6a Colonial Government and the Road to Revolution Colonial Wars Part I

0:03 okay welcome back this week's the theme of this week is colonial government and the road to revolution and will be start starting by looking at colonial wars the big theme is how these wars and new British policies in the long term led to the American Revolution so colonial wars so for most of the 17th century the monarchs of England and France placed European politics above colonial considerations and England and France were reluctant to become involved in Wars about the colonies the 18th century is different the 18th century

0:50 led to a new era of colonial wars between Britain and France and others but primarily Britain and France and these colonial wars extended Britain's American Empire by a lot and also led to effort to control the colonial governments or directly and more efficiency efficiently the major war would be the French and Indian War also known as the Seven Years War between Britain and France but this would be preceded by a series of smaller Wars so between 1689 and 1763 the British waged four major wars against the French the countries were fighting for

1:35 predominance in Europe for mastery of the American colonies and control of the fishing and fur trades particularly the fishing banks here and the fur trade in New York and around the Great Lake these Wars these colonial wars would come in two cycles there would be a series of indecisive smaller Wars in the late 17th century so in the late 1600s this first round of wars the words were indecisive they didn't really solve much and they were really more a sideshow to wars fought primarily in Europe however in the second round of wars the colonial aspect of these Wars was much more critical and after this war the

2:23 Seven Years War or the French and Indian War the colonies would assume a newfound military importance to the British the ultimate imperial conflict was the French and Indian War in which the British would deeply expand their empire throughout North North America and effectively conquering much of France's new world empire as we will see so before we get into the details let's look into the big picture results so as a result of these colonial wars England would acquire French Canada New France and also the territory between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River so Britain's resounding success in

3:09 seizing control of French Canada and the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains would have important political and economic effects on the American colonies one at one effect is with Indian relations British success threaten the stability of the Indian peoples of the Interior traditionally Native American tribes depended on the presence of both the French and the English because the made of American peoples used a strategy of playing off the rival empires playing them off of one another to maintain their own autonomy their independence and use the European powers organs against their own enemies so this is basically the idea of

3:55 your enemy's enemy is your friend the Native American tribes sort of played England and France off of each other to maintain their independence but after France is gone it changes deprive the French counterweight that counterweight the Indians lost autonomy independence and as the British pushed deep into the Condit continent Indians were pushed aside their lands were transformed into farms and towns so this is obviously a bad thing for the stability of the Indian peoples of the interiors equally important the British victories in the colonial wars led to strained relations tense relations between Great Britain and the colonies and in the long run

4:42 changed colonial allegiance to the British Empire for the very long for a very long time the British pursued a politic a policy of quote/unquote salutary neglect which is something we'll come back to and basically left the colonies alone to develop on their own with more independence and self-government than this strict legal situation actually provided for so um once for once again for a very long time the British pursued a policy of quote/unquote salutary neglect salutary means good benign the colonies were neglected they were left alone they developed on their own and came to have a lot more independence and

5:28 self-government than they really should us from the perspective of colonial self-government this is a development that was actually good ie salutary as it allowed the American colonies to deepen their preference for self-government and liberty and democracy insofar as we can call a slaveholding society democratic but it allowed Americans to develop this preference for self-government and Liberty even more than the liberties traditionally enjoyed by Englishmen but after as we'll see in the French and Indian War the British would make an unprecedented expenditure of money military resources and lives and given this investment they were not about to

6:15 continue with their old policy of salutary neglect after these wars during the 1760s Parliament worked to tighten British management of this newly large Empire all of this area and now Canada and they wanted to tighten the management have more direct control of this Empire that seemed to be beyond their control Parliament believed that the Empire was to reach weak the colonies lacked unity this made the colonies dangerous liable to foreign invasion there was nothing promoting colonial cooperation and nothing providing for intercolonial inter colonial military

7:01 defense the in addition most British faulted politicians felt that the colonists were far too independent far too insubordinate so basically after these wars that the British would tighten enforcement of existing trade laws like the navigation Act they would maintain a permanent garrison permanent troops permanent stationing of the British Army in British North America and they would also impose a new series

