Queen Anne's War

Background

In 1701, following the death in late 1700 of King Charles II of Spain, war broke out over who should succeed him to the Spanish throne. Although the war was at first restricted to a few powers in Europe, in May 1702 it widened when England declared war on Spain and France.^[3] The hostilities in North America were further encouraged by existing frictions along the frontier areas separating the colonies of these powers. This disharmony was most pronounced along the northern and southwestern frontiers of the English colonies, which then stretched from the Province of Carolina in the south to the Province of Massachusetts Bay in the north, with additional colonial settlements or trading outposts on Newfoundland and at Hudson Bay.^[4]

The total population of the English colonies at the time has been estimated at 250,000, with Virginia and New England dominating.^[5] The population centers of these colonies were concentrated along the coast, with small settlements inland, sometimes reaching as far as the Appalachian Mountains.^[6] Most Europeans colonists knew very little of the interior of the continent, to the west of the Appalachians and south of the Great Lakes. This area was dominated by native tribes, although French and English traders had penetrated the area. Spanish missionaries in La Florida had established a network of missions, pacifying and converting to Christianity many of the local natives.^[7] The Spanish population was relatively small (about 1,500), and the Indian population they ministered to has been estimated to number 20,000.^[8] French explorers had located the mouth of the Mississippi River, near which established a small colonial presence in 1699 at Fort Maurepas (near present-day Biloxi, Mississippi).^[9] From there they began to establish trade routes into the interior, establishing friendly relations with the Choctaw, a large tribe whose natural enemies included the British-allied Chickasaw.^[10] All of these populations had suffered to some degree from the introduction of Eurasian infectious diseases like smallpox by early explorers and traders.^[11]

Queen Anne was occupied with the conflict during her reign.

The arrival of the French in the South threatened existing trade links that Carolina colonists had established into the interior, and Spanish territorial claims, creating tension among all three powers. France and Spain, allies in this conflict, had been on opposite sides of the recently ended Nine Years' War.^[12] Conflicting territorial claims between Carolina and Florida south of the Savannah River were overlaid by animosity over religious divisions between the Roman Catholic Spanish and the Protestant English along the coast.^[13]

To the north, the conflict held a strong economic component in addition to territorial disputes. Newfoundland was the site of a British colony based at St. John's, and the French colonial base was at Plaisance, with both sides also holding a number of smaller permanent settlements. The island also had many seasonal settlements used by fishermen from Europe.^[14] These colonists, numbering fewer than 2,000 English and 1,000 French permanent settlers (and many more seasonal visitors), competed with one another for the fisheries of the Grand Banks, which were also used by fishermen from Acadia (then encompassing all of present-day Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) and Massachusetts.^[15][16] The border area between New France and Massachusetts (which then included the Province of Maine) was also uncertain; there was a French settlement in Penobscot Bay near the site of modern Castine, Maine that had already been the site of conflict during the Nine Years' War, and the territory between the Penobscot and Kennebec Rivers had been contested in that conflict.^[17] The frontier areas between the Saint Lawrence River and the primarily coastal settlements of Massachusetts and New York were still dominated by natives (primarily Abenaki and Iroquois), and the Hudson River–Lake Champlain corridor had also been used for raiding expeditions in both directions in earlier conflicts. Although the Indian threat had receded somewhat due to reductions in the native population as a result of disease and the last war, they were still seen to pose a potent threat to outlying settlements.^[18]

The Hudson Bay territories (known to the English as Prince Rupert's Land) were not significantly fought over in this war; the only incident of note was a French attack on York Factory in 1709. Although they had been a scene of much dispute by competing French and English companies starting in the 1680s, the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick left France in control of all but one outpost on the bay.^[19][20] The Hudson's Bay Company, unhappy with the loss of these outposts in the last war, successfully lobbied for the return of its territories in the negotiations that ended this war

Technology and organization

Military technology used in North America was not as developed as it was in Europe. Only a few colonial settlements had stone fortifications (among them St. Augustine, Boston, Quebec, and St. John's) at the start of the war, although Port Royal was fortified early in the war.^[22] Some frontier villages were protected by wooden palisades, but many had little more than fortified wooden houses with gun ports through which defenders could fire, and overhanging second floors from which they might fire down on attackers trying to break in below.^[23] Europeans were typically armed with smooth-bore muskets that had a maximum range of about 100 yards (91 m), but were inaccurate at ranges beyond half that distance. Some colonists also carried pikes, while Indian warriors were either supplied with European arms, or were armed with more primitive weapons like tomahawks and bows and arrows. A small number of colonists had training in the operation of cannons and other types of artillery; these were the only effective weapons for attacking significant stone or wooden defenses.^[24]

English colonists were generally organized into militia companies, and their colonies had no regular military presence^[24] beyond a small number in some of the communities of Newfoundland.^[25] The French colonists were also organized into militias, but they also had a standing defense force called the troupes de la marine. This force consisted of some experienced officers, and was manned by recruits sent over from France. Numbering between 500 and 1,200, they were spread throughout the territories of New France with concentrations in the major population centers.^[26] Spanish Florida was defended by a few hundred regular troops; Spanish policy was to pacify the Indians in their territory and not to provide them with weapons. This policy had devastating consequences: before the war, Florida held an estimated 8,000 Indians, but this was reduced to 200 after English raids made early in the war.^[27]

