CHAPTER XX.
French and Indian War.
THE time came when the American colonies began to act together. The final struggle between France and England for colonial supremacy in America was at hand. Necessity compelled the English colonies to join in a common cause against the foe. This is the conflict known as the French and Indian War. Causes of war had existed for many years.
Causes of the War.
2. The first of these causes was the conflicting territorial claims of the two nations. England had colonized the sea-coast; France had colonized the interior of the continent. The English kings claimed the country from one ocean to the other. The French, however, began to push their way westward and southward along the great lakes to the head-waters of the Wabash, the Illinois, and the St. Croix, then down these streams to the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. The purpose of the French was to divide the American continent and take the larger portion.
3. The French soon established military posts at Frontenac, at Niagara, at the Straits of Mackinaw, and on the Illinois. Before 1750, settlements had been made on the Maumee, at Detroit, at Green Bay, at Vincennes, at Kaskaskia, at Natchez, at New Orleans, and on the Bay of Biloxi. At this time the only outposts of the English were a fort at Oswego and a few cabins in West Virginia.
The Ohio Company.
4. The immediate cause of hostilities was a conflict between the frontiersmen of the two nations in the Ohio valley. In order to prevent the intrusion of the French fur-traders into this country, a number of Virginians joined themselves together in a body called the Ohio Company. In March of 1749, they received from George II. a land-grant of five hundred thousand acres, located between the Kanawha and the Monongahela. But before the company could send out a colony, the governor of Canada dispatched three hundred men to occupy the valley of the Ohio. In the next year, however, the Ohio Company sent out an exploring party under Christopher Gist, who traversed the country and returned to Virginia in 1751.