7:47 of taxes to pay for this more direct control and increased military president's presence this shift in imperial policy was a departure from this traditional policy of salutary neglect the colonies were sort of left on their own and eventually in the long run galvanized colonial leaders and to recognize and defending their autonomy their independence and defending their distinctive tradition of self-government which was particularly strong in Puritan New England so as an indirect result of the colonial wars by 1775 the tide had turned against the British and a majority of the colonial elite felt confident and ready to defy the king and British Empire okay so that's

8:35 the big picture that's what we'll be getting into this whole week and now we need to look in on the colonial wars that trigger these new policies okay so we're gonna be looking at Wars primarily between France and Britain and their colonies okay here's the background so French Canada a French the French new vampire was called new France French Canada and British America had coexisted relatively peacefully for a long time but had very different paths of development so French Canada was very sparsely settled it was mostly along the st. Lawrence River River Way and totaled at the late 17th

9:24 century about 50 55,000 settlers not very many sparse settlement and it tended to be single men fur traders adventurers not families not necessarily families Canada's government was not democratic but autocratic and reflected the Royal absolutism they had at home Canada was ruled by a royally appointed governor and did not enjoy the same tradition of representative assemblies self-government as the British common colonies of course it was predominantly Roman Catholic whereas the most of the American colonies are some variation of Protestant Puritan etc so England and

10:11 France you should know our longtime enemies in rivals in Europe this dates back to the Hundred Years War even before in the Middle Ages - too complex to go into here but um England and France were longtime enemies and rivals in Europe and in America they battled not only for Empire and territory but some more practical questions of controlling the fishing trade in the North Atlantic and rivalry over trading alliances with Indians with the fur trade in New York and around the Great Lakes area so let's look as I mentioned to you there was two rounds of colonial wars two rounds of colonial wars phase

11:00 one occurred in the late 17th century and early century let me make some generalizations so we can characterize the first round of colonial wars as followed as follows some sort of five basic characteristics the wars were indecisive um no big question of who had the biggest new world empire the words were indecisive didn't really solve the problem second they resulted in no territorial shifts or marginal territorial shifts so little land changed hands three the wars demonstrated a complex and shifting set

11:46 of alliances with the Indians Native American allies so Native American alliances number three number four the these wars would reveal a complete lack of American unity willingness to cooperate which was a big disadvantage in times of war and number five these colonial wars were really a sideshow to cop to combat and conflict in Europe so that is to say these colonial wars were really European wars that were based in European political issues that sort of spilled over to the colonies so the conflict in combat in America was only a sideshow to the main conflict in Europe okay so there are three boards and

12:33 they're covered in your text you can read them I'm gonna be brief but try to explain at least the main issues okay so the first war in Europe was called the war of the League of Augsburg but in the colonies we call it King William's war okay a king william's war in North America the war was waged over control of the Grand Banks and the fur trade in New York and around the Great Lakes so let me just show you on the map map the Grand Banks the Grand Banks was a rich fishing area off of the coast of Newfoundland and the North Atlantic so it's this rich fishing area that both England

13:18 friends want to control but king william's war was a war mostly wage in Europe due to internal political concerns okay um just as a caveat right you don't need to understand the European aspect of the war but I'm just gonna give you a little information so you can see what it's generally about but again you're not accountable for that what is important is that for a variety of commercial and political reasons England resumed its long-standing rivalry with France and joined with a coalition of European powers in the war of the League of Augsburg in the colonies it was called King William's

14:03 war so this was a war that was fought between France versus a number of other European powers so France versus England Holland Spain Austria Sweden a group of German states it was mostly most of Europe was allied against transfer basically the war was an effort by a coalition of European rulers to stop the territorial ambitions of louis xiv the Sun King the monarch of France who had already greatly expanded the borders of France and it was an effort to stop his threatened expansion

14:50 into Germany across the French German border so I'm not going to go into a lot of details on the European aspect of the war but it was basically France versus this grand coalition of other European powers Paulin Spain Austria Sweden the German states in England it is definitely worth mentioning at least that this coincided with the Glorious Revolution in England so the rulers of England at the time or William and Mary William of Orange and his spouse Mary William and Mary who came to power in the so-called Glorious Revolution the Glorious Revolution was a peaceful bloodless revolution in 1688 in which

