Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The French and Indian War (1755-1763) was a thorough thrashing of the French by the
British and greatly determined European spheres of influence in North America.
Under the British, little changed in daily life. (The English never even had an official
presenceinpresent-dayWisconsin.)OneEnglishmanofnote,however,wasJonathanCarv-
er, a roguish explorer who roamed the state 1766-1768 and returned to England to publish
fanciful, lively, and mostly untrue accounts of the new lands west of the inland seas.
The French had been content simply to trade and had never made overtures for the land
itself. But the British who did come—many barely able to conceal their scorn for the less-
than-noble savages—began parceling up property and immediately incited unrest. Pontiac,
an Ottawa chieftain, led a revolt against the British at Muscoda.
Additionally,theBritishmonarchy'sfinanceswereindisarrayfromthelengthyconflicts
with the French in North America and with other enemies in European theaters. Then the
monarchy decreed that the colonies could foot their own bill for these new lands and insti-
tuted the Stamp Act.
British settlers in Wisconsin who remained after the area was made part of British Quebec
Province under the Quebec Act of 1774 remained resolutely loyal to the British crown but
kept out of the American Revolution, apart from scattered attempts by both sides to enlist
the Indians.
The 1781 surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown cost Britain a great part of its holdings,
includingtheNorthwestTerritory,whichincludedWisconsin,yetpracticalBritishinfluence
remained in the state until after the War of 1812.
British commercial interests had little desire to abandon the still-lucrative beaver trade,
and the Indians had grown, if not loyal to, then at least tolerant of the British. When hos-
tilities broke out in 1812, the British, aiming to create a buffer zone of Indian alliances in
Indiana and Illinois, quickly befriended the Indians—an easy venture, as the Natives were
already inflamed over the first of many U.S. government snake-oil land treaties.
The Northwest, including Wisconsin, played a much larger role in this new bellicosity
thanithadintheRevolution;BritishloyalistsandAmericanfrontiersmanfoughtforcontrol
of the Natives as well as of the water-route forts of the French and British. British forts,
nowoccupied(andundermanned)byU.S.troops,wereeasilyoverwhelmedbyEnglishand
Indian confederates. However, Commodore Perry's victory on Lake Erie in 1813 swung
the momentum to the American side. Treaties signed upon reaching a stalemate in 1814
allowed the United States to regain preexisting national boundaries. Almost immediately,
