All about the ancient tribes
In spite of the war’s moniker, not all Native Americans sided with the French. While the majority of Native American tribes backed the French, numerous tribes remained neutral, fought alongside the British or shifted allegiances with the winds of war.
What were the three sides in the French and Indian War?
Early American Indian Wars Indians had to choose sides or try to stay neutral when the American Revolution broke out. Many tribes such as the Iroquois, Shawnee, Cherokee and Creek fought with British loyalists. Others, including the Potawatomi and the Delaware, sided with American patriots.
For Native Americans, the War of 1812 was a desperate struggle for freedom and independence. Native Americans became involved in the conflict to secure British support for their own war against the United States. Led by Tecumseh, they played a key role in defending Canada.
The Delawares and Shawnees became France’s most important allies. Shawnees and Delawares, originally “dependents” of the Iroquois, had migrated from Pennsylvania to the upper Ohio Valley during the second quarter of the 18th century as did numerous Indian peoples from other areas.
The Iroquois Confederacy, an alliance of six Native American nations in New York, was divided by the Revolutionary War. Two of the nations, the Oneida and Tuscarora, chose to side with the Americans while the other nations, including the Mohawk, fought with the British.
The British colonists were supported at various times by the Iroquois, Catawba, and Cherokee tribes, and the French colonists were supported by Wabanaki Confederacy member tribes Abenaki and Mi’kmaq, and the Algonquin, Lenape, Ojibwa, Ottawa, Shawnee, and Wyandot tribes.
French and Indian War, American phase of a worldwide nine years’ war (1754–63) fought between France and Great Britain. (The more-complex European phase was the Seven Years’ War [1756–63].) It determined control of the vast colonial territory of North America.
Most Native American tribes during the War of 1812 sided with the British because they wanted to safeguard their tribal lands, and hoped a British victory would relieve the unrelenting pressure they were experiencing from U.S. settlers who wanted to push further into Native American lands in southern Canada and in the
The British had won the French and Indian War. They took control of the lands that had been claimed by France (see below). France lost its mainland possessions to North America. Britain now claimed all the land from the east coast of North America to the Mississippi River.
The British victory in the French and Indian War had a great impact on the British Empire. Firstly, it meant a great expansion of British territorial claims in the New World. But the cost of the war had greatly enlarged Britain’s debt.