15:38 the last Stuart monarch James the second the Duke of York for whom New York was names the Glorious Revolution was a peaceful bloodless revolution in which the last Stuart monarch was overthrown if you remember it had been the Stuart King Charles the first who was executed in the English Civil War so the Glorious Revolution was a peaceful bloodless revolution in which james ii was peacefully overthrown and replaced with his cousin William and his wife Mary without going into a lot of details it is significant because William agreed to rule as a constitutional monarch he would not rule as an absolute monarch but a constitutional monarch and this is

16:25 important because of the American political culture this is what the Americans are building on so the Glorious Revolution of 1688 was the continuation of the English Civil War and basically confirmed the trend already in place the power of the monarch would be permanently checked he would be a constitutional monarch and the monarch the king would have to rule in cooperation with Parliament Parliament had effective power over taxation and now with the Glorious Revolution they were really assuming control over lawmaking they became a legislative body so we talked about this before back in the earlier lecture remember Parliament began as an advisory

17:11 body just advising the king not a legislative body this glorious revolution sort of seals their position as a lawmaking body I'm going into this because this is the political culture that the Americans are looking to and build upon okay in Kings William or in Kings William in King William's more most of the fighting took place in Europe but fighting between England and France also spilled over into America okay for instance Massachusetts colonial troops captured the French fort of Port Royal in Nova Scotia they captured Port

17:56 Royal in Nova Scotia but they later have to return it the French captured English Trading Post in the Hudson Valley the other aspects of the war are to a tedious - to mention here but there's definitely conflict over controlling the fur trade with the Indians the aerocart in New York it is worth mentioning the war did witness attempts at American unity they were largely unsuccessful the destruction of territory in New York such as the settlement of Schenectady the destruction of territory in New York

18:42 led to the calling of an Intercontinental Congress the first such Intercontinental colonial meeting in 1690 it was called in 1690 by Jacob leisler spelled le ISL er in 1690 Liza was a german-born immigrant to New York he became very wealthy and the tobacco and fur trade he lived in New York City and was governor of New York at the at the time of the war so he called this Congress in this Congress representatives of New York Massachusetts kinetic Connecticut all attended the Congress other state other colonies like Rhode Island Maryland and

19:29 Virginia promised to attend but actually did not deliver their support the Congress commissioned a fleet to attack Canada by land and sea and actually had a fleet of ships set off towards Quebec Quebec trying to capture it and they failed to capture it and they also dispatched and land the army forces to try to conquer Canada but they disbanded shortly after reading late Lake Champlain so the the the attack commissioned by this Congress was largely unsuccessful okay so we're being deliberately briefed

20:17 on these Wars so although the English did make some gains in New France for instance they captured Port Royal in Nova Scotia there were no territorial gains made in the long run per se the terms of the treaty the Treaty of what rice WIC it was agreed that all territories acquired in the war should be returned to the original owners so like I said no territorial gain you guys aren't not responsible for the names of these treaties but should have a general sense of these wars didn't really accomplish months okay this would lead to another of war Queen Anne's war when King William's war

21:03 ended it was still not decided which nation was to control the Grand Banks fishing area or control the fur trade another opportunity rose with the war of the Spanish Succession again the war had much to do with European politics the war was precipitated the war was caused by the attempt of louis xiv to place his grandson on the throne of Spain this was something that was opposed by many of the leading powers of Europe England

21:50 Holland and Austria were fearful about this union of France and Spain and the idea that the family of Lou the 14th Bourbons would be ruling both France and Spain countries that are geographically next to each other and clearly this would upset the balance of power in Europe and America so this grand coalition declared war on on France and Spain again I don't expect you to understand the European roots of the war but I'm just mentioning it like I said the colonial war is really a sideshow to the conflict in Europe the main battles took place in Europe but

22:35 fighting also took place in the New World so I will now say that France now moved to occupy and solidify its claims over the Mississippi Valley so I'm discussing the American aspects of the war let's go to the map here okay you can ignore this for the time being France now move to occupy and so to solidify its claims over the Mississippi Valley and the territory that they called Louisiana the territory in the West around the Mississippi River France

23:21 strengthened its position by building forts that encircled the English Western settlements they built forts at what is now Detroit kokia present-day st. st. Louis also at the Gulf Coast at various locations and also here next to Lake Huron what actually happened in the British colonies in this queen Ian's war raids by French and their Native American allies attacked Maine and Massachusetts and this did result in a

