Also known as the Imperial Wars and Colonial Wars, these were a series of wars fought between France, Britain, and Spain in Europe and elsewhere from 1689 to 1763.
In addition to being disputes over domestic politics, including rivalry over the monarchy, the Wars for Empire were part of a continuous battle by France, Britain, and Spain to control trade and colonial territories in the New World: there was the lucrative fur trade in Canada, sugar in the Caribbean, and pepper, cotton, and tea in India.
These wars are known by different names in Europe and North America. In North America, the wars often took the name of the British monarchy and were known as: King William’s War (1689–1697) or the War of the League of Augsburg in Europe; Queen Anne’s War (1702–1713) or the War of the Spanish Succession; King George’s War (1739–1748) or the War of the Austrian Succession; and the French and Indian War (1754–1763) or the Seven Years’ War.
King William’s War arose over France’s attempts to control Europe. The French king saw Britain, Holland, Spain, and their colonies forming an alliance against France and its colonies. In North America, this war was fought between Britain and France in New England. Both the French and British sought the Native Americans as allies in this conflict. The French had more success at securing Native Americans as allies than the English, who were often refused by the Iroquois in particular. For instance, in 1692 when urged to attack the French, the Iroquois response was one of contempt and doubt over the ability of the instigators to wage war.
Historian Gary B. Nash argues that Iroquois involvement in this conflict was solely for self-interest, and they played European nations against one another when it best suited them. The Native Americans were critical in this conflict because they were the most familiar with the massive territory. The harsh weather, the prevalence of disease, and limited access to transportation and supplies made the use of normal military tactics in this environment difficult. The British made three attempts to uproot the French from Port Royal, Nova Scotia, and Quebec. They were able to seize Port Royal in 1690 through the efforts of New Englanders led by William Phipps. The attack on Quebec by New England forces was the main battle in North America.
Peace negotiations in Europe started in 1696, but they soon broke down. Talks mediated by the king of Sweden resumed in May 1697. However, it was not until October that the Treaty of Ryswick was signed to secure peace between France and Britain, Holland, and Spain. The treaty basically stated that seized lands had to be returned. France therefore regained Nova Scotia. Louis XIV of France also agreed to discontinue backing James’s claim to the British throne and in so doing recognized William as king of England.
Fought by Britain, Holland, and their colonies against France, Spain, and their colonies from 1702 to 1713, the War of Spanish Succession began over a dispute between Austria and France concerning who should succeed the Spanish throne. The French candidate was the duke of Anjou, who was also in line for the French throne. Great Britain and Holland perceived the possibility of a united France and Spain as a threat to their security. Queen Anne’s War was the name given to the North American aspect of the conflict, which lasted from 1702 to 1711. Both sides in the war in North America had Native American allies.
Like the previous conflict, Queen Anne’s War was essentially a number of attacks during the winter on several British frontier settlements. Massachusetts’s attempt to take Port Royal in 1707 failed. Britain tried to support the war effort in 1709 by dispatching a flotilla comprising 60 ships and an armed force of 5,000. In 1710, colonists captured Port Royal again, but it was returned to France in 1713. In 1711, the British failed to capture Quebec. During this assault, several thousand soldiers drowned in an accident on the St. Lawrence River. Boston merchants holding contracts to provide supplies benefited from these failed assaults.
Queen Anne’s War ended with the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht, also called the Peace of Utrecht, in 1713 and the Treaty of Rastatt in 1714. The treaties signaled the end of French expansionism and the emergence of Britain as the leading colonial power. Under the terms of the treaty, Louis XIV of France recognized Queen Anne as the British sovereign and withdrew his support of James Edward, the son of the deposed King James II. France ceded to Britain the Caribbean island of St. Kitts, the Hudson Bay, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia, with its abundant fishing grounds. The Treaty of Utrecht ignored some realities of what was happening on the southern frontier, but it provided a peace that allowed the British colonies to expand westward and diversify the economy. After Utrecht, expansion west of the frontier continued, thereby increasing both trade and the population. Britain and Spain also concluded the Asiento Agreement (1713), which granted Great Britain the exclusive right to import African slaves to Spanish America for the next thirty years. In addition, Great Britain gained control over Minorca and Gibraltar. Control over the island of Sicily was transferred from the Spanish to the Austrian emperor as compensation for the war.
King George’s War (also called the War of Austrian Succession) started in the Caribbean in 1739 between Britain and Spain and was fought mostly on the high seas. In Europe, a number of peace agreements over claims to territories and succession problems had been infringed, and this caused an uneasy peace. Britain and France were competing for territories in the New World, while France, Prussia, and Austria were fighting to control central Europe. In 1743, an anti-French coalition was established involving Britain and Austria. France then turned to Spain for help in forming the Family Compact.
The war started in North America in 1744 when the French attacked Canso, Nova Scotia, a British-controlled position. French troops tried unsuccessfully to regain control of Port Royal. In this conflict, like the other wars for empire in North America, Native Americans formed alliances with both the British and the French. The only major gain for the British during this war was the capture of the French fort of Louisburg on Cape Breton Island in 1745 by New England forces under the leadership by William Pepperrell, a wealthy merchant from Maine. British colonists in New England and New York had despised the French much more than their colleagues elsewhere in the American colonies. They were particularly concerned that the French stronghold at Louisburg, where privateers harbored, was endangering their maritime activity.
