Talk:French and Indian Wars

request for peer review, Battle of the Thousand islands

Wikipedia:Peer review/Battle of the Thousand Islands/archive1

I Just finished up the main body of this article on a relitivly small engagemet of the French and Indian War. I'm hopeing a peer review will bring some suggestions on how the article can be improved and hopfully bring some more info on the subject. I'd like to see more info on some of the personalities that don't have they're own page to link to, and some more detail on how the battle developed... Any input would be very much appreciated! Mike McGregor (Can) 18:13, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The French and Indian Wars ended with the ejection of France from North America. The American War of Independence was heavily backed by Catholic France, and achieved the aim of dramatically reducing English power in North America -- the original objective of the French and Indian Wars.

The American War of Independence is, therefore, merely the "5th French & Indian War" -- like the previous 4, it involved France (and its allies) fighting England.

These 5 wars also need to be set in the context of the Catholic Counter Reformation against the Protestants.

It is no accident that these conflicts -- which were merely the local North American footprint of a much larger, indeed Titanic, global struggle -- pitted Catholic France against Protestant England. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.235.44.73 (talk) 20:38, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

No the French entered the war later and in smaller numbers than the other participants - and America stayed largely Protestant. The Americans were also backed by the Dutch - should this be the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, too? Rmhermen — Preceding undated comment added 20:58, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes. According to the Army.mil website (http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/RevWar/ss/langdon.htm), Catholic France had already begun exporting arms to the Americans by 1777. They entered OVERTLY later, true, but COVERTLY they were in it from the outset. Also, according to the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War entry (as of 28 May, 2006), the Dutch "Patriots" who enflamed public hatred towards Protestant England were "Pro-French", ie, pro-CATHOLIC. And, proving the point, the Dutch also worked hand in glove with CATHOLIC Spain as well. The Dutch were clearly 1) under the influence of pro-Catholic agents and 2) unambiguously and openly allied, in WAR, with the Catholic bloc. The Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780-84) was a victory for CATHOLIC French diplomacy, by opening up another front against the hated Protestant English empire. See also the note about Robin Reilly in the War of 1812 article:

Some historians, such as Robin Reilly, have argued that the declaration of war on Great Britain by the United States was a victory for French diplomacy, forcing Britain to divert its attention and some resources from continental matters. From a British perspective, there was certainly no reason to commence a war with the United States. Britain had been engaged in a desperate war with France since 1793 and depended on American supplies to maintain Wellington's army in Spain. Any combat in North America would merely be a distraction from the main effort to contain and defeat the French in Europe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.235.44.73 (talk) 23:06, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Adding information

I am in the process of adding a lot of information to the first 3 French and Indian wars, seeing as they have been neglected so. I'm starting with the 1690 Battle of Quebec. AmericanColumbia — Preceding undated comment added 05:25, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Intercolonial Wars

Re: "no one uses those names for these wars". First off - I do. Secondly, I appreciated your attempt to discuss it here first. Thirdly, I'm a history teacher in Quebec and I am required by law to teach my students the "Intercolonial Wars". If the students cannot identify which war was the second v.s. the fourth, then they will be penalized. Their final provincial history exams are requirements for a high school leaving certificate. Here are some links that use the "Intercolonial Wars"

• http://www.gbl.indiana.edu/archives/miamis16/M65_1a.html
• http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~wjmartin/chapter1.htm
• http://web.cortland.edu/woosterk/deming.html

I didn't look to see if these are academic sources, but the point is that some people use the term. Frankly Rmhermen, I'm surprised by the speed at which you repeatedly moved on this item given your extensive and reputable contributions to Wikipedia. Trapper 05:46, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