24:07 great loss of life the most severe blows came at Deerfield Massachusetts where 38 settlers were killed and 100 were captured now by the way there were new cases of witchcraft that a that supposedly occurred after these Indian raids and I actually mentioned this to you in the earlier lectures some scholars have interpreted these cases of witchcraft that surfaced among the young women who survived the combat and the Indian raids as a way of dealing with the trauma of this warfare and seeing their family die but in any case after these raids by the French and Native

24:53 Americans the New Englanders fought back they once again captured the French outpost of Port Royal in Nova Scotia the war the war also played out in the Caribbean in the West Indies in the West Indies England conquered Saint Christopher and nevus so Queen Anne's war once again between England and France did actually result in territorial shifts England now acquired as a result of the war England now acquired Newfoundland England acquired Newfoundland Acadia which was renamed as

25:39 Nova Scotia and also claimed much of the Hudson Bay area from the French by virtue of the fact that Spain had also fought with France in the war and had also lost the war England would be granted the asiento or right to supply slaves as traders to the Spanish colonies in America so again the big picture is that Queen Anne's war did actually result in territorial shifts and England acquired Newfoundland acadia and claimed the hudson bay area from the french after queen anne's more for about 25 years

26:25 England and France remained at peace because the French had sort of been thwarted and seated on the eastern seaboard right looking at the map they had lost nova scotia I'm sorry they had lost Acadia Newfoundland they worked to consolidate their hold on the West so the French worked to consolidate their hold on Louisiana by establishing new forts and settlement sorry back to the map they strengthened a chain of forts down the Mississippi River they built New Orleans at the mouth of

27:10 the Mississippi in 1718 and in addition to the forts that I already mentioned French troops also built up Lewisburg on Cape Breton Island at the mouth of the st. Lawrence River Louie Berg a start sorry Louie Louie berg was a fortified seaport town built on Cape Breton Island in the Gulf of st. Lawrence the French design Louisbourg to defend their long supply line down the st. Lawrence River River the whole way to Quebec and to protect the lucrative French Fisheries

27:57 in the Atlantic and in the Gulf of st. Lawrence before it was begun in 1718 and the construction of the fort cost a fortune it cost actually about four times the military budget for all of New France it was surrounded by massive stone walls and had it was stocked with many many meaning Cannon and was garrisoned by 1500 soldiers so 1500 soldiers were stationed there it was the biggest most formidable American fortress north of Cuba and was home to 4200 colonists which was even more than Quebec the largest town in New France so the main

28:42 way that the French solidified their claims to New France was through building these the sports like I mentioned to you French settlement was always sparse there wasn't a big population it was mostly men fur traders not families the English the English solidified their claims to Western lands through different ways through an influx of thousands of settlers pouring over the Appalachians into the Western land so the French did so through these military forts but the English did so more through a model of families from the original colonies settling these border lands however the second war Queen

29:31 Anne's war did not settle the question of who would really control the new world so once again war between England and France would break out again the period of peace came to an end in 1739 with the outbreak of a third war called King George's War once again between England England and France and I'm going to just pause the slide for about 30 seconds and allow you to copy down this information here before I go on so let me give you 30 seconds

30:26 okay so going on King George's War was the last war before the French and Indian War and again the war in the colonies was caused by events in Europe ha steadily hostilities were caused between Great Britain and France and Spain due to several things there were tensions between Great Britain and Spain due to England's recent founding of Georgia remember remember Georgia was founded as a military outpost to challenge the Spanish Empire and the other tension that that surfaces between

31:15 the British and Spanish was due to the way that British merchants illegally traded and smuggled goods with Spanish merchants so the war was between England and France and Spain and other countries like Prussia PR stands for Prussia but suffice it to say that France and Spain were allies they're pulled in together so a complicated series of dynastic events in Europe I'm not going to go into the details the coming to power of the new Empress in Austria hence its name as the War of the Austrian succession led led France and Prussia to

32:02 join Spain and this led Austria to ally with England against France and Spain so once again I'm not gonna really go into the European aspect of the war but suffice it to say that that this was the Alliance's Austrian England versus France Prussia the biggest German state and Spain what's important is how it played out in the colonies in it would involve this the sport of Louie Berg so in 1944 after learning of this war between France and Great Britain in Europe the French commander of Louisbourg attacked

