the first unvarnished, balanced account of a critical moment in early American military history.
Examined within the context of campaign planning and the friction among commanders in the war’s first three years, the raid looks markedly different than Bradstreet’s heroic portrayal. The operation was carried out principally by American colonial soldiers, and McCulloch lets many of the provincial participants give voice to their own experiences. He consults little-known French documents that give Bradstreet’s opponents’ side of the story, as well as supporting material such as orders of battle, meteorological data, and overviews of captured ships. McCulloch also examines the riverine operational capability that Bradstreet put in place, a new water-borne style of combat that the British-American army would soon successfully deploy in the campaigns of Niagara (1759) and Montreal (1760).
McCulloch’s history is the most detailed, thoroughgoing view of Bradstreet’s raid ever produced.
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by Michael G. Laramie (no photo)Synopsis:
The British campaign to capture Fort Carillon on the Ticonderoga Peninsula in 1758 resulted in the largest battle of the French and Indian War. Crafted by Prime Minister William Pitt, the scope and scale of the British effort was staggering, calling for their northern colonies to raise 20,000 men to rendezvous with the British Regulars at Albany. The directive would test the patience, resources, and will of the colonial governments as well as that of the newly appointed the British commander-in-chief, General James Abercrombie.
For the defenders of New France matters were dire. Reports were arriving that Abercrombie’s numbers were over twice the entire fighting strength of Canada. For the French field commander, the Marquis de Montcalm, there were few options. The Marquis had long opposed defending frontier forts, calling for abandoning these posts at the first sign of threat in order to conserve the colony’s resources. The French Governor disagreed and dispatched Montcalm and his white-coated French regulars with orders to defend Fort Carillon. With his army the only thing that stood between the British and the interior of Canada, there appeared to be a single path before the Marquis. Whether the Governor liked it or not, a rearguard action followed by a retreat down Lake Champlain was the only answer that would leave the army of Canada in position to fight again. Yet, within the span of a few days Montcalm would set these views aside, and suddenly risk both his army and the fate of Canada on a single risky battle.
Based on journals, letters, and accounts of the participants on both sides, The Road to Ticonderoga : The Campaign of 1758 in the Champlain Valley by Michael G. Laramie recounts this unexpected tale of victory and defeat on the North American frontier. Here we learn how the unexpected death of a dynamic leader, George Howe, elder brother of Richard and William, nearly crushed “the soul of General Abercrombie’s army,” leading to misinterpreted orders and hesitation on the part of the British. At the same time, the French commander perilously underestimated the ability of his own forces while overestimating his enemy’s before his fateful and unexpected decision to make his stand at Ticonderoga. With lessons and repercussions for future warfare in North America, The Road to Ticonderoga shows how a series of small mistakes can cascade into a catastrophe under weak leadership—or be exploited by a strong one.
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Release date: October 18, 2024
Robert Rogers, Ranger: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon
by Martin Klotz (no photo)Synopsis:
Robert Rogers, commander of Rogers’ Rangers during the French and Indian War, was the war’s best-known colonial military hero and, in the ensuing peace, one of the best-known Americans of any description, rivaling Benjamin Franklin in popularity. He was revered in the colonies as an example of the self-made man based on merit, in contrast to the hide-bound, hierarchical British military establishment. Yet this American icon ultimately alienated his peers,fought as a loyalist in the Revolutionary War, ruined himself financially, and died in obscurity in London, estranged from the country of his birth. Rogers is known today for his role in developing the mystique of the modern Ranger, but what explains his meteoric rise and his long, depressing fall?
Robert Rogers, Ranger: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon by Martin Klotz is a fresh look at the life of this famous, yet highly flawed man. Rogers undeniably had great personal strengths. He was brave nearly to the point of fearlessness. He was physically robust, always the one to cover the retreat, carry the wounded, or go for help when no one else could carry on. He was an intrepid explorer who wrote with eloquence about the splendors of the American frontier. He was bold and unconventional, good at thinking outside the box. He was an outstanding scout and intelligence gatherer who provided invaluable service to a British army inexperienced in woodland warfare.
At the same time Rogers had enormous weaknesses that undermined his ability to lead effectively. His boldness was never tempered by judgment, and he was prone to grandiose schemes that came to nothing or, worse, to disaster. His constant self-promotion—including embellishing and lying about his battlefield successes—contributed to his popularity but damaged his reputation with peers and superiors. He succumbed to alcoholism and gambling, was profligate, especially with money—his debts were enormous—and routinely skirted the edges of the law. Rogers never found a comfortable place in America. Instead, his aristocratic patrons in London, who knew him mostly from his own self-description, gave him his most valuable opportunities, including commanding an important military and trading center on the colonial frontier and establishing the Queen’s Rangers to fight alongside Crown forces during the Revolution. But when the British cause failed in America, Rogers became an anathema on both sides of the Atlantic.
A fascinating inquiry into an eighteenth-century life, Robert Rogers, Ranger presents this American legend as he lived, crossing the line between fame and misfortune.