During the earlier wars for empire, Britain had asked Americans to defend the colonies and some times to attack French-occupied Canada. After the beginning of the War of Jenkins’s Ear, which was a prelude to King George’s War, Britain began deploying troops comprising American colonists outside the Americas. It was clear by the mid-eighteenth century that the Americans and the British soldiers saw themselves as representing distinct nations. The assault on the Spanish Main, for example, revealed this growing differentiation between the Americans and the British.
King George’s War was concluded at a congress held at Aix-la-Chapelle, France, on April 24, 1748. The result of this peace was the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which was signed on October 18, 1748. Britain and France negotiated the treaty, with the other powers following their lead. The terms of the treaty called for the restoration of conquered territories, which compelled the British to return Nova Scotia to France. This act effectively nullified what had been hailed as the biggest victory American troops had achieved to that point. American anger over this forced London to reimburse the colonial governments for the costs incurred in staging the attack on Louisburg.
The French and Indian War was actually the first part of the Seven Years’ War, a conflict in which Britain and Prussia opposed France, Spain, and Austria. The conflict was the result of attempts by France to maintain its grip on what was a shrinking colonial empire. In fact, France, Britain, and Spain were fighting for control of global trade.
This war was the last of the wars for empire that involved the American colonies. In these colonies, the contest was one between Britain and France, with both sides having Native Americans as allies. The Native Americans were primarily interested in protecting their sovereignty as well as having continued access to guns and other goods they traded with the British and French.
Accounts of this conflict usually identify five phases. The first phase took place in 1755, when the 1,300 British forces under Edward Braddock lost control of the Ohio Forks on July 9. The regulars and Virginia militia were beaten when French and Indian soldiers ambushed them as they were trying to stage an attack on Fort Duquesne. On October 8, Robert Monckton’s 2,150 men won control of Acadia. In the process, they sent some 15,000 French Catholics into exile.
The second phase of the conflict ran from 1756 to 1757 and surrounds the military leadership of John Campbell, the fourth earl of Loudoun and the commander in chief of the British forces in America, and Louis Joseph Marquis de Montcalm, the French official in charge of Quebec. During this phase, on May 18, 1756, Britain officially declared war on France. The French under Montcalm, along with Native American allies, attacked the borderlands or backcountry, killing hundreds of settlers. Montcalm’s troops went on to capture two important positions: Oswego and Fort William Henry. At this juncture, a French victory seemed imminent.
Many historians agree that the turning point in this conflict came when William Pitt took command of the war in 1757. The third phase occurred in 1758, when Pitt changed British policy and allocated extremely large sums of money to the war effort. This expenditure allowed Britain to dispatch what has been described as a massive force, one comprising 25,000 colonial troops and 24,000 soldiers drawn from among the British army. Jeffrey Amherst and James Wolfe, the two officers Pitt placed in command of the mission, took Louisburg on July 26, 1758. This achievement therefore allowed them to sever the main source of supplies from France to its forces in Canada.
The major battle during the fourth phase, which took place in 1759, was the seizure of Quebec by troops from Britain and America under General James Wolfe. Wolfe was able to take Quebec in September 1759, and although he died soon afterward, this was the victory that gave Britain the lead in the war. It was the effort of Britain’s Iroquois allies and Pitt’s decision to make North America the main theater of war that helped change the course of the war in Britain’s favor.
The war in North America came to an end soon after the British seized Montreal and the French governor surrendered in 1760. The surrender did not end the conflict, however; instead, it served as the beginning of the fifth phase. Fighting continued in other theaters un til the signing of the Treaty of Paris on February 10, 1763. Under this treaty, France granted to Britain all of its North American territory east of the Mississippi River, Spain ceded Florida to Britain, and France transferred control over the Louisiana Territory to Spain in compensation for its loss of Florida. The French were excluded from the lucrative fur trade and fishing grounds of North America as a result of this treaty. The French were allowed to continue trading in east India for items such as pepper and cotton, but were forbidden to establish forts or station troops in the region. Consequently, Great Britain consolidated its control over the profitable Indian trade. France lost some of its possessions in the Caribbean and Africa as well. Britain’s success in this war revealed that it was now a dominant colonial power. In the aftermath of this war, dissatisfaction in America increased because of Britain’s handling of the colonies, the economic aspects in particular, such as increased taxes to pay for the war.
The political boundaries in Europe were hardly altered as a result of these wars. However, in North America there was some reshuffling of colonies, as Britain gained Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and the Hudson Bay area.
In the North American British colonies, the treaties that ended these wars often included the surrender of territories gained by the colonists during the conflicts. The end of the wars also brought increased taxes to cover the expenses incurred during the wars, inflation, increasing application of mercantilism, and trade regulation. The French and Indian War, in particular, provided an arena where the distinctions between British and Americans became more obvious. During the conflict, for example, British officers considered the Americans poor soldiers. Americans grew to despise British arrogance and to question their ability to fight. All of this was the antecedent to the colonists’ demand for independence.
Cleve McD. Scott
See also: American Revolution.
Brogan, Hugh. The Longman History of the United States of America. New York: Longman, 1999.
Degler, Carl N. Out of Our Past: The Forces That Shaped Modern America. 3rd ed. New York: Harper Colophon, 1984.
Divine, Robert A., et al. America Past and Present. 5th ed. New York: Addison Wesley, 1999.
Morison, Samuel Eliot, Henry Steele Commager, and William E. Leuchtenburg. A Concise History of the American Republic. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.
Nash, Gary B. Red, White and Black: The Peoples of Early America.
2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1982.
Stavrianos, L.S. The World Since 1500: A Global History. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999.