32:48 the fishing stations of British Nova Scotia and illegally seized British ships the colonists of the British colonies fought back the ambitious royal governor of Massachusetts William Shirley seized the opportunity to win colonial popularity and British respect by organizing a big counter of attack so during this war the governor of Massachusetts William Shirley organized a huge volunteer expedition to seize Louisbourg and I mentioned this before this fort Louie

33:36 Berg was a point of great national and symbolic pride and it was also a point of real military powers like the biggest military fort north of Spanish America so this expedition was made up of 4,000 New Englanders commanded by a Massachusetts man named William pepper now and was assisted by a British naval squadron but the the expedition was really consisting of Massachusetts volunteers as compared to what came before after so many failures and stalemates in these wars against New France right the upshot of all of this is that not much happened after so many failures and stalemates

34:21 in the war against New France the expedition sent by William Shirley does capture Lewisburg so the capture of this French fort is LOUIE LOUIE burg thrilled the New Englanders who felt a sense of pride and importance to the British so the most glorious English victory in this in this King George's War came with the capture of the fortress of Louisbourg it's captured in 1745 now however by the end of the war again the war plays out in the colonies and in Europe it then came as a terrible shock to the New England colonists that the fort of Louisbourg became a bargaining

35:07 chip in the 1748 peace negotiations so that is to say the colonial Volunteers of Massachusetts had seized this fort and won this territory through their own blood and toil but by virtue of the peace treaty that ended the war the Treaty of Accession Pail England and France agreed to return all conquest made during the war rightly so New Englanders felt that they had been cheated that they had been cheated out of their sacrifices and that basically this fort became a bargaining chip on the peace table in returns for questionable benefits in other parts of the world so Percy the peace treaty the English restored Louisbourg to France they gave it back to France in exchange for French withdrawal from territory in

35:55 other parts of the world like England and France Flanders the point is that the war was very unpopular the peace treaty was very unpopular with the British New England colonists and even English politicians so the war ended as a bloody stalemate without any real colonial gains for the British the peace treaty was widely unpopular both in the colonies and in Britain in Britain opposition politicians denounced the weakness of the treaty and the return of Louisbourg and hammered the administration responsible for it for neglecting the colonies wounded by the criticism of the British government

36:41 resolved to pay closer attention to events in America in the next war with France not just sort of gamble American gains away for gains elsewhere and to keep any gains made there so um just a note before we go on I realize that the details of some of these wars are tedious you don't need to know every detail but let me go back to the main points that I made about these wars in the beginning this is really what you need to take away so there were two series of wars with England and France this is the first series and the wars were indecisive they didn't really solve much the territorial shifts were marginal or non-existent so like you know the English took Port Royal they had to give it back they took Louie Berg they had to get it

37:27 back they did reveal a lack of American unity and combat in America was a sideshow to conflict in Europe these were really European mores more than than they were American Wars now I mentioned to you that alliances with Indians were very important to these Wars and that's what we're going to look at now French and Indian relations so let's look at this issue Indians and favourable Indian relations would be critical to the military balance of power in North America skilled at guerrilla warfare Indians

38:15 dominated the not so settled lands between the rival empires sometimes terrifying and destroying outlying settlements but also enjoying friendly relationships so now we're gonna look at what was the nature of the British and French interactions with the Native American tribes in the borderlands that they are disputing okay the Native American tribes were divided into many tribes and subdivided into hundreds of autonomous villages the Indian peoples were divided by factional divisions they were ruled by rival Chiefs that are way too complicated to cover here but what I want to focus on is that the Native

39:02 American people shared an interest in exploiting their strategic positions between the British and French colonies the Indians benefited from the competition between the traders and officials of the rival empires and tried and sought to get favorable trading prices and gifts from both sides enjoying the most strategic location on the waterways between the British and French empires were the six Iroquois nations largely based in what is now New York so alliance with alliances with the Iroquois were critical for both countries England and

39:48 France the Iroquois had a very strong military warrior culture there were only about two thousand warriors in 1700 or so but but the Iroquois were disproportionately important to the British and French empires because of their military strength both Britain and France coveted Iroquois friendship but dreaded the enmity or hatred of the Iroquois in 1711 the governor of New France said quote the Iroquois are more to be feared than any other than the any other English Indians and English colonies in 1746 a New York colonists

