AMERICA’S ROAD TO REVOLUTION

When Great Britain emerged victorious from the Seven Years’ War in 1763, most of its American colonists celebrated the event as ardent British patriots. They were proud to belong to the Protestant commercial empire and they honoured their king and queen. But the end of the war with France also exposed problems in North America that proved difficult to resolve. Amid a postwar economic depression, the continent’s settlers, enslaved labourers and indigenous peoples faced an uncertain new world.

For decades, many indigenous Americans had been able to play British and French interests against one another, but the departure of the French had changed the equation. The British empire no longer depended as heavily on its Native allies and the ministry hoped to reduce its expenses. After General Jeffrey Amherst scaled down the gifts that were a crucial ingredient of frontier diplomacy, a confederation of northern Native peoples attacked several British forts, from Fort Michilimackinac on the