"1st Intercolonial War" yields zero Google hits, ditto "2nd...". Not to mention the obvious fact that these are not the first, second etc. wars between colonies, between American colonies or even between France and Britian in the American colonies. Neither your first nor your third link is using that as the title of a war and as a description it is clearly misleading and something we have no need to repeat. Rmhermen 05:55, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I don't know why you are continueing with this but, type in "First Intercolonial War", "second.." etc. I don't know what else I can say. I thought my explanation was sufficient. I told you there is a definite need for those terms yet you seem to be intent on ignoring my reason. I will now scan the children's textbook to prove it to you. Trapper 06:06, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

"First Intercolonial war" yields very few hits - less than a dozen, two duplicates from Quebec and 3 others from 1849, 1855 and 1904. Did I miss something? Also searched on Ask.com, msn, and yahoo found only one metadata in a book review and one timeline - using it not as a proper name.Rmhermen 06:12, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

"Very few hits" means people use the term. Below is the scan of the Quebec provincial text book "The History of Quebec and Canada in a nutshell", by Brian Maddock. It is a required text province wide. Trapper 06:26, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, it does appear that you use the translation of the French "la première guerre intercoloniale" in Quebec but that is not a widespread usage as shown by the web searches. Perhaps a comment in the table about the Quebec names of these wars is in order but certainly those names do not deserve first location in the table. Rmhermen 06:34, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

All I'm looking for is some sort of compromise where people in Quebec can be properly directed to the correct wars. I fully understand that the intercolonial wars are not significantly used outside of quebec, but when it's the only term used within quebec, the Wikipedia article might be difficult for some English speakers in Quebec to understand. Trapper 06:43, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

How's this version? Rmhermen 06:43, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Very kind. Thank you. Trapper 06:45, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Went to french high school in Quebec and have younger siblings doing the same in the past decade; if the expression has currency in public education, it's extremely recent. Up to that point the wars were mostly refered to by their broader, european name or in a few cases in the early colonial period as the french-iroquois wars, but that's an episode of the beaver wars. 216.252.78.183 (talk) 21:15, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, I was specifically looking up "Intercolonial Wars" and got here. Maybe it's not that big of a deal, same article / different name. "French and Indian Wars" does smack of a distinctively U.S. (English colonial) point of view, however. Certainly France- one of the two major belligerents in this series of conflicts- didn't think of this as a war against French & (American) Indians. It also excludes the corresponding European theaters between the two colonial powers, not to mention the battles in Africa and India. Maybe Intercolonial Wars should be an expanded version of this article? Canute (talk) 17:37, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Americanocentrism should be more evident

I should first mention I'm Canadian. Now, I've never heard these names for the North American theatres of the wars before (e.g. King William's War, Queen Anne's War, etc.) except for the French and Indian War, which I know as the American name for the Seven Years' War.

Though the article does state that the "French and Indian Wars" collective title is used in the U.S., it should be clearer that the usage of these names are (as far as I am aware) confined to the U.S. --Saforrest 04:43, 21 June 2006 (UTC)`

I'm not sure of Wikipedia's official stance on this, but... I would think that both refernences on the web, but also published works in books and magazines, etc. in the English language should be a determinant of whether an article name should be labelled on the basis of place used (French and Indian Wars vs Intercolonial Wars). Now, often British terms might be better used on the basis of Internationallly-used English or European English (aluminum vs. aluminium, stevedore vs longshoreman) -- but this case of historical terminology... especially for wars that were fought on what is presently United States territory, I think a case can be made for keeping US terminology. Usage of qualifiers like "usage confined to Canada" makes sense when its mere 32 million Canadian users and small publishing industry is compared to 300 million in the US with giant, one might even say dominant, English language publishing industries. "Confined to the US" smacks of anti-US sentiment rather than clarifying or enlightened terminology Cuvtixo 17:31, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

canadian bent?

it seems to me that a lot of the history i'm reading on wikipedia lately has been written from a canadian perspective. first- thank you to the historians doing so much thorough contributions to this wiki. but i have to also say that though this is, in a way refreshing, it is also confusing. so, i guess this is a request for a more well-rounded take on these pages. (this coming from an "american" whose country creates a bias in all history....) it definitely raises some questions about how to write "general history" for a world-wide resource.

thanks 66.93.38.197 05:06, 17 June 2007 (UTC) honeyduck

Louisiana Purchase

Why is it needed to have this 'Wikimarkup'? At least create an WYSIWYG editor (within reason). Anyway the more I look at Wikipedia the more it's obvious that too much information is wrong. And with as little of Wikipedia as I read and as little as I know for me to be catching these says something.

