Which native american tribe was not involved in the french and indian war?

The reason the Indians were involved in the French and Indian War was because the British were taking control over their land. They were upset that the Americans were listening to British orders and giving them less and less land to live on. French major Marquis de Vaudreuil-Cavagnal realized the potential of having Indian allies. He strengthened ties with Indian forces by dressing himself as one of them and learning their language.

The Indians were very enthusiastic to be on the French side, since Vaudreul-Cavagnal gave them free reign to attack the British settlements and obtain free weapons.

This led to disagreements, however, when Indians wanted the personal possessions of British and American prisoners, which the French would not allow them to take. After a capture at Fort William Henry, they killed hundreds of surrendered British soldiers and civilians in a rage, because they were forbidden to loot them.

When other French officers realized how much of a problem this was becoming, they complained. Nonetheless, the Indian rioting was only settled when the treaty of Paris was signed in 1763.

American Involvement

After constant fighting over who had control over the Ohio Valley and much more, the Virginia government saw that something must be done to take down French forces hiding out in the woods.

They decided to send Major George Washington, later president of the United States, to do the job.

General Edward Braddock falls at the Battle of Monongahela

He arrived with a party of six to inform the French general to get off British land. He was told, however, that the French were not only determined to take the rest of the land which they felt was theirs, but that they are going to occupy the entire Ohio Valley.

Washington returned to Virginia in winter weather, disappointed, but he had noted that the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers (modern day Pittsburg) would be an excellent place to build a fort.

In April of 1754, George Washington returned to build the fort. But this, too, was unsuccessful. The French found out, seized the place, and named it Fort Duquesne.

Washington, greatly annoyed, planned a surprise attack on a French camp nearby. He and his forces killed ten men. It is said to have been the first blood spilled during the whole French and Indian War.

Later, though, he was forced to surrender when he encountered their main force. The French, in return for letting Washington’s army leave, made him promise that Virginia would not build any forts in Ohio for one year.

In February of 1755, Britain sent General Edward Braddock and an army of 14,000 men to accompany George Washington in taking Fort Duquesne back.

They were defeated yet again by a French and Indian ambush in July, and Braddock was killed.

Washington returned to Virginia having been ineffective once again. Nonetheless, his courage on the battle field was noticed, and he was promoted to the rank of Colonel and made Commander-in-Chief of Virginian troops.

Britain Declares War

Amazingly, despite these battles, war was not officially declared until 1756, which is how the 9-year French and Indian War could also be known as the 7 Years War.

Things did not go well. With Indian support, they captured several forts along the Pennsylvania and New York frontier.

In 1758, Brigadier General John Forbes led a large British force in a multi-pronged attack on the Atlantic coast, in New York, and on the Canadian border.

Death of General James Wolfe by stray cannon shot at Battle of Quebec in 1759 painted by Benjamin West in 1770

Forbes’ attack was a brilliant success for one reason. He called a council of Indian tribes at Ft. Bedford and got the tribes to agree to support the British.

The French, realizing their strongest allies were gone, abandoned Ft. Duquesne and pulled back to Canada. Without Indian support, they could not hold even Canada, and it took only two years for the British to completely drive them from North America.

In 1763, the French and Indian War finally ended when three representatives from Spain, Great Britain, and France gathered to sign the Treaty of Paris.

The French and Indian War Leads to the Revolutionary War

The French and India War helped lead to the Revolutionary War in two ways.

First, funding this war led to an immense national debt for Great Britain, which they felt the Americans should help pay.

George Washington as Captain in the French and Indian War by Junius Brutus Stearns, oil on canvas, circa 1849-1856. Source - Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

The French and Indian War began in 1754 when the French attempted to make good on their claim to the land between the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers. When this news reached Virginia, the governor sent a young lieutenant colonel in the Virginia militia, George Washington, to warn the French. Washington carried the message to a French fort but was rebuffed.

Think you’ve never heard of the French and Indian War? Think of the movie with Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeline Stowe,  “The Last of the Mohicans.”

View a clip from “The Last of the Mohicans”.

Soon afterward he organized a force of volunteers, which skirmished a French detachment. Washington began building a stockade, calling it Fort Necessity. The French surrounded it, and Washington surrendered, withdrawing with the survivors. Washington’s surrender began a world war and triggered a series of Indian raids along the frontier.

