in colonial North America,

we tend to think about the American Revolution,

not its earlier iteration, the Seven Years' War,

and I think that's a shame

because the Seven Years' War was incredibly influential

not only on the American Revolution,

but on the complexion of the world.

Thanks to the Seven Years' War,

Canada became a British country,

not a French country.

The Acadians moved down to Louisiana

and became known as the Cajuns,

and most importantly, England became the world's

preeminent empire.

So if you've been following along this far,

you may have noticed two things.

One, that the people who named this war

seem to be very bad at math

because 1754 to 1763

is nine years, not seven,

and that this war seems to have two names,

both the Seven Years' War

and the French and Indian War,

which is a name you perhaps have heard before.

Well, lemme tackle those two oddities

in reverse order.

So not only does the Seven Years' War have two names,

it has a whole number of names.

It's called the Seven Years' War,

the French and Indian War,

the War of the Conquest,

the Pomeranian War,

the Third Silesian War,

the Third Carnatic War.

This is a war with a whole bunch of names,

and the reason that it has a whole bunch of names

is that it was fought in a whole bunch of places.

The Seven Years' War was really

the first global war,

and we're talking 150 years before World War One.

Aspects of the Seven Years' War,

as you can kinda see from this map,

were fought in Europe,

in South America, the coast of Africa,

in India, the Philippines,

and of course, in North America.

The many different names come from

the many different fronts of this war,

and I would say that French and Indian War

is actually the name for the North American front

of this war, or theater of this war.

So there are two reasons why I think

Seven Years' War is a better name

than French and Indian War.

One is that Seven Years' War gets at the idea

that it was not just happening in North America.

It was happening all over the world,

so it shows that it was a global war,

but I also think Seven Years' War is a better name

than French and Indian War

because I think French and Indian War

is kind of confusing because you would think

that it means that the principal parties

in this war were the English

versus the French and the Indians,

when in fact it was the English

and their Indian allies versus the French

and their Indian allies.

Native Americans fought on both sides of this conflict,

so rather than the English and Indian

versus French and Indian War,

let's go with the shorter Seven Years' War,

which brings us back to our awkward date range.

So the reason that it's called the Seven Years' War

is because the English didn't actually declare war

on the French until 1756.

So even though fighting started a little bit earlier

in North America,

the true range of dates, at least in legal terms,

is from 1756 to 1763,

or seven years.

It's a complicated name for a complicated war,

but really what it came down to

was England and France

duking it out over who was going to be

the supreme imperial power in the world,

and they were concerned about who was going to have

the most territory

in the world,

therefore, their concern over who was going

to control North America

and their competing claims here,

and also access to trade.

So who was going to be able to trade with North Americans?

Who was going to be able to trade with the lucrative

Indian subcontinent,

and who would be the leading power in Europe?

So let's dial in a little closer

on the North American theater of this war,

which will have the most effect

on the future United States.

Alright, so here is map of territorial claims

by European powers

in North America before the Seven Years' War.

Now you can see that there are some places

where they overlap,

which is really gonna be the heart of the problem

in this conflict.

So England, shown here in red,

I'm gonna outline it a bit,

was, as you know from your early American history,

here along the eastern seaboard

of what's today the United States,

and also up into Canada.

France claimed this interior region of Canada

and today of the territorial United States,

and Spain was in the mix here.

Remember Spain has still been a fairly influential

colonial power in Florida

and in contemporary Mexico,

and also down here in Cuba and South America.

Alright, so we've got three major European powers

in the mix here in North America,

England, France,

and Spain,

but what this map doesn't show is

the American Indian powers,

who are also in this area.

So most of this region really west

of the Appalachian mountains,

is Indian country,

and the majority of inhabitants were Native Americans,

and they really held the majority of power

in this region as well.

So major Native American groups that are in play

in this conflict are Iroquois Confederacy,

and also Cherokees,

Hurons,

Algonquians,

Abenakis,

and Mi'kmaqs,

and that's just a small sampling.

So you can see that there are a number

of important Native American tribes

who are specifically in this area of Canada,

which is disputed,

and also moving in

the greater Appalachian region.

So what does each of these groups want?

Well, England definitely wants territory.

They want to make sure that they're English settlers

along the eastern seaboard,

whom we'll soon be calling Americans,

have room to expand.

The French wanna make sure that they still

have access to trade with Native Americans

because their main concern is fur,

which is a very valuable commodity in Europe,

and Spain wants to make sure that they

have access to their sugar islands

and also their precious metals

in the Caribbean

and in South America.

Now it's worth noting,

'cause I think this is really interesting to students

of American history,

that all of this territory,

all of North America,

was way less valuable than all of this territory

because we're not talking about just value in land.

We're talking about value in commodities,

and what the Caribbean had was sugar,

and sugar is the most valuable crop

in this time period.

So a tiny island down here in the Bahamas

is probably worth more to a European power

than the entire interior of North America,

and what do these Native American groups want?

Well, some of them want help with revenge

on each other.

Many other smaller Native American groups

have been displaced by the Iroquois,

who are here

in upstate New York, kind of Quebec region.

So the Iroquois is actually expanding

and really defending their claim

as the largest Native American empire,

but the other thing that they want

is to make sure that their territory

is no longer encroached upon

by English settlers in particular.

Now one mistake I see early students

of U.S. history making is thinking that

all Native Americans kind of shared

a cultural and political bond, right?

That they saw themselves as one larger people

who had to unite against the encroachment of Europeans,

and that was definitely not the case.

Native Americans had been living in this territory

for thousands of years,

and they had enemies and beef

with other groups that went back

way longer than the arrival of Europeans in North America.

So when nations like England and France

arrived with their weapons and their trade goods,

the American Indians didn't look at each other

and say, "Oh wait, now we're all one race.

"We need to join together against

"the encroachment of whites."

They saw England and France and Spain

as possible avenues to getting one up

on their older enemies.

So when an English trader sold a gun

to, say, a Huron,

he was way more likely

to go after, say,

the Iroquois with that gun than he was

to go after a French trader.

So another reason why

the Seven Years' War is a better name

for the French and Indian War

than French and Indian War is because

these Native American groups did not ally

all with France.

In fact, the Iroquois and Cherokee

ended up allied with England,

and most of the other Native American groups

ended up allied with France,

but they were fighting each other

in addition to fighting England.

Alright, so the stage is set for this conflict

with all of these competing groups

in this unclear territory,

and how this turns into a war,

we'll get to in the next video.