Major Adam Bancroft - Savages In A Civilized War: The Native Americans As French Allies In The Seven Years War, 1754-1763

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SAVAGES IN A CIVILIZED WAR: THE NATIVE AMERICANS AS FRENCH ALLIES IN THE SEVEN YEARS WAR, 1754-1763

By

MAJ Adam Bancroft

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER

The Seven Years War was the first truly global war but it will forever be recognized in North America as the French and Indian War because of the extensive use of Native American allies by the French from 1754-1758. These irregular forces were needed to offset the massive manpower advantage the British possessed in North America, 1.5 million British colonists to 55,000 French colonists. This thesis examines the complex relationship the French had with their Indian allies who were spread throughout their territorial holdings in North America. It examines French and Indian diplomatic relations and wartime strategy, and moves to describe and form an understanding of the savage frontier warfare practiced by the Indians and its adaption by the French settlers known as la petite guerre . The thesis examines the French employment of the Indians as frontier raiders, setting the conditions for conventional army operations, and counter irregular force operations and how understanding an irregular forces culture is crucial for success. The thesis examined these cultural differences and why the Indians began to move away from the French in 1758 after the massacre of the British prisoners at the surrender of Fort William Henry. This examination of the employment of Native Americans provides a concise understanding of their use and where understanding the lessons of the past benefits the modern military officer working with partner forces today.

I would like to thank my thesis committee Dr. Gerges, Dr. Rafuse, and Dr. Mullis for their extraordinary knowledge, guidance, robust book shelves, consistently challenging me, and for the expert advice to keep me on track.

Thank you to the staff and librarians at the Combined Arms Research Library for research assistance and for providing the hard to find material and books for this topic.

My sincerest gratitude goes to my mother Marie, for providing the essential language and translation skills on some hard to find and period journals. I would also like to thank her for discussions on her long education in the history of her homeland and providing context and perspective. I could not have done this without her.

I would also like to thank my father and editor Jonathan, whose perspective on style and content were invaluable to the production of this paper and for his knowledge and expertise in the material and the terrain to provide much needed context.

Lastly, I would like to thank my wife Apryl for providing the much needed support and for allowing me to bounce ideas and theories off of her long after she had lost interest in the subject.

The more prescient colonial military and political leaders understood that the Indians were a critical element in the successful prosecution of war in the colonies. Their participation, or even neutrality, could represent the difference between victory and defeat. {1} Lieutenant-Colonel Bernd Horn, Terror on the Frontier

The Seven Years War (1754-1763) was a watershed moment in the history of not only France and England, but also of the North American continent as a whole. It would not only affect which European power dominated the continent as the premier colonial world power, but it also shaped the history of the many Indian tribes that inhabited the spaces claimed and managed by the European powers. By the end of the war and the defeat of the French in 1763, Britain had established itself as the sole colonial power in North America and had set the stage for American history as we know it today. {2}

However, the war had another name. In modern American and British history, the war would come to be known as, The French and Indian War. This name was not merely a moniker applied because those were the parties that fought the war against the British, but so named because of the deep seated and long standing alliance between the French and the Native Americans of the continent. This alliance permeated every aspect of French life, from trade, to missionaries, and most especially to warfare. {3}

This alliance was critical to the French during wartime because it enabled them to counter the amazing advantage the British had in resources and manpower, which in 1754 stood a staggering 1.5 million people in British territory to a meager fifty five thousand in New France, by practicing a form of warfare known as la petite guerre. This form of war, adapted from the Indian style of frontier warfare, focused on ambushes, raids, and other irregular tactics. The French used this non-European style of warfare to keep the British contained in their colonies by utilizing disruptive attacks on points of British weakness, combined with an unrelenting series of raids on the British frontier to terrorize the colonists. In 1756 this form of war would be integrated into the French operational plans, using native North American Indian warriors combined with the French regular army to shape an efficient form of combined irregular and regular warfare that would see the Indians, and their non-European fighting tactics, used where they could be the most successful. This strategy would keep the British off balance through a series of French tactical victories until 1758, when a series of cultural misunderstandings would ultimately force the Indians to cease their mass support of the French and move towards neutrality until the end of the war. {4}

This alliance was so critical to the French that a wide scale system of diplomacy and gifts was established to maintain positive relations with the Indians. These relations served to secure the French frontier against the punishing raids of the Indians, gain and maintain profitable trade in New France and provide warriors in time of war. An added benefit of this relationship was that it also prevented the British from gaining similar benefits from the Indians as well. This system led to the establishment of numerous forts and trading outposts along the British and French borderlands that would become the focus of the military actions of the war. The French devoted a staggering amount of resources to this trade with the Indians over the 150 years before the Seven Years War (1609-1754). {5}