Anyway, this article states that the War of Independence and the American Revolution and the series of 'French / English' caused the French to loose all their New World Territories but doesn't even mention the Louisiana Purchase which happened in the 19th Century.

And there is this 'Canadian / American War Nomenclature' business which is just ill. Using a commonly used European name for a war doesn't make you seem smart; given European history it seems to indicate the opposite. In cases where something has two or more commonly used names mention the names but don't try and stir up trouble with a he said / she said nonsense. ThunderCell (talk) 00:56, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

No error here. France gave Louisiana to Spain in 1762 at the end of these wars and reclaimed it only in 1800, shortly before selling it to the U.S. Which is all covered in the Louisiana Purchase article. Rmhermen (talk) 23:21, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

British imperialism

"In the longer term, however, the Covenant Chain was a tool of British imperialism, destructive to its Indian members." User:Dilidor is removing this sentence with the motivation: "outrageously one-sided perspective, regardless of having citation".

The question is: What shall we trust? An eminent scholar chosen as an author in Handbook of North American Indians by the Smithsonian Insitution, or Dildors unsubstantiated opinions? If they doesn't approve, I suggest they find a scholar with a different opinion. Creuzbourg (talk) 08:17, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Creuzbourg: A) At the very least, you need to say "according to the views of so-and-so..." in order make it clear that this is the opinion of some modern writer; B) you have thrown out an immensely incendiary accusation concerning some "tool of British imperialism" without any explanation on how it was a tool or what it accomplished or what its ramifications were or why it was destructive or any of the myriad details which such an accusation raises, all of which would require a separate paragraph at least to explain—and balanced presentation would then urge you to present an alternate or opposing view in another paragraph; C) imposing modern sensibilities onto historical topics only serves to further some modern political agendas, it does not help us understand what happened or why it happened or what resulted—especially since these modern sensibilities and agendas did not even exist in the historical context of our topic; D) the sentence does not add anything useful to the article, other than some political viewpoints and agenda of some insignificant modern writer. —Dilidor (talk) 10:03, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for answering me in a clear and concise way, although I do not appreciate your undoing of my reversion before reaching a consensus. I do not think the statements is based on modern sensibilities, but the balanced judgement of a historian, or ethnohistorian. But your other points are well worth considering. On a second thought, therefore, I would say that the sentence in question does not fit into a survey article as this. Development of the arguments would take too much space for a topic that is not at the core of the article. I will therefore let your reversion stand. Creuzbourg (talk) 10:16, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

References

Dummer's War 1722-1725

if I click on Dummer's War I learn that it was from 1722-1725, which is outside the 1702-1713 limits of Queen Anne's War. Is it a 5th Intercolonial / French and Indian Wars war, or it's own thing? How can it be an alternate name for Queen Anne's War if it is outside the timeframe? Skates61 (talk) 19:09, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Tactics

The para about tactics is poorly written and inadequately referenced. Humpster (talk) 07:16, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

"European" wars

The table which lists various names has column headings "North American War" and "European War". Both are incorrect, so I propose to change them. "North American War" should be "Name in United States", while "European War" should be Global name or Global war, or perhaps "name everywhere else"

The page following the table states that naming conventions differ between Canada and the United States; I don't know about Mexico. Nevertheless, the column title is incorrect. Similarly, the seven years war was fought globally. I don't know if only European countries were involved. In either case, the column title is misleading. Although the logic seems unassailable, I'll leave this topic for comment before I make any changes. Humpster (talk) 02:09, 22 May 2024 (UTC)