This first skirmish between these two sides happened in 1755, when a young officer by the name of George Washington and his militia tried to take down one of the French’s main forts, Duquesne. However they failed as the French proved to be a much greater force than expected, and Washington was forced to surrender and retreat. The French had the Indians on their side which was a big advantage to them, and more Indians who had been kicked out by the British colonists also saw this as an opportunity to settle some old scores. This resulted in a second loss for the British as they once again tried to take Fort Duquesne. This time though, they lost 70 percent of their men, and their general, Edward Braddock.
With the French defeat in the French and Indian War (1754–63), Indians west of the Appalachians found their survival threatened because they could no longer play off the French against the English. Aware that the presence of only one European power in their vicinity meant that the old trade system had broken down, in 1763 the Ottawa Chief Pontiac rallied many groups formerly allied with the French in an effort to oust the English from the Ohio Valley. Pontiac's Rebellion (1763–66), although relatively successful in cementing a pan‐Indian alliance, ultimately failed. The English government tried to achieve peace in 1763 by a royal proclamation separating Indians and English settlers at the crest of the Appalachian Mountains. While the proclamation's promise that all land west of he Appalachians would be reserved for the Indians weakened Pontiac's alliance, it did nothing to lessen Euro‐American pressures on Indian land, as American traders, squatters, and speculators flowed unchecked into the Ohio
Henry’s unusual toleration of the Huguenots caused trouble for the native Catholics in France and angered Pope Clement but this toleration would somewhat prevail in the Edict of Nantes because of what the nation and the two factions suffered prior to its creation. The Edict of Nantes not only granted successions to both sides but they were far fairer to the Huguenots including the granting of their civil rights, the rights that they lost in the Edict of Boulogne. The Edict of Boulogne was a slap in the face for the Huguenots as it segregated them from modern society, permitting them to only preach in the towns of La Rochelle, Mountauban and Nimes and even with that, only in their own homes. No
They were just fighting because they wanted to reform their government. But for America it was much more than fighting to reform their government. It was about fighting to part ways with Britain. It was about fighting for independence. France wasn’t part of the colonies like America was, America was sick of being treated badly, and unfairly so they decided to fight.
The course of the war itself significantly affected the political and ideological relationship of the colonials to their mother country, inasmuch as the colonists found the British imposition of restrictions and its hierarchical army to be repulsive to liberty, while the British saw the need for greater imperial control. However, it was the economic aftermath of the war, which left Britain with a changing war debt and a need to raise new colonial revenues that militated most heavily against colonial cooperation with the British. The French and Indian War, called the Seven Years’ war in Europe, had its antecedents in the settlement of the French and the British in the Ohio valley region of the American continent. Both the French and British sought to control lands in the region, while the Native Americans resisted the attempts of both to settle. The Indians largely played off of both sides to maintain an uneasy balance of power, but one group eventually decided to great trading concessions to the British, giving England greater access to the interior of the continent.
Because of the large debt left by the French and Indian War and the subsequent Seven Years War, Britain pushed a series of unwelcomed taxes and acts upon the American colonists that stripped them of their civil liberties. Such acts included the Sugar Act and Townshend Act, which taxed common household goods such as sugar, glass, paper, silk, and lead. In response to the British East India Company’s looming bankruptcy, British parliament passed the Tea Act, which allowed the company to bypass colonial merchants. The Quartering Act forced colonists to house British soldiers, and was seen as a reassertion of British authority over the colonies. The Stamp Act, which placed a tax on all printed items, angered colonists the most because it was passed with a blatant intention of raising revenue.
In order to continue battling France, the King forced from his barons greater taxes and additional military services, this angered the barons because he did not consult them before raising taxes; this was a violation of feudal law and custom. On top of angering the barons, King John also angered the citizens and the church as well. He was using unnecessary military force and demanded a ridiculous amount of taxes. Disagreements between Pope Innocent III, King John, and the English barons about the Kings rights were how the Magna Carta came to be written. A new Archbishop was to be elected; the candidates were the monks of Canterbury, and the other candidate was someone that the king favored, the Pope had the election take place in front of him, to see fair play.
By `1754 France and England were fighting for territory, and the Indians became pawns in the effort. The French and English tried to persuade the Indians to fight for them, and in the end the Indians decided to fight on the side of the French, believing that the French were not out to colonize, therefore making them more of an ally. In `1760, after six years of war, the French withdrew, but the English remained. Pontiac, an Indian, continued to fight for the prosperity and independence of the tribes. He rallied tribes to his cause and became very powerful, calling his forces “Pontiac’s Confederacy”.
Another reason feudalism lost power was the mercenaries that fought for the English king. After the first of the many treaties during the war was signed in 1360 by France, the English king did not want to release his unruly soldiers on his own land. Instead, they were loosed on France where they were free to loot and pillage as they pleased. Castles that belonged to lords took a beating as the mercenaries took them over and then sold them back to the lords for a large price. New weaponry made in the war made the king stronger against nobles.
These boycotts caused the English merchants to lose money and so they turned against King George for provoking the boycotts. Also, King George did not abide by the Magna Carta by taxing the British