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CHAPTER XII.

INTERCOLONIAL WARS.

166. King William III. was the sworn foe of Louis XIV. of France, and their wars were fought out with even greater violence in American forests than on battle-fields in Europe. For here the French had savage allies, who, falling upon the inland settlements of the English, murdered women, children, and defenseless men, with atrocities which civilized people can hardly conceive.

167. Four distinct wars between the French and English colonies are commonly named as:

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These wars were ended in Europe by treaties of peace, but fighting could hardly be said to have ceased on this continent at any time within the seventy-four years.

168. Attack on Schenectady.-During that time no mother hushed her babe to its night's rest, in any frontier village of New York or New England, with the least assurance that it would not be snatched from her arms and murdered before morning. The inhabitants of Schenectady, in New York, were awakened one wintry night, in 1690, by the savage war-whoop, to find their village in flames. The few who escaped the tomahawk fled, half-clothed, over the snow to Albany. The assailants gained nothing but the addition of sixty scalps to their trophies, to repay them for (97)

U.S. H.-7.

A. D. 1690.

twenty-two days' march through snows and frozen forests from Montreal. Similar attacks were repeated all along the northern frontier. Hundreds of captives were dragged away on the rapid return-march to Canada, and a single cry of pain or fatigue was answered by a blow from the tomahawk.' 169. Congress of the Northern Colonies. To put a stop to such outrages a congress of the northern colonies at New York planned the conquest of Acadia and Canada. The first was accomplished by volunteers from Massachusetts, who conquered Port Royal; but the attempts against Montreal and Quebec2 ended in failure and disaster. At the end of the war all conquests were restored, but a few years later Port Royal was retaken and named Annapolis, in honor of the queen of England. Acadia also changed its name to that of Nova Scotia, by which the English had always called it.

170. Queen Anne's War was called in Europe the "War of the Spanish Succession," and it A. D. 1702-1713. ended, after eleven years' conflict by land and sea, in placing a French prince on the throne of Spain. This was a serious matter for the English colonies, as it united in one policy their French and Spanish rivals, who hemmed them in on the north, west, and south. Spaniards as well as French now stirred up the Indians to attack the English towns.

A. D. 1705.

171. In return, Governor Moore, of South Carolina, led a company of volunteers through the pine forests which then covered Georgia, and attacked the Spanish settlements on Appalachee Bay. A force of twentythree Spaniards and four hundred Indians was defeated; six towns submitted to the English, and many of their people joined the South Carolina colony. A French fleet from Havana attempted the next year to capture Charleston, but so brave was the defense that the invaders had to retire with

WARS BETWEEN THE COLONIES.

99

immense loss. The boundary between Georgia and Florida was pushed far southward of the limit which Spain had claimed before the war.

172. The settlements on Albemarle and Pamlico sounds were nearly destroyed by the Tuscaroras. Their wrath had been excited by a survey of their lands with reference to a new immigration of Germans from the Rhine provinces, and they resolved to exterminate all the white men. The war was fierce and long, but at last the Indians were so far subdued that they abandoned their old hunting grounds, and emigrating northward became the sixth nation in the League of the Iroquois (§ 24).

A. D. 1713.

173. The French in Maine.-The French, meanwhile, still claimed the greater part of Maine; and their westernmost station was at Norridgewock, on the Kennebec.3 Here Father Rasles, a pious and learned priest, had gathered a school of Indian converts, who revered him as a saint. The English colonists regarded him, however, as a promoter of savage raids upon their homes, and several attempts were made to capture him. In one of the expeditions an Indian village above Bangor, on the Penobscot, was burned to the ground. At length Rasles's settlement was surprised by a party from New England; he made no effort to escape, but bravely met death in covering the retreat of his flock. His chapel was burnt, with all the Indian cabins.

A. D. 1724.

174. A new war soon broke out between Florida and the English colonies at the south. General Oglethorpe be

sieged St. Augustine without success; the Span- A. D. 1740-1742.

iards invading Georgia, were repulsed from Frederica with great loss. (See $153.)

All the colonies north of Carolina contributed men to a great English fleet, designed for the conquest of Mexico and the Spanish West Indies. Havana might have been cap

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tured, but the admiral missed his opportunity and attacked Carthagena on the South American coast. It was taken, and its fortresses were demolished; but there was nothing gained to balance the loss of 20,000 men. Nine tenths of all the colonial troops fell victims to the unhealthy climate.

175. King George's War.- These colonial contests were only a part of the "War of the Austrian Succession," in which nearly all Europe was engaged. In America it was known as "King George's War." Its

A. D. 1740-1748.

chief event in the north was the capture of Louisburg, on Cape Breton Island, the strongest fortress in America. The main burden of the undertaking was borne by the farmers and fishermen of New England; and their success was of great service as proving their power.1 In 1748 peace was restored, one of its conditions being the restoration of all conquests. Eight years of untold suffering and loss left the boundaries of all the nations unchanged.

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176. The Ohio Valley.-French forts and English settlements had now extended so far as to meet in the Ohio Valley. In 1753 Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, sent George Washington, then twenty-one years of age, to know from the French commander at Venango "his reasons for invading the British dominions." It was replied that the whole country was French by right of La Salle's discoveries, and that it could and would be defended. Washington returned, in imminent peril from Indian bullets and floating ice; and the next year was put in command of an expedition to complete and defend a fort already begun by the English at the forks of the Ohio.

177. Washington's Failure. Before his arrival the French had seized the fort, which they named Du Quesne in honor of the governor of New France. Washington surprised and defeated a party of the enemy; and while await

ATTEMPTED UNION.

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A. D. 1754.

ing the promised aid from the colonies, he fortified his little camp in the "Great Meadows," and named it Fort Necessity. No help came, excepting a company from South Carolina; and its captain, who held a commission from the king, claimed to supersede Washington, who, though a lieutenant-colonel, had received his rank only from the governor of Virginia. This unhappy dissension ruined the expedition. Attacked by the French and Indians, Washington was compelled, after nine hours' fighting, to retreat, leaving the whole Ohio basin to the enemy.

178. Union of the Colonies.-The prospect of a general war was now so imminent that the English colonies were forced to unite for the common defense. A convention of all the colonies north of the Potomac was assembled at Albany, and a plan of permanent union was submitted to it by Dr. Franklin. (See $$ 203-205.) It was accepted by the convention, but rejected by the Board of Trade as tending toward American independence; while the people themselves feared that a central government would interfere with the rights of each colony.

179. French and Indian War.-Though the colonial troops had borne so much of the labor and hardship of the wars with the French, they were despised by the regular British officers, who made no account of their superior knowledge of Indian tactics, and expected to enforce the same rules in the tangled forests of America as upon the

fields of Europe. One result of the French A. D. 1755-1763.

and Indian War was that American soldiers,

beside profiting by British drill, learned something of their own value.

180. Braddock's Defeat.-In 1755 a combined force of British and colonists undertook the capture of Fort Du Quesne ($177). General Braddock commanded, and Washington was his aid. As they marched through the dense

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