French Indian

Apart from The Last of the Mohicans, most Americans know little of the French and Indian War, also known as the Seven Years' War, and yet it remains one of the most fascinating periods in our history. In January 2006, PBS will air The War That Made America, a four-part documentary about this epic conflict. Fred Anderson, the award-winning and critically acclaimed historian, has written the official tie-in to this exciting television event.

In this narrative history of the Mohawk River Valley and surrounding region from 1713 to 1794, Professor Richard Berleth charts the passage of the valley from a fast-growing agrarian region streaming with colonial traffic to a war-ravaged wasteland. The valley's diverse cultural mix of Iroquois Indians, Palatine Germans, Scots-Irish, Dutch, English, and Highland Scots played as much of a role as its unique geography in the cataclysmic events of the 1700s - the French and Indian Wars and the battles of the American Revolution.

The French and Indian War was the world's first truly global conflict. When the French lost to the British in 1763, they lost their North American empire along with most of their colonies in the Caribbean, India, and West Africa. In The French and Indian War and the Conquest of New France, the only comprehensive account from the French perspective, William R. Nester explains how and why the French were defeated.

Most people have heard about the French and Indian War, but you will find that most history classes have “forgotten” to explore some of the most interesting and important facets of this conflict. Its little-told stories and often underrated importance in world history have begun to be buried over the centuries. Was this epic struggle simply another war among many others in history?

The French and Indian War: 1660-1763 covers much more than the few years during which the English and French fought over the division of the North American continent in one of the most neglected periods of American history. In this volume in the Drama of American History series, authors Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier trace how England’s other rivals for control of America were eliminated over this period until the only source of conflict left would be between the British and their own colonists.

The French and Indian War is one of the most significant, yet least acknowledged and understood, periods of American history. Fought chiefly between the two imperial powers of England and France in the mid-18th century, the struggle would also draw in native Indian nations who sought to exert their own strength and sovereignty over the North American continent. From the first shots fired in the Ohio Valley wilderness in 1754 until the Treaty of Paris signed in 1763, the French and Indian War became a conflict that encircled the globe.

The war gets its name from British colonists’ two primary enemies: the French settlers and the Native Americans who sided with them. The title is a bit misleading, however, as the British also had Native Americans on their side at various points of the war. The conflict goes by "The Seven Years’ War" in Europe because it took place from 1756 to 1763. Britain’s victory solidified the future of the English-speaking North America we know today. However, it also led to the massacre of countless Native peoples throughout North America.

While the battle had a profound impact, it has also been romanticized and mythologized beyond even epic proportions. Though often forgotten today (more than 250 years after the battle), the Battle of the Plains of Abraham was the culmination of a long siege, and the decisive action itself was an incredibly short affair at less than half an hour. Despite that brevity, both commanding generals were mortally wounded in the exchange, making British General James Wolfe a national hero on both sides of the Atlantic and French General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm a convenient scapegoat.

From George Washington to the Battle of Quebec, AudioLearn is your complete study guide to the French and Indian War.

Beginning with a skirmish involving inexperienced British officer George Washington, the Iroquois chief, and the ill-fated French emissary in the backwoods of Pennsylvania, a chain of events culminated in what would effectively become the First World War. The French and Indian War, as it is known in North America, was part of a larger conflict called the Seven Years' War, which involved nations on three continents.

When the first settlers reached the United States of America and started to chip out a living in the wilderness that seemed so fierce and unfamiliar to their European eyes, they could never have dreamed that someday the land upon which they stood would become one of the most powerful countries in the entire world.

On September 13, 1759, a battle was fought on the Plains of Abraham outside the old city of Québec. It was one of the turning-point battles in world history. Thanks to the British victory and the events that followed, Canada went from being a colony of France (New France) to being a colony of Great Britain. This permanently changed Canadian history.

A year after John Bradstreet’s raid of 1758—the first and largest British American riverine raid mounted during the Seven Years’ War (known in North America as the French and Indian War)—Benjamin Franklin hailed it as one of the great “American” victories of the war. Bradstreet heartily agreed, and soon enough, his own official account was adopted by Francis Parkman and other early historians.

The life story of Major Robert Rogers, the New England frontiersman who recruited companies of colonial soldiers, known as Rogers' Rangers, to fight for the British in the French and Indian War, is a compelling mix of military intrigue and national identity. This feisty major codified colonial military strategies into a document, known as Standing Orders, and put these principles to practice in many battles, campaigns, and scouting.

It’s 1753, and troubling news comes to Russell’s Ridge. Susanna Russell longs to escape her valley home. When war breaks out, she gets her wish to study in fabulous Williamsburg. But she realizes she’s lost something important along the way. Something - and someone. James Paxton is studying for the ministry. But when violence threatens the valley, his path becomes clouded. What is God’s will for his life? The answer is alarming - and impossible.

Robert Rogers, commander of Rogers' Rangers during the French and Indian War, was the war's best-known colonial military hero and, in the ensuing peace, one of the best-known Americans of any description, rivaling Benjamin Franklin in popularity. Rogers is known today for his role in developing the mystique of the modern Ranger, but what explains his meteoric rise and his long, depressing fall? Robert Rogers, Ranger: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon by Martin Klotz is a fresh look at the life of this famous, yet highly flawed man.