Author's Note: This is the first in a series of posts that I plan on making taking an in-depth look at the Economic, Political, Religious, and Social factors that lead up to the start of the French and Indian War in North America.
Historic Background
Conflict in the
Ohio Valley
In the Ohio valley, the Ohio Hopewellian Native American
society and culture was phased out over a period of several centuries as the
agrarian culture of the succeeding Fort Ancient
Native American society took hold around 1,000 CE. Growing maize and living in semi-permanent
villages the Fort Ancient Native American society flourished until the mid to
late 17
th Century.
Further to the east the Monongahela Native American
society took root in the late 11th century in what is modern Western
Pennsylvania. An agrarian society based
around Maize the Monongahela culture they built smaller, less organized, temporary
villages and built less permanent structures than their western neighbors. Not as numerous as the Fort Ancient Native
Americans the Monongahela Society thrived until the late 17
th and
early 18
th centuries.
Scholars believe both the Fort Ancient and the
Monongahela societies were decimated by waves of infectious diseases brought by
European Settlers and Traders. The
first noted decline for the Fort Ancient society begins in roughly 1625 CE,
most likely through their contact and trade with the Mississippian Hopewell
Native Americans who were trading with both French and Spanish traders alike. The more isolated Monongahela culture did
not start seeing declines until the turn of the 18th century after
the arrival of European Traders from Canada and New England.
The agrarian methods of both tribes of clearing fields
and moving villages and clearing more fields created large swaths of unused pristine
farmland in the Ohio Valley. This was
noted by the European traders and explores began mapping the Ohio Valley in the
1730’s and 1740’s.
The Changing
Native America Tribes
With pressure from European Settlers along the Saint
Lawrence Seaway and in New England a few Eastern Woodland Tribes began
migrating west into the Western Pennsylvania and the Ohio Valley. The Wyandots, Erie, Seneca and Delaware
tribes are examples of the tribes or offshoot of tribes that migrated into the
region. The decimated tribes in the
region began to coalesce into new tribes.
The Miami and Shawnee tribes are two such tribes that formed during this
period.
In comparison to other localized regions in North America
even with the formation of new tribes and the migrations into the Ohio Valley the
region was vastly under populated.
Pristine farmlands, large swaths of untamed wilderness could easily have
supported four or five times the population of the Native American Tribes that
were living in the Ohio Valley and Western Pennsylvania in the mid-18th
Century.
Trading
Partners
In the Ohio Valley, the Native American Indian tribes of
the western Haudenosaunee
and the smaller satellite tribes under their protection changed their preference
from supporting and trading with the French to the English over the course of
the several years in the mid 1740’s. In
theory, the Haudenosaunee
were neutral coalition of tribes. Prior
to this period of transition, the western Haudenosaunee tribes including the
Seneca and Onondagas, the smaller satellite tribes of the Mingos and Wyandots, along
with independent tribes of the Shawnee and Miami had favored trade with the
French through a series of agreements dating back nearly fifty years.
French participation in the War of Austrian Succession, including
King George’s War (1740-1748) in North America had depleted France’s ability to
provide the necessary trade goods to the Native American Indian Tribes in the
Ohio Valley. This failure can be linked
to the lack of the essential Infrastructure, traders, and manufacturing in New
France (Canada and Louisiana) as well as the supply of finished goods from
Metropolitan France.
The void in the trade between the French and Native North
America tribes provided an opening for the British Colonies, specifically Pennsylvania
and Virginia, to expand their trade with the Native Indian Tribes. Enterprising men like George Croghan and
Peter Tustee became accredited and licensed traders by 1747 with large trading
networks in the Ohio Valley. After beginning
their careers as agents for Edward Shippen’s company out of Philadelphia these
men forged successful trading corporations within the Ohio Valley in the late
1740’s.
