The Story of Our Country / Every Child Can Read

by Unknown

It is called the French and Indian War, because there were many Indians on the side of the French. There were some on the side of the English, also. Indians are very savage and cruel in their way of fighting, as you already know. I shall have to tell you one instance of their love of bloodshed. One of the English forts, called Fort William Henry, which stood at the southern end of Lake George, had to surrender to the French, and its soldiers were obliged to march out and give up their guns.

There were a great many Indians with the French, and while the prisoners stood outside the fort, without a gun in their hands, the savage men attacked them and began to kill them with knives and tomahawks. The French had promised to protect them, but they stood by and did nothing to stop this terrible slaughter, and many of the helpless soldiers were murdered. Others were carried off by the Indians as prisoners. It was the most dreadful event of the whole cruel war.

I must now ask you to look on a map of the State of New York, if you have any. There you will find the Hudson River, and follow it up north from the city of New York, past Albany, the capital of the state, until it ends in a region of mountains. Near its upper waters is a long, narrow lake named Lake George, which is full of beautiful islands. North of that is a much larger lake named Lake Champlain, which reaches up nearly to Canada.

The British had forts on the Hudson River and Lake George and the French on Lake Champlain, and also between the two lakes, where stood the strong Fort Ticonderoga. It was around these forts and along these lakes that most of the fighting took place. For a long time the French had the best of it. The British lost many battles and were driven back. But they had the most soldiers, and in the end they began to defeat the French and drive them back, and Canada became the seat of war. But let me tell you the story of the Acadians.

Acadia was a country which had been settled by the French a long, long time before, away back in 1604, before there was an English settlement in America. Captain John Smith, you know, came to America in 1607, three years afterwards. Acadia was a very fertile country, and the settlers planted fields of grain and orchards of apples and other fruits, and lived a very happy life, with neat houses and plenty of good food, and in time the whole country became a rich farming land.

But the British would not let these happy farmers alone. Every time there was trouble with the French, soldiers were sent to Acadia. It was captured by the British in 1690, but was given back to France in 1697, when that war ended. It was taken again by the British in the war that began in 1702, and this time it was not given back. Even its name of Acadia was taken away, and it was called Nova Scotia, which is not nearly so pretty a name.

Thus it was that, when the new war with France began, Acadia was held as a province of Great Britain. To be sure the most of its people were descended from the old French settlers and did not like their British masters, but they could not help themselves, and went on farming in their old fashion. They were ignorant, simple-minded countrymen, who looked upon France as their country, and were not willing to be British subjects.

That is the way with the French. It is the same to-day in Canada, which has been a colony of Great Britain for nearly a century and a half. The descendants of the former French still speak their old language and love their old country, and now sometimes fight the British with their votes as they once did with their swords.

The British did not hold the whole of Acadia. The country now called New Brunswick, which lies north of Nova Scotia, was part of it, and was still held by the French. In 1755 the British government decided to attempt the capture of this country, and sent out soldiers for that purpose. Fighting began, but the French defended themselves bravely, and the British found they had a hard task to perform.

What made it worse for them was that some of the Acadians, who did not want to see the British succeed, acted as spies upon them, and told the French soldiers about their movements, so that the French were everywhere ready for them. And the Acadians helped the French in other ways, and gave the British a great deal of trouble.