French and Indian War

The Fighting

For two years fighting occurred along the frontier of the colonies before the war erupted in Europe. In 1756 the colonial war spilled over when Austria formed an alliance with France and Russia. Britain, ever mindful of the precarious balance of power in Europe, allied with Prussia. King George II placed William Pitt as head of the ministry, an extremely capable and confident man, and he focused the war’s theater on North America, making it the main field of battle. Pitt sent large numbers of British troops to the colonies but also encouraged the colonials to enlist, demanding that they defend themselves against the French. Pitt’s tactics seem to work, and the war turned in favor of the British. After all, the British did have the world’s largest navy and outnumbered the French fifteen to one in the colonies.

by Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur

Although scalping existed prior to the war, the British encouraged it as a war tactic by paying Indians bounties for their enemy’s scalps.  On June 12, 1755, the governor of Massachusetts declared that the colony would pay ₤40 for male Indian scalps and ₤20 for female Indian scalps.  Although the French paid Indians less, their Indian allies also scalped enemies during the war.
In theory, only the dead were scalped but several people survived the experience.  For example, in May 1756 French allied Indians near Fort Oswego, New York, attempted to kill British colonists who ventured outside the fort.  One man, Stephen Cross, wrote on May 25th that “one of our soldiers came in from the edge of the woods, where it seems he had lain all night having been out on the evening the day before and got drunk and could not get in, and not being missed, but on seeing him found he had lost his scalp, but he could not tell how nor when, having no others around.  We supposed the Indians had stumbled over him in the dark, and supposed him dead, and taken off his scalp.”  The man recovered.

“The Death of Jane McCrea” painting by John Vanderlyn

In the painting “The Death of Jane McCrea,” artist John Vanderlyn visually interpreted the story and scalping of Jane McCrae.  At 25, she supposedly ran away to marry a British soldier but was captured and killed instead.  Her story circulated throughout the colonies as a cautionary tale to young women about their need for male protection.

Read some newspaper coverage of the French and Indian War.

The French and Indian War climaxed in 1759 with the most significant battle occurring at Québec where the British devastated the French ranks, ending French power in North America. News of the battle reached London simultaneously with news of a similar victory in India, where English forces had reduced French outposts. The French formally surrendered in the Americas in September 1760, but the war dragged on in Europe for three more years, culminating in England’s declaration of war against Spain and its subsequent defeat

The French and Indian War was the last of the four colonial wars fought between the French, British, and their Native American allies. 

Why were the Indians fighting in a European Conflict?

The Indians involved in the French and Indian War included the Haudenosaunee, also known as the Iroquois Nation, who allied with the British and lived in the Ohio Valley and the “far Indians”—the tribes who lived around the Great Lakes and who were allied with the French.

The Iroquois wanted to maintain their traditional lands in the Ohio River Valley, along with their lifestyles and control of their future.  While they wanted to trade with Europeans, they did not want white settlement in the valley.  Over time, the Iroquois had become as dependent on European goods, like guns, rum, and clothing, as had the Europeans on Iroquois beaver fur.

Like to hear military music from the period?  Listen to this clip called the British Grenadiers.  Fife and drum: Buttery, 1790.

The “far Indian” tribes wanted to hunt the Ohio River Valley for fur to trade with their French allies, igniting tensions between themselves and the Iroquois. 

The French were almost entirely dependent on Indian trade as the basis of their economy and used the Ohio River Valley as a transportation artery for their trappers, missionaries, and soldiers.  The French did not want to settle the region but only maintain control over it.

The British wanted to move into the vast lands of the Ohio River Valley and the land appeared to many British to be “free” for the taking.  British colonials involved in fur trading were getting rich, and they too wanted control of the valley, intending to monopolize the fur-trading market. 

The goals of all three groups were often in conflict and factions within the groups splintered into even more individualized interests, resulting in conflict and war.   

Treaty of Paris

The Peace of Paris (Treaty of Paris, 1763) brought an end to the war and to French power in North America. Britain took all of France’s land east of the Mississippi River, except for New Orleans, and all of Spanish Florida. To compensate Spain for its loss of Florida, England gave Spain Louisiana, which consisted of New Orleans and all French land west of the Mississippi River. When France lost Louisiana, it lost all its North American colonies, including Tobago, Dominica, Grenada, and St. Vincent. Britain reigned supreme over North America east of the Mississippi.

When the British gained Canada, they inadvertently set in motion a train of events that would lead to the loss of all the rest of British North America. France, humiliated at the end of the war, wanted revenge. And when the colonists began talking Revolution, France quickly allied with them, seeking vengeance for their loss in the French and Indian War.

Impact of the War on the Colonies

The war had a tremendous impact on the colonists and on England. England’s debt went through the roof, which meant it would have to raise taxes to pay the debt down. Pitt’s insistence that the colonials defend themselves added to their sense of independence. The military training they received made them believe that they did not need to rely on England for protection, and a cadre of well-trained, professional soldiers, men like George Washington, experienced battle and knew that Britain could be beaten on the battle field. Finally, during the early stages of the war, Benjamin Franklin suggested a plan that would join all thirteen colonies in a loose union. Although the colonials rejected the Albany Plan, it represented one of the first steps toward a unified colonial America.

Which Native American tribe was involved in the French and Indian War?

Which Native American groups fought in the war?

Who did the Iroquois side with in the French and Indian War?

How many natives fought in the French and Indian War?