George Croghan’s company built six fortified trading
posts in the Ohio Valley in the later stages of the 1740’s. Built along the Miami, Monongahela,
Sandusky, Ohio, Walsh and Cuyahoga rivers these fortified trading posts
represented the largest threat and continued disruption of French Claims in the
Ohio Valley.
European Policy
The push for trade with the Native American tribes in the
Ohio Valley was one small piece of the Mercantilism economic policies of both
Britain and France. The Mercantilism
economic policies placed in ever increasing value upon the Ohio Valley for very
different reasons.
Mercantilism was a regulated economic system that
promoted the accumulation of monetary reserves by the central government by partnering
with corporations to limit trade and manufacturing in the colonial areas of the
respective empires. Mercantilism goes
beyond taxation and tariffs but makes the Crown a majority partner in many or
most corporations involved in trade throughout the Colonies.
Mercantilism has many tenants, for the American Colonies
of Britain and France two of the more important tenants include agrarian
centric society and self-sufficiency.
The congregation of potential workers in urban centers
drives down the cost of employment under the auspices of supply and demand of
the work force. In this scenario when
the potential work force is larger than the required or needed positions than
employee salaries decrease. These lower
salaries lead to companies lowering the cost of their finish products. Under Mercantilism, this phenomenon is
addressed two-fold. In the American
Colonies both Britain and France put into place strict manufacturing laws
limiting the ability of the Colonies from manufacturing the finish product as
well as agrarian centric policies that place a premium on numerous smaller
villages and towns over larger urban centers.
The Governments of England and France expected that their
colonies in North America would be self-sufficient. Under this view the individual colonies
would be required to provide enough food, clothing and shelter to keep the
colonists feed, clothed and housed which are the basic tenants or foundation of
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Higher
levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy would be provided central governments and
corporations in metropolitan Europe.
The Ohio
Company of Virginia
The population of the British Colonies in New England
exploded from 100,000 in 1700 to 300,000 in 1750. This population growth swelled the
populations of the Urban Centers in New England. The stress on the agrarian centric policies
in this colonial world forced the frontier of the Atlantic Coast Colonies
further inland. These policies of
expansion conflicted with the Native American Indian Tribes view of property. In 1744 the Treaty of Lancaster was signed
between the Haudenosaunee and the Colonies of Virginia and Maryland paving the
way for settlement Shenandoah Valley in exchange for protecting the hunting
grounds in the Ohio Valley.
Between 1744 and 1750 the population of New England alone
increased by 50,000 with much of that growth centered on the Region between
Boston, New York and Philadelphia. To
the Governors of Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts Bay it was not about
relocating the new settlers somewhere else in the American Colonies but
somewhere else in their colony.
Massachusetts Bay pushed north into their claims in Maine and Acadia,
New York up the Hudson Valley and Pennsylvania west across the Appalachian
Mountains into the Ohio Valley.
In 1749 the Ohio Company of Virginia was granted a land
claim of 200,000 acres of land between the Ohio, Kanawha and the Monongahela
Rivers southwest of modern-day Pittsburg.
This land grant was contingent on the Ohio Company settling 100 Families
in the land grant over the next seven years.
An additional 300,000 acres would be granted upon successful completion
of the first grant.
The Ohio Company of Virginia hired Thomas Cresap, a
successful frontier trader to identify locations for settlement. Under his supervision forts were constructed
at Willis Creek (Cumberland Maryland) and Redstone (Brownsville Pennsylvania)
in 1750. Later that year the Ohio
Company of Virginia also hired Christopher Gist, another successful frontier
tradesman to select additional locations.
Christopher Gist would become more widely known as the guide who
accompanied George Washington in 1753.
The Loyal Company of Virginia was another land
speculation company also seeking a Land Grant from the Crown in 1749. The company’s expedition in 1750 established
a claim in what is modern Kentucky I Barbourville.
Construction of settlements west of the Allegany
Mountains, specifically at Redstone put the Ohio Company of Virginia in
“violation” of the Lancaster Treaty of 1744.
