The Moravians during the French and Indian War

Abstract

In 1754 the English colonies were concentrated along the Atlantic seaboard and the river valleys leading thereto. To the west of this moreor-less densely populated strip lay a vast wilderness permanently inhabited only by Indians and dotted with the isolated military garrisons and trading posts of the French. Because of conflicting claims and a faulty knowledge of geography, neither England nor France had been successful in convincing the other nation of the validity of her territorial claims. Three wars-King William's (1689-1697), Queen Anne's (1702-1713), and King George's (1744-1748) had been fought in an effort to solve this troublesome question, but in 1754 the problem was much the same as it had been in 1689. The French had because of exploration and commercial exploitation, laid claim to the almost boundless central portion of North America-the entire region drained by the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi. To defend these claims, a chain of French forts had been erected from Cape Breton Island and the St. Lawrence Valley to the Gulf of Mexico. Furthermore, the French were successful in enlisting the Algonquin Indian tribes as auxiliaries to their regular troops.