Seven Years War

Ethnic Cleansing & Wartime Refugees in the Hudson Valley, 1754-1763

May 27, 2026 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

During the French and Indian War (1754-1763), many Mahican and Munsee-speaking people in the Hudson Valley felt themselves pressured to relocate to new areas both inside and outside of the Valley as the result of an ethnic cleansing project conducted by Sir William Johnson.

This created a refugee crisis that led to a varied of responses from both colonial officials and the Mohawks and other members of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Six Nations. [Read more…] about Ethnic Cleansing & Wartime Refugees in the Hudson Valley, 1754-1763

Dutch Arms Dealers & Military Engineers in the Revolutionary War

January 16, 2026 by Jaap Harskamp Leave a Comment

Modern international law prohibits a neutral nation from supplying arms, ammunition, or equipment to any warring party, either directly or indirectly.

Eighteenth-century Dutch legal minds argued the opposite case. They stuck to the principle of “free ships make free goods,” dictating that a vessel under a neutral flag cannot be captured or confiscated.

Neutrality was driven by self-interest, a desire to achieve economic advantage without being involved in hostilities. [Read more…] about Dutch Arms Dealers & Military Engineers in the Revolutionary War

Indigenous Transportation & Early Forts at Oswego

December 28, 2025 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

In attempts to maximize proximity to valuable trade with the Haudenosaunee and other Indigenous nations, Europeans established outposts and forts farther and farther into the interior of Haudenosaunee territory and the Great Lakes.

The French followed the St. Lawrence River into the Great Lakes and discovered that the Oswego River provided a water route inland to the Oswego-Oneida-Mohawk Carry, a trail using the largest portage connecting the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean. [Read more…] about Indigenous Transportation & Early Forts at Oswego

Baron Dieskau: A New Epitaph

September 16, 2025 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Most books written about the French and Indian War and the Battle of Lake George close with a wounded and defeated General Jean-Armand de Dieskau and a few sentences in a closing paragraph or footnote to wrap up the general’s movements from North America to Europe and his death in 1767.

Dieskau has been forgotten by history, just as he was forgotten and abandoned during the Seven Years War/French and Indian War. [Read more…] about Baron Dieskau: A New Epitaph

1886: Colonel Ephraim Williams Monument Vandalism

August 4, 2025 by Joseph W. Zarzynski 1 Comment

It was July 12, 1886, and the Glens Falls Post-Star newspaper published a story entitled “Stop the Vandals.” Relic hunters were destroying the Ephraim Williams Monument obelisk, located off Route 9 four miles south of Lake George, breaking off pieces from the corners of the once “handsome monument.” [Read more…] about 1886: Colonel Ephraim Williams Monument Vandalism

The Shawnee-Dunmore War, 1774

November 26, 2024 by Dr. Liz Covart 3 Comments

After the Seven Years’ War (1754-1763, known as the French and Indian War in North America), Great Britain instituted the Proclamation Line of 1763. The Line sought to create a lasting peace in British North America by limiting British colonial settlement east of the Appalachian Mountains.

In 1768, colonists and British Indian agents negotiated the Treaties of Fort Stanwix and Hard Labour to extend the boundary line further west. In 1774, the Shawnee-Dunmore War (also known as Lord Dunmore’s War) broke out as colonists attempted to push further west. [Read more…] about The Shawnee-Dunmore War, 1774

War College of the Seven Years’ War: Call For Papers

April 29, 2024 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

2025 marks the 250th anniversary of the year when war broke out once again across North America, eventually evolving into the American War of Independence. Twenty Years earlier another conflict had begun, also beginning in America that led directly to the war for American independence. The global Seven Years’ War (including the French and Indian War) reshaped political geographies, military practice, and alliances from Massachusetts to Manila. [Read more…] about War College of the Seven Years’ War: Call For Papers

The Road to Ticonderoga: The Campaign of 1758 in the Champlain Valley

November 24, 2023 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

The British campaign to capture Fort Carillon on the Ticonderoga Peninsula in 1758 resulted in the largest battle of the French and Indian War. Crafted by Prime Minister William Pitt, the scope and scale of the British effort was staggering, calling for their northern colonies to raise 20,000 men to rendezvous with the British Regulars at Albany.

The directive would test the patience, resources, and will of the colonial governments as well as that of the newly appointed the British commander-in-chief, General James Abercrombie. [Read more…] about The Road to Ticonderoga: The Campaign of 1758 in the Champlain Valley

To Distress the French and Their Allies: Rogers’ Rangers, 1755-1763

November 3, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

To Distress the French and Their Allies: Rogers’ Rangers, 1755-1763 (Black Dome Press, 2023) is the first volume in a new “Rangers of the French and Indian, Cherokee, and Pontiac’s War” series by Black Dome Press, that is expected to document for the first time the histories of all ranger units, from each of the colonies, that served in the French & Indian War and after.