Tensions between the Native America tribes and the settlers were
extremely high at the time. The
Shawnee Indian Tribe most notably changed it preference back to France as it
sought French aid in driving out the English settlers.
The Breadbasket
of New France
The rugged terrain and climate of Eastern Canada did not
make for easy farming in the early eighteenth century. In this wooded and rocky terrain, it took a
team of four able bodied men one year to clear an acre of land for
farming. This difficultly of clearing
and preparing farmland made the entire process of raising enough food for even
the minimal population of French Settlements in Canada problematic. A single bad year of crops could devastate
the population.
In the mid to late 1740’s the Colonial Government of New
France and that of France concluded that methods of preparing land in Canada
for farming would never meet the demands of the growing population. A new location for growing crops, primarily
wheat, would need to be found. By
1747 the Colonial Government in Canada and Imperial Government in Paris had
settled on Pays des Illinois or Upper Louisiana. It was estimated that four able bodied men
would be able to clear four to six acres of usable farmland per year in Pays de
Illinois. The commandant of Fort De
Chartes, Major Jean-Gaspard de Bertet de la Clue, nominally the Military
Governor of Pays des Illinois was ordered to pursue agricultural interests
rather than mining interests that had been central to settlement of Pays des
Illinois
[i].
The challenge in 1747 would be moving the grains from
Pays de Illinois to Montreal or other locations in Canada. Much to the irritation of the Government
of Canada it was determined in Metropolitan France the easiest solution was an
“over land” transit of the farm goods from Fort de Chartes to the Shores of
Lake Erie near modern day Buffalo, New York, through the Ohio Valley as opposed
to moving the product over land to Detroit than via ship to ports on the
eastern shores.
The Governor of Canada in 1747, Roland-Michel Barrin de
La Galissonière, began the process of planning the route through the Ohio
Valley. As part of the preparations de
La Galissonière ordered Captain Pierre Joseph Céloron de Blainville to strengthen
France’s claim to the Ohio Valley with a military expedition. The ‘Lead Plate’ Expedition left Montreal
in June 1749 traveling through the Ohio Valley for five months before returning
to Montreal.
During the period of time between 1749 and 1751 the
Governor of Canada, Jacques-Pierre de Taffanel de la Jonquière, chose the
terminus of Ohio Valley route in modern-day Erie Pennsylvania. The route into the central Ohio Valley from
Erie would coincide with the Venango Path used by the Native American
Indians. Plans were put into place to
begin construction of a series of French Forts from Erie to Pittsburg along the
Venango Trail and down the Ohio River to its conjunction with the Mississippi.
Fort Sandoské
The exact date of the attack of Fort Sandoske’
is not known.
At some point between the Autumn of 1749 and the Spring of 1750 French
Forces including soldiers from the Compagnies Franches de la Marine stationed
in Detroit along with Canadian Militia and Native America Indians from modern
day Michigan attacked and destroyed George Croghan’s trading forton Lake
Erie. The destroyed trading post was
rebuilt by the French Forces and officially named
Fort Sandoské.
The attack
marked the beginning of low intensity conflict between the two empires in the
Ohio Valley which escalates into the series of international wars generally
referred to as the Seven Years’ War.
Father le Loutre’s War
In Acadia and
Nova Scotia another low intensity conflict was occurring between Britain and
France in 1749. The French Jesuit
Missionary Father le Loutre lead a guerilla war against the British forces in
the region. The French Forces included
Acadian Militia, Mi’Kmaq Indians and a Few French soldiers.
The Fort Ancient society is named for the
archeological site at Fort Ancient, Ohio.
The eastern Haudenosaunee tribes of upstate New York
and New England, particularly the Mohawk, unlike the western tribes, had fought
alongside of the English forces against France in New England and Acadia and
generally supported the English during this period.
[i] Lives of Fort de Chartres: Commandants, Soldiers, and
Civilians in French Illinois, 1720–1770 (Shawnee Books)