40:33 assured his government to his Governor on who's ever side the Iroquois Indians fall they will cast the balance so this is what a nameless colonial settler said to the governor of New York at 1746 on who's ever side the Iroquois Indians fall they will cast the balance end quote in this long-term struggle between England and France no perhaps you know you may know that most Indian tribes did tend to ally with the French not the English but the English in the French and Indian War did enjoy one critical alliance and that was with the Iroquois and they did win the war so perhaps this colonists was right so the the six Iroquois nations based in

41:22 New York had a very clever strategy to maximize their advantages the Iroquois cultivated a neutrality they didn't really favor the British or French side and this was meant to preserve the balance of power between Britain and France so basically the battleground for England and France is control of the Great Lakes region control of upper New York and control of this territory territory west of the Appalachians the Iroquois cultivated a neutrality trying to preserve the balance of power between Britain and France they wanted Britain and France to be even they didn't want

42:08 one to be more powerful than another because this was to their advantage they wanted to keep they the Iroquois wanted to keep them the Iroquois they wanted to keep themselves in the middle between the French and the British and thus by putting themselves in the middle by favoring neither one nor the other would be able to manipulate both one British colonial official in New York said around 1700 quote to preserve the balance between us the British and the French is the great ruling principle of modern Indian politics I'll repeat that to preserve the balance between us and the French is the great ruling principle of modern Indian politics why what did

42:56 this official mean a rough balance of power between Britain and France and stalemate you know the stalemate in this war would keep the flow of settlers in check right it would also preserve a healthy competition in the fur trade and allow the Iroquois to trade with settlers from both Britain and France and allow them to conduct diplomatic relations with the settlers from both countries separately so this strategy of the Iroquois of neutrality came to be formalized in a series of peace treaties and this um came to be known as the grand Settlement of 1701

43:43 it was a series of peace treaties negotiated by Iroquois diplomats at Montreal and op and Albany with the British and French but separately this officially marked the beginning of iroquois neutrality and the conflict between britain and france and in effect i'm sort of repeating what I said before but it's important in effect the Iroquois would remain neutral in the imperial struggle between Britain and France and this strategy would allow the Iroquois to play England against France and the Iroquois could play France against England in exchange for the Iroquois promised to remain neutral so basically the Iroquois would remain

44:28 neutral in the Imperial struggle the Iroquois could play England against France or play France against England maybe they could favor England a little bit at one time but men then maybe favor France a little bit more later and this neutrality was to the Iroquois advantage in effect neither the British nor the French could gain the upper hand in the Imperial struggle because of the neutrality of the Iroquois and the Iroquois sort of became a buffer between the British and the French so once again that quote to preserve the balance of power between us the British and the French is the great ruling principle of modern and Indian

45:14 politics so think about this if there was if there was a stalemate between Britain and France if they're sort of neck-and-neck in gridlock that was to the Indians advantage because that would slow down the flow of settlers okay so that's the Grande settlement a number of things begin to happen by the mid 18th century Indian leaders saw that the British were growing much more numerous and much more powerful than the French and perhaps this neutrality wouldn't work any longer undoubtedly the British were more numerous so in 1750 the British colonists numbered

45:59 in North America at about 1.5 million which greatly outnumbered the French in North America there were approximately one-and-a-half million British settlers as opposed to only 70,000 French in North America the French colonies were vastly spread out like a limited number of fur traders in the West but most of the settlements contained along the state's North st. Lawrence River the British colonies of course were concentrated along the Atlantic seaboard with limited settlements in this so-called backcountry as you see on the map so that sort of established settlements and then the backcountry let's talk about the different ways that

46:46 the British and French related and conducted diplomatic relations with the Indians so both both both both the British and French in this disputed Louisiana territory are conducting trade with the Indians trading in furs and deers deer deer skins for European goods the British behaved very differently superior numbers emboldened the British to behave more arrogantly towards the Indians and the British tended to insist upon their own cultural superiority the in the British tended to look at the Indians with scorn and disdain they