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Release date: January 30, 2026
Scalp Hunter: Major Robert Rogers and His Rogue Rangers, 1755 - 1760
by
Alan D. GaffSynopsis:
Major Robert Rogers is an icon in American history, but does not deserve that status. Scalp Hunter provides the first exhaustive examination of Rogers and his Rangers. This is the most complete telling of the wartime Ranger's saga, told by the Rangers themselves, their officers of all ranks, including generals, and it is not a modern interpretation by writers lacking a military background.
Warfare in New York Province during the 1750s was brutal. American editors praised British and Colonial troops, while depicting French and Indian enemies as blood-thirsty barbarians. Robert Rogers would organize a corps of woodsmen whose assignment was to scout the wilderness to frustrate the enemy and provide important intelligence. Rogers and his Rangers quickly descended into cold-blooded savagery, scalping wounded and deceased foes for bounties while killing unarmed prisoners in cold blood. During his famous raid to St Francis in 1759, Major Rogers and his force ruthlessly murdered women and children against specific orders from their commanding general. When Rogers published his heavily-edited Journals in 1765, he intentionally neglected to mention these atrocities.
Scalp Hunter provides the first in-depth account of Rogers and men who served under him, including much new information unavailable previously. Rogers, his Rangers, and soldiers who served beside them relate fresh information in their own words. Over the last 250 years, Major Robert Rogers has become an icon alongside such frontiersmen as Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, Davy Crockett, and Kit Carson. Scalp Hunter will help remove Robert Rogers from that pantheon.
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Release date: August 15, 2025
War on the Turtle's Back: Indigenous Peoples During the Period of the Seven Years War in North America, 1752-1766
by Laurence Burrows (no photo)Synopsis:
War on the Turtle's Back examines all the campaigns fought by Woodland Indians of North America during the period of the Seven Years War (French and Indian War) and beyond from 1752 to 1766. Using contemporary documents and accounts, and recorded oral evidence, research papers and published works by native scholars and others, the book covers the wars from the various viewpoints of Indigenous Peoples putting their motives and military involvement centre stage from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi valley. Indeed, consensual choices made by people of sovereign tribal nations unacceptable to officials of France or Britain were to eventually lead to war between these European powers.
To further understand War on the Turtle's Back gives context background information on daily life, governance, beliefs, dress and the way war was carried out, from the initiation of a war party to it return home. Details of training, organisation, the role of women, campaigning and the actual tactics employed (as opposed to those portrayed in novels, movies and the media) are given.
As well as description of dress fashion at the time contemporary illustrations and photographs help give a guide to the visual appearance of Indigenous Peoples.
The book will particularly appeal to those interested in history generally, military history, the history of colonial America and American Indian history and culture. The book would also be useful to wargamers wanting to simulate indigenous warfare of the period on the tabletop, and to modellers with regard to the clothing and accoutrements.
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The History Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
War on the Turtle's Back: Indigenous Peoples During the Period of the Seven Years War in North America, 1752-1766 (other topics)Scalp Hunter: Major Robert Rogers and His Rogue Rangers, 1755 - 1760 (other topics)
Robert Rogers, Ranger: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon (other topics)
The Road to Ticonderoga: The Campaign of 1758 in the Champlain Valley (other topics)
John Bradstreet's Raid, 1758: A Riverine Operation of the French and Indian War (Volume 74) (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Laurence Burrows (other topics)Alan D. Gaff (other topics)
Martin Klotz (other topics)
Michael G. Laramie (other topics)
Ian Macpherson McCulloch (other topics)
More...
Wars and Battles, 1754-1763 - Prelude to the War for Independence
The early colonial wars between France and Britain were fought primarily in Europe; American events played relatively minor roles. After three rounds, no clear victor had emerged.
Following the third of these conflicts, King George’s War (1740-1748), French authorities in North America began to establish a string of forts in the Ohio country west of the Allegheny Mountains. Their intent was to keep fur-trapping and trading activities in the hands of French citizens and to deny the area to land-hungry American colonists. (See Development of New France.)
In the 1740s a group of Virginians received from the Crown a massive land grant for lands in the Ohio valley. The subsequent Ohio Company was established for the purpose of investing in western lands and, secondarily, for engaging in the fur trade. Understandably, tensions between the contending powers mounted rapidly.
The picture was further complicated by the allegiances of the area’s natives. As a rule, most of the tribes tended to favor the French who enjoyed a reputation for conducting business more fairly than the British. Further, the French trappers and traders did not threaten to inundate the region with settlers, unlike the British colonists.
In 1753, George Washington and a small group of men were dispatched into the disputed 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 of protest to French officials, who summarily refused the request to vacate.
During this journey, Washington noted a strategically located site at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, where the Ohio River is formed and is the location of present-day Pittsburgh. Acting later on Washington’s intelligence report, British officials sent a small force to the area where they began to construct a fort. Their labors were interrupted by a much larger French contingent, which chased off the British and completed the fortification, naming it Fort Duquesne.
Source: United States History
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h608...
Other links:
http://www.answers.com/topic/french-a...