As Europeans explored and settled North America,
the Native American peoples gained new markets for prized beaver pelts. A confederation of Iroquois-speaking peoples
made up of the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk tribes served as
the dominant political entity in the region and economic center through which
most of the beaver pelts passed on their way to Dutch traders. In the seventeenth century, the French under
Samuel de Champlain allied with enemies of the Iroquois such as the Algonquin and
Huron and pushed the Confederation south, clearing the northerly trade route up
the St. Lawrence River for French domination.
Overhunting due to the easy use of firearms caused a decline of beaver
population, and the Iroquois, aided by the Dutch, pushed north and west in
search of more hunting grounds. Conflict
with allies brought the French into the war directly, and the two fought for
decades until the Iroquois saw a greater threat: English settlement. The English had replaced the Dutch as
trade-partners, but they settled much more aggressively, and in 1701 the
Iroquois and French signed the Great Peace of Montreal despite English outrage.
Amid the turmoil, the French determined to
strengthen their hold on the Ohio Valley.
Their position had weakened among Native Americans due to the British
blockade during King George’s War of the 1740s, leaving English settlers as the
only trade-partners for locals. In 1749,
Governor-General of New France Comte de la Galissoniere dispatched Captain
Céloron de Blainville from Detroit to
demarcate river-ways to prove their claim and impress local Indians. He came to Logstown, a settlement of thirty
log cabins that had been placed in modern western Pennsylvania by the French
several years before and donated to the local Indians. There, he found English traders, and became
enraged. Instead of acting out, however,
he decided to use the incursion to his advantage and point out mockingly just
how far beyond their treaties the English would settle again and again while
the French had yet to break any word from Montreal. His Iroquois guides were impressed, and word
spread about French recognition of treaties, creating a potent diplomatic
victory upon the announcement of active settling in the area by the Ohio
Company of Virginia. Trade with the
French became encouraged as the blockade ended, and a new market opened down
the Mississippi River. In 1752, Iroquois
and Ohio Company representatives met, but the heightened Iroquois demands for payment
were considered too expensive.
Relations worsened in December of 1753 as Governor
Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia, himself heavily invested in the Ohio Company and
standing to lose money, demanded the French leave Ohio by letter through Major
George Washington. The French commander,
Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre,
refused, and war began. The Iroquois led
by the Mohawk were caught in the middle of the growing conflict and agreed to
meet with representatives from seven American colonies at a conference in
Albany, New York. The Iroquois demanded
terms of permanent borders with stiff penalties for those who settled illegally. When the colonists could not agree, the
Iroquois left the conference with impressions of war. Some historians believe the move was to show
the seriousness of leverage and that the Iroquois expected to have another
meeting soon.
Colonists at the time, however, were terrified
of losing their ally to France and took very seriously the proposal for a
defensive union made by Benjamin Franklin, head of the representatives from Pennsylvania. His “Albany Plan” outlined a detailed confederated
colonial government consisting of an executive President General
appointed by the Crown and a Grand Council formed of representatives from the
colonies. While the full plan outlined
ideals for shared trade powers and the right to create treaties with Indians,
the assembly streamlined it for acceptance at a time of war to a simpler
military union.
The panicked colonial legislatures, unnerved
further by Franklin’s “Join or Die” cartoon, approved the confederation and
began organizing taxes to support local armies beyond militia. The Colonial Office in London agreed as well,
seeing a chance to earn badly needed cash for the coming war with France and
Spain in Europe. Major General Edward
Braddock was named the first President General and dispatched with an army to
be joined by American troops, but his first expedition ended in failure and his
own death. The war went poorly for the
British initially as the Iroquois joined with other French allies in attacking
settlers, but the colonies rose up as former militia became hardened soldiers
through British training. By the end of
the war, the Americans had stormed into the Ohio Valley and conquered Canada.
In the 1760s, the colonies enjoyed their newfound military
autonomy under President Generals Jeffrey Amherst and Thomas Gage, who
seemingly encouraged encroachment to further British military holdings in the
face of Spanish Louisiana and Florida.
To fund their expansion, the colonists held congresses that sold seized
land and offered prizes to colonies who volunteered treasury money. The right to tax was discussed often, but
outspoken leaders such as Thomas Paine and Samuel Adams refused to let the
common man pay for another man’s profit.
London became nervous about coming so close to Spanish lands, but
wealthy officers among the growing plantation class in the South and land
speculators in the North encouraged cooperation by aiding with the enormous
debts from the Seven Years’ War.
Colonies such as Delaware and South Carolina, who felt they had no stake
in the military defense, left the union.
Further divisions such as the problem of slavery and the sale of bonds
for infrastructure weakened the confederation into northern and southern camps.
Revolutions in France followed poor harvests in the
1780s, and like-minded thinkers in America called for direct representation in
Parliament in the 1790s while others sought continued self-rule. Prime Minister William Pitt agreed with the
former, as the move would mean Americans would be responsible for aiding directly
with the war effort against Revolutionary France. Americans fought on battlefields in Europe as
well as gaining Louisiana and Florida from the Spanish by conquest. After the wars of revolution, Britain and her
American colonies continued amicably until the empire-wide end of slavery
caused several colonies to attempt secession.
After years of violent war in the early 1830s, these colonies were
brought back into the fold under a Reconstruction program. Later wars in the twentieth century would
weaken the empire overall, spurring decolonization to the Commonwealth into a
series of six dominions.
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In reality, Céloron’s diplomacy was merely
use of force as he threw out the English traders, which disgusted his Iroquois
guides and provoked them to leave for home, tearing up demarcation plaques as
they went. Later Céloron wrote,
"All I can say is that the Natives of these localities are very badly
disposed towards the French, and are entirely devoted to the English. I don't
know in what way they could be brought back." The Iroquois Confederation
were tight allies with the British up to the American Revolution, when the
tribes split with the Oneida and Tuscarora joining the patriots while the rest
remained loyal to Britain and suffered when Britain surrendered.
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