United States -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775
Three attempts were made by New England troops to recapture Acadia (1704,
1707, and 1710), the last being successful. The peace of Utrecht (1713)
recognized England's right to Acadia, "with its ancient boundaries," but it
brought only nominal peace to the New York and New England colonists.
Unfortunately the northern and western boundaries of Acadia were not
therein fixed, and the country between the Kennebec and the St. Lawrence
was in as much dispute as ever. Border settlers all along the line from the
Hudson to the Kennebec were in hourly peril of their lives from Indian
scalping-parties. There was abundant proof that the authorities of New
France, instructed by the government at Paris, were actively inciting the
red savages to forays for scalps and plunder. This fact tended greatly to
embitter the relations between the rival white races, and led to measures
of reprisal.
Sidenote: King George's War; capture of Louisbourg.
The irregular War of the Austrian Succession when it extended to America
was known as King George's War (1744-1748). The principal event was the
capture (1744) by New England troops of the strong fortress of Louisbourg,
on the island of Cape Breton. Having achieved so heroic a victory almost
single-handed, New Englanders considered themselves slighted by the treaty
of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), by which Louisbourg was surrendered to France,
and in other respects the unfortunate state of affairs existing before the
war was restored. Disappointment was openly expressed, and tended still
further to strain the relations between the colonies and the mother-land.
113. Territorial Claims.
Sidenote: Boundary disputes.
An attempt had been made at the convention at Aix-la-Chapelle to settle the
boundary disputes in America by referring the matter to a commission.
France now asserted her right to all countries drained by streams emptying
into the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi. This allowed,
the narrow strip of the Atlantic coast would alone have been left to
English domination. It was asserted on behalf of Great Britain that the
charters of her coast colonies carried their western bounds to the Pacific;
further, that as by the treaty of Utrecht France had acknowledged the
suzerainty of the British king over the Iroquois confederacy, the English
were entitled to all lands "conquered" by those Indians, whose war-paths
had extended from the Ottawa River on the north to the Carolinas on the
south, and whose forays reached alike to the Mississippi and to New
England. For three years the commissioners quarrelled at Paris over these
conflicting claims; but the dispute was irreconcilable; the only
arbitrament possible was by the sword.
Sidenote: The French line of frontier forts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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