Fred Anderson is The Man when it comes to French & Indian War scholarship. He is the author of the definitive narrative history of the Seven Years War, The Crucible of War, which was abridged as The War That Made America, to pair with the lavish PBS documentary series of the same title. The conflict is now recognized as the first “world war” — a conflict that started in the backwoods of Pennsylvania and spread to the Caribbean, the seven seas and the Indian subcontinent.
Last week I headed out for a workout at the Pit and fired up his lecture on “Why The French & Indian War Is Worth Remembering.” It’s well worth an hour of your time.
Anderson puts the First Nations peoples at the center of the political, military and diplomatic action of the era — where they belong. They were not mere savage auxiliaries of the European powers; these were people with agency, seeking to protect and advance their own interests. The shift of the Ohio Country Indians away from the French in 1758-59 was decisive.
The decisive outcome of the war in favor of the British tilted the balance of power so severely that the Indians lost their leverage, their ability to play one power off against another in the Fur Trade and in the military-diplomatic chess game that the French and the English had played for the better part of a century. That chess game was over — and the British were the preeminent power in the world, with a gigantic war debt to pay and a sackful of the Burdens of Empire.
Anderson places the native peoples at the center of the French & Indian War. Art by John Buxton.
Anderson also locates the origins of an “American” consciousness in this conflict and recognizes that imperial ambition was baked in the cake at least from this point. The American Colonists felt like partners in the Empire and resented being relegated to a subordinate position. They also had imperial ambitions of their own regarding the lands west of the Allegheny Mountains.
The French & Indian War is, indeed, The War That Made America. Let Fred Anderson spin the yarn…
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I have not yet read Dr. David Preston’s Braddock’s Defeat: The Battle of the Monongahela and the Road to Revolution — but I clearly need to. The July 9, 1755, destruction of General Edward Braddock’s British expeditionary force near the Forks of the Ohio River was one of the most significant episodes in Frontier Partisans history.
Here’s an excellent lecture from Preston on his work:
Paul McNamee says
There’s a job out there where I can make the pay I make now and all I need to do is read everything I want to read all day long, right?
Matthew says
That’s some killer face paint in the John Buxton piece.
lane batot says
If only we as citizens–instead of being DUPED by our politicians–learned to play off the Repubs and the Demos to OUR true interests, as the Native Americans did(for awhile, at least) with the French and the English…..Indeed worthy of revisiting that part of history! I DID send a “Declaration Of Apology” to Her Majesty The Queen awhile back, wondering if Britain would consider reversing the Revolution–but I haven’t got a response yet….
Breaker Morant says
Fred Anderson’s book has been sitting unread on my shelf for many years now. Need to get to that one, but we all know that battle.
Oddly enough, with the prominence of Braddock, I tend to forget about that theater in the war and think more of the Hudson Valley/Montreal road.
Awhile back, I submitted to wide agreement that The Wild Bunch is the quintessential Frontier Partisans movie. I have been thinking of other things like that.
I think The French and Indian War has to take the lead as the quintessential FP war. It has all the ingredients in spades.
JimC says
The F&I War definitely set the template for much of what would come later. For example, it had a major impact in the development of light infantry and ranging tactics. It also set the American frontier settlers in an eliminationist mindset when it came to the Indians. After a decade of living in fear, those settlers wanted the Indians cleared away entirely, not accommodated. That outlook played into revolutionary sentiment in the backcountry, and it would inform the manner in which the U.S. pursued its “Indian policy” from the earliest days of the Republic.