The French and Indian War was a
nine-year conflict (1754-1763) in North America, and was one of the conflict
theatres of the Seven Years' War. The conflict was between Great Britain
and its colonies on one side and France on the other. The major battles
include British victories at Fort Duquesne and at the Plains of Abraham
outside of Quebec City, in which James Wolfe defeated a French garrison
lead by Louis Joseph de Montcalm.
The war resulted in a decisive victory for Great Britain in which it
captured all French possessions in North America except for Saint Pierre
and Miquelon, two small islands off Newfoundland. The result of the war
is that Britain acquired a large Francophone population in Quebec and expelled
French speaking populations in Acadia to Louisiana creating the Cajun population.
The war officially ended with the signing of the 1763 Treaty of Paris
on February 10, 1763. The treaty also forced France to cede Canada to Great
Britain.
The decisive result of the war meant that it was the last of the French
and Indian Wars and thereby set the stage for the American Revolutionary
War. The British colonists no longer needed British protection from the
French and resented the taxes imposed by Britain to pay for its military
commitments as well as limitation on colonial settlements imposed by the
Proclamation of 1763 in the newly acquired French territories in the Mississippi
and Ohio River valleys.
James Wolfe 1727-1759 was a British general, remembered mainly
for his role in maintaining British rule over Canada.
Wolfe was born in Westerham, Kent, England, himself the son of a general,
Edward Wolfe, and from his earliest years was destined for a military career.
He became a junior officer in 1742 and fought at the Battle of Dettingen
in the following year. He participated in the campaign to defeat the Jacobite
army of Bonnie Prince Charlie, taking part in the Battle of Culloden in
1746, and by 1758 he was a colonel. His success in Amherst's expedition
to Cape Breton and the capture of Louisburg let to his being given the
command of the Quebec expedition. His army scaled the cliffs in order to
surprise the French forces under Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham. Both
Montcalm and Wolfe himself died in the subsequent battle, the outcome of
which was victory for the British.