Volume I begins with the most famous ranger unit of all ― Robert Rogers’ Rangers, which served in the major campaigns in New York and Canada, and then in the Caribbean, and continued to fight in the Cherokee and Pontiac’s Wars. [Read more…] about To Distress the French and Their Allies: Rogers’ Rangers, 1755-1763

The French and Indian War: A New York Perspective

August 31, 2023 by Peter Hess Leave a Comment

In the early 1750s, the French were establishing trading posts and building forts along western the frontiers of the British colonies. In the fall of 1753, in part to protect his own claims on Indigenous lands, Virginia Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie had sent 22-year-old George Washington (then a militia leader and surveyor) to deliver a letter to Fort Le Boeuf at what is today Waterford in northwest Pennsylvania, demanding they stop. [Read more…] about The French and Indian War: A New York Perspective

Early Inhabitants of the Finger Lakes Region

August 14, 2023 by Guest Contributor 2 Comments

According to archeological records, groups of nomadic Paleo-Indians traveled through the Finger Lakes region approximately 8,000 to 9,000 years ago. Small bands of these hunters and gatherers followed large game during the last stages of the Ice Age when the glaciers that formed the area’s notable lakes were receding.

Somewhat more recent early archaic archeological sites scattered across Western New York reflect a culture that was highly mobile and left little in terms of an archeological record. [Read more…] about Early Inhabitants of the Finger Lakes Region

Early Forts Near Old Saratoga: Some History

August 3, 2023 by Guest Contributor 2 Comments

Many of the descriptions about fortifications in the Upper Hudson Valley, close to New France, were written by soldiers, travelers and settlers during the wars in the 18th century and into the 19th century.

Since many of the North American colonies were defended by Independent Companies, the regular English and, later, British armies had little direct influence on fortification designs, which created a high demand for the assistance of military engineers. [Read more…] about Early Forts Near Old Saratoga: Some History

The 1757 Siege of Fort William Henry & James Fenimore Cooper

July 27, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

James Fenimore Cooper’s novel The Last of the Mohicans tells a gripping tale of the bloody conflicts that roiled the Lake George region in the middle of the 18th century. In particular, the novel gives a stirring, if inaccurate, description of the Siege of Fort William Henry (August 3-9, 1757) during the French and Indian War and its immediate aftermath. [Read more…] about The 1757 Siege of Fort William Henry & James Fenimore Cooper

Fort Ticonderoga Curator Dr. Matthew Keagle Interview

June 16, 2023 by Bob Cudmore Leave a Comment

This week on The Historians Podcast, Fort Ticonderoga Curator Dr. Matthew Keagle discusses the Fort’s plans this season, which includes interpreting 1760 at Ticonderoga and see how British soldiers and American provincials ensured military dominance on Lake Champlain and deep into the heart of French Canada. [Read more…] about Fort Ticonderoga Curator Dr. Matthew Keagle Interview

Israel Putnam: Veteran of the French & Indian, Revolution Wars

May 30, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

A colorful figure of 18th-century America, Israel Putnam, “Old Put,” played a key role in both the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. In 1758, while serving with Rogers’ Rangers in New York, he barely escaped being burned alive by Mohawk warriors. He later commanded a force of 500 men who were shipwrecked off the coast of Cuba. He reportedly, and famously, gave the command “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes” at the Battle of Bunker Hill. [Read more…] about Israel Putnam: Veteran of the French & Indian, Revolution Wars

War College of the Seven Years’ War Call for Papers

June 7, 2021 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Fort Ticonderoga has announced they are now accepting proposals for papers broadly addressing the period of the Seven Years’ War for its Twenty-Sixth Annual War College of the Seven Years’ War to be held May 20th through 22nd, 2022. [Read more…] about War College of the Seven Years’ War Call for Papers

1763-1848: The Age of Revolutions

December 27, 2017 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

Between 1763 and 1848, an age of revolutions took place in North America, South America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe. But why is it that we only seem to remember the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Haitian Revolution?

Given that the American Revolution took place before all of these other revolutions, what was its role in influencing this larger “Age of Revolutions?” Did it influence this larger period? [Read more…] about 1763-1848: The Age of Revolutions

Disease & The Seven Years’ War

January 18, 2017 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

When we think of the French and Indian War, or Seven Years’ War, we often think of battles: The Monongahela, Ticonderoga, Québec. Yet, wars aren’t just about battles. They’re about people and governments too.

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History, we explore a very different aspect of the French and Indian or Seven Years’ War. We explore the war through the lens of disease and medicine and how disease prompted the British government to take steps to keep its soldiers healthy.

Our guide for this investigation is Erica Charters, an Associate Professor of the History of Medicine at the University of Oxford and author of Disease, War, and the Imperial State: The Welfare of British Armed Forces during the Seven Years’ War (University of Chicago Press, 2014). [Read more…] about Disease & The Seven Years’ War

War, Money, and the American State, 1783-1867

December 2, 2015 by Dr. Liz Covart Leave a Comment

As Benjamin Franklin stated in 1789, “nothing is certain but death and taxes.” Given the certainty of taxes it seems important that we understand how the United States’ fiscal system developed.

In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, we explore the development of the early American fiscal system with Max Edling, Professor of History at King’s College, London and author of A Hercules in the Cradle: War, Money, and the American State, 1783-1867 (University of Chicago Press, 2014). [Read more…] about War, Money, and the American State, 1783-1867

Seven Years War

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