Newfoundland

Newfoundland's coast was dotted with small French and English communities, with some fishing stations occupied seasonally by fishermen from Europe.^[59] Both sides had fortified their principal towns, the French at Plaisance on the western side of the Avalon Peninsula, the English at St. John's on Conception Bay.^[60] During King William's War, d'Iberville had destroyed most of the English communities in 1696–7;^[61] the island again became a battleground in 1702. In August of that year, an English fleet under the command of Commodore John Leake descended on the outlying French communities but made no attempts on Plaisance.^[62] During the winter of 1705 Daniel d'Auger de Subercase, the French governor at Plaisance, retaliated, leading a combined French and Mi'kmaq expedition that destroyed several English settlements and unsuccessfully besieged Fort William at St. John's. The French and their Indian allies continued to harry the English throughout the summer, and did damages claimed at £188,000 to the English establishments.^[63] The English sent a fleet in 1706 that destroyed French fishing outposts on the island's northern coasts.^[64] In December 1708 a combined force of French, Canadian, and Mi'kmaq volunteers captured St. John's, and destroyed the fortifications. Lacking the resources to hold the prize, they abandoned it, and St. John's was reoccupied and refortified by the English in 1709. (The same French expedition also tried to take Ferryland, but it successfully resisted.)^[65]

English fleet commanders contemplated, but did not make, attacks on Plaisance in 1703 and 1711 (the latter by Admiral Walker in the aftermath of the disaster at the mouth of the St. Lawrence).^[66]

Peace

In 1712, Britain and France declared an armistice, and a final peace agreement was signed the following year. Under terms of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, Britain gained Acadia (which they renamed Nova Scotia), sovereignty over Newfoundland, the Hudson Bay region, and the Caribbean island of St. Kitts. France recognized British suzerainty over the Iroquois,^[67] and agreed that commerce with Native Americans further inland would be open to all nations.^[68] It retained all of the islands in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, including Cape Breton Island, and retained fishing rights in the area, including rights to dry fish on the northern shore of Newfoundland.^[69]

Consequences

European territorial control after the war

Spanish Florida never really recovered its economy or population due to the effects of the war,^[70] and was ceded to Britain following the Seven Years' War in the 1763 Treaty of Paris.^[71] Indians that had been resettled along the Atlantic coast chafed under British rule, as did those allied to the British in this war. This discontent flared into the 1715 Yamasee War that posed a major threat to South Carolina's viability.^[72] The loss of population in the Spanish territories contributed to the 1732 founding of the Province of Georgia, which was, like Carolina, granted on territory Spain had originally claimed.^[73] Following military action by James Moore against the Tuscaroras of North Carolina (part of the Tuscarora War begun in 1711), many of them fled north as refugees to join their linguistic cousins, the Iroquois.^[74]

The economic costs of the war were high in some of the English colonies, including some that saw little military activity. Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania to a lesser extent, were hit hard by the cost of shipping their export products (primarily tobacco) to European markets, and also suffered because of several particularly bad harvests.^[75] South Carolina accumulated a significant debt burden to finance military operations. The New England colonies suffered less, where the importance of Boston as a center of shipbuilding and trade, combined with a financial windfall caused by the crown's military spending on the 1711 Quebec expedition, offset some of the costs of waging the war.^[76]

The loss of Newfoundland and Acadia restricted the French presence on the Atlantic to Cape Breton Island. French settlers from Newfoundland were resettled there, creating the colony of Île-Royale, and France constructed the Fortress of Louisbourg in the following years.^[67] This presence, combined with the rights to use the Newfoundland shore, resulted in continued friction between French and British fishing interests, which was not fully resolved until late in the 18th century.^[77]

The British capture of Acadia had long-term consequences for the Acadians and Mi'kmaq living there. Britain's hold on Nova Scotia was initially quite tenuous, a situation that French and Mi'kmaq resistance leaders capitalized on. British relations with the Mi'kmaq after the war developed in the context of British expansion not just in Nova Scotia, but also along the Maine coast, where New Englanders began moving into Abenaki lands, often in violation of previous treaties. Since neither the Abenakis nor the Mi'kmaq were mentioned or involved in the Treaty of Utrecht, this conflict developed into Dummer's War (1722–1725).

British relations with the nominally conquered Acadians were also difficult. Repeated British demands that Acadians swear oaths to the British crown were resisted, and eventually sparked an exodus by the Acadians to Île-Royale and Île-Saint-Jean (present-day Prince Edward Island). In later years French leaders like Father Jean-Louis Le Loutre orchestrated a guerrilla war with their Mi'kmaq allies against British attempts to expand Protestant settlements in peninsular Nova Scotia.

Friction also persisted between France and Britain over Acadia's borders. The treaty was vague about describing its boundaries, which even the French had never really formally described. France insisted that only the Acadian peninsula (modern Nova Scotia except Cape Breton Island) was included in the treaty, and that they retained the rights to modern New Brunswick.^[78] The disputes over Acadia, which flared into open conflict during King George's War in the 1740s, would not be resolved until the British conquest of all French North American territories in the area in the Seven Years' War.^[79]

The French did not fully comply with the commerce provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht. They attempted to prevent English trade with remote Indian tribes, and erected Fort Niagara in Iroquois territory. French settlements on the Gulf Coast continued to grow, with the settlement of New Orleans in 1718, and other attempts, ultimately unsuccessful, to expand into Spanish-controlled Texas and Florida. French trading networks penetrated the continent along the waterways feeding the Gulf of Mexico,^[80] renewing conflicts with both the British and the Spanish.^[81] Trading networks established in the Mississippi River watershed, including the Ohio River valley, also brought the French into more contact with British trading networks and colonial settlements that crossed the Appalachian Mountains. Conflicting claims over that territory eventually led to war in 1754, when the French and Indian War broke out.^[82]