Essay: The French and Indian War

Another 8th grade American History assignment. (You must be thinking that she [the teacher] really worked us hard in there by now.) This time, we get to pick between being an Englishman, a Frenchman, or an Indian, (Native American, naturally.) You have just fought in the French and Indian war, and are writing about it. So of course, I wrote this as the all victorious Englishman. Luckily, I recieved an 'A'.

It was 1754, and our country, England, had just begun a war with France. The name of the war was the French and Indian war. We called it that because the French allied with many Indians to fight against us.

It started because of one main reason. Both England and France claimed land in the Ohio Valley. The Ohio Valley was a very important river that linked Canada and the Mississippi River. Beside that, both England and France wanted to expand population. If they could expand land, population would increase much more easily. Both countries also wanted power. With more land, a country could easily gain power, and there was a lot of power to be gained in this particular new land.

Our men might not have treated the Indians as well as the French did, however. We did not respect their ways, and we ignored their rights. Unlike the French, we were farmers, and we cleared their lands for farming. I guess if we had treated them better, we would have gained more allies. We did, however, offer them better trade than the French did, and this angered the French bitterly. In the end, we still were able to ally with one of the strongest tribes there. The Iroquois joined us to fight against the French.

Of the many battles that took place during the war, there is one that I can remember better than any other. The French and their allies could not take advantage of our red coats this time. It was 1759, and the Battle of Quebec was about to take place. General Wolfe ordered our troops to move quietly in small boats to the foot of the cliff. We quietly climbed up the cliff until we had four thousand British soldiers on the Plains of Abraham. The bloody battle ended quickly, and though both Montcalm and Wolfe died at the same time, the British had won. This was the turning point of the French and Indian war.

In the end, we had won with great victory. Though we had a rough start, we pulled ahead of the French in the end. When William Pitt became the Prime Minister of England, he had ideas that helped us finally get even with France. England had gained all lands east of the Mississippi, including Florida and Canada, when the war was over. Just as we gained that, Spain gained the lands west of the Mississippi and Central to South America, while France gained Islands in the West Indies.