47:34 looked at the Indians as little better than animals or savages and when they did encounter them tried to Christianize them British British Indian relations was partially due to the nature of their society the British came and established a self reproducing settler colony that is to say their colonies were evenly balanced between male and female they were based on the family and you know broadly speaking they bring houses agriculture quote/unquote civilization to the British colonies the French have a very different way of relating to the Indians and this is based on the fact that they were much less of a settler

48:20 colony right the French colonies the settler population is extremely sparse it's mostly men and it's very few families so compared with the British the French were more restrained and civil they needed Indian allies to counter the British superior colonial numbers so when we speak about French relations with the Indians we many scholars speak of a middle ground the British were all about bringing British civilization to North America but the French were more willing to accept a quote-unquote middle ground with the natives the French treated the natives with more respect they gave them generous presents and gifts and food and other signs of

49:05 hospitalities French fur traders for instance the French fur traders respected learned Indian ways they learned Indian languages and often even adapted aspects of their culture French fur traders were known for intermarrying with native women which provided valuable kinship networks this would be useful for trade and also facilitate diplomatic alliances this sort of intermarriage between Indians and English this sort of intermarriage was very uncommon among the English so therefore the English the Indians tended to find the English more of a threat because of their large numbers

49:50 because of the way they came in families and the way that they were more insisted on the superiority of British culture and not accepting this middle ground and of course the British with their bigger numbers are really encroaching on their lands and lifestyle in a bigger way so the French made a virtue of their small population and more or less kept their promises not to intrude on Indian lands so um I mentioned this before when we come to talking about French and Indian War both the British and the French had alliances with various Native American groups but more or less most of the Native American groups ally with the French with the

50:36 exception of the Iroquois because of the these traditionally friendly French and Indian relations French officials regarded their Indian allies as indispensable totally necessary they had small numbers and needed allies Indian allies were the colony's best defense and were used in military campaigns against the English and were considerably cheaper than importing French soldiers but sometimes there were problems when when Indian War parties were used for French military campaigns for instance during military expeditions with the French Indian allies Indian War parties often acted independently they

51:22 wouldn't take orders they fight they fought in their own fashion and returned home when they wanted to when they were tired or felt insulted Indian allies also had different ideas of warfare and wanted the French to take scalps and prisoners as trophies of war so accepting these problems the French shaped their military strategy in North America around a network of Indian alliances Alliance alliances with various a Native American tribes were used in all three of these colonial wars that we talked about again they lack settlers and had to rely on the natives to hold the interior against British

52:08 settlers British traders or soldiers the [Music] French as we said before going to the map the French established a network of forts that stretched around the Great Lakes I just marked a few here and I stretched down the Ohio Ohio and down the Mississippi Valley the forts were lightly built and lightly manned by French troops but depended on local Indians for protection which they paid for by giving the Indians presents and gifts in general the natives

52:53 welcomed the French forts and Post as assets and did not tend to regard them as threats like the English because the English are coming in superior numbers and their settlement and agriculture is displacing their lands their game and agriculture so why did more Indians tend to ally with the French rather than the English well in summary by 1750 the Indians faced a much greater threat of settler invasion and environmental transportation and environmental transformation the way they would destroy the lands from the more numerous and aggressive English then from the French the French were much fewer and more generous and more culturally

53:38 understand understanding but the middle ground that the French formed with the Indians was undermined by one great advantage held by the English we talked that we talked about the English ways of dealing with the Indians although rude and intrusive and insistent on their cultural superiority the French had the English had an advantage that French traders could not offer the Indians the English offered superior trade goods in abundant qualities and at much better prices than the French as a general rule the Indians coveted and were dependent on various European goods like cloth metals alcohol and weapons like guns

54:23 so sometimes Native Americans embrace the better deals that British trader traders offered for their deer skins and beaver pelts despite the cultural understanding of the French okay so this was a general overview of French and Indian relations we looked at the first round of colonial wars and I'm going to take a pause in the lecture you can come back for part two which will actually look at the French and Indian War okay so once again to emphasize you don't need to know the big you don't need to know the tedious details of these Wars but you should know that there's this rivalry between England and France for territory for control of the fur trade and the fishing banks and these early

55:11 Wars don't really solve much the only thing that's decisive is the French and Indian War so please come back and watch part 2 of the lecture thank you