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This little colony took the name of Louisiana. Like the early English settlers, the French settled on marshy land, and many of the people died from poor food or malaria. In 1712 a banker named Crozat got from the king of France the sole right to trade in Louisiana, which was then declared to include all the territory from Mexico to Carolina and the whole valley of the Mississippi and its branches; but in 1717 he surrendered his grant. In the following year (1718) the French built a little town on a slight elevation on the eastern bank of the great river, and called it New Orleans; the place soon became the capital and center of the colony.

Other little settlements, such as Natchez, were made on the Mississippi River and the streams flowing into it, but the colony grew very slowly. The French reached the Mississippi country also from Canada. Along the route they founded Detroit (1701) and the towns of Vincennes, Cahokia, and Kaskaskia, near the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. They also tried to hold the friendship of the Indians by planting trading posts far north of Mobile.

67. Three Intercolonial Wars (1689–1748). — During "King William's War" (1689-1697) the French and their Indian allies made a series of terrible raids upon the English frontier. Hundreds of prisoners were carried back to the Indian villages or to Canada. On their side, the English colonists raided the French colony of Acadia and for a time held Port Royal on the Bay of Fundy (§ 38).

In 1699 great offense was given to Spain by the attempt of a Scotch company under Patterson to take possession of the Isthmus of Panama, which was called "this door of the sea, this key of the universe." Twelve hundred Scotchmen reached the Isthmus, but the English government would not back up the plan and thus lost the opportunity to plant a colony at this important point.

"Queen Anne's War" began in Europe in 1701 and at once spread to America. One of its famous incidents was the Indian raid on the frontier town of Deerfield in the Connecticut Valley (1704). The people did not expect an enemy in the midst of winter snows, and their strong stockade was taken by sur

prise. The door of Parson Williams's house is still preserved as it was left by the Indians, after they had hacked a hole through so that they might fire into the house. The Carolinas were also attacked by Spaniards and were in great danger.

The French were beaten in Europe and were obliged to make peace (1713). This was the first step in the destruction of their empire in America; for they yielded to England their claims to Hudson Bay and to Newfoundland, and they gave up Acadia, which the English renamed Nova Scotia.

During King George's War" (1739-1748) England and Spain again came to blows because English ships would not stop trading with Spanish colonies. The French joined the war and received a terrible blow; for a fleet of English vessels carrying New England men captured their strong fortification of Louisburg on the island of Cape Breton (1745). Peace was made in 1748 and Louisburg

was returned; but England and France were still at odds over the ownership of the West.

68. The English West (1700-1748). Except in the extreme North and South, the English colonies were shut off from the French by the rugged ranges of the Appalachian Mountains. To the early English colonists "the West" meant only the strip a few miles back from the coast. Then they settled a frontier belt in such regions as the Berkshire Hills in New England, and the " Piedmont " hill country of Virginia.

By 1740 several currents of settlers were moving into the interior. Dutch, German, and English farmers, in spite of

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the dangers from the Indians, took up the rich land in the Mohawk Valley. Germans moved west in Pennsylvania, and settled York, Lancaster, and other towns (map, page 105). Scotch-Irish and Germans made their way into the valley of the Shenandoah, commonly called "the valley of Virginia." There, more than a hundred years later, was born, out of the Scotch-Irish stock, Woodrow Wilson, who became President of the United States in 1913. Other Scotch-Irish settlers took up land in the broken country of the western Carolinas, where President Andrew Jackson was born.

The colonial governors helped along the western movement, for they wanted to dispose of the lands belonging to the colonies, and to plant settlements to keep the Indians in check. The Iroquois - now "Six Nations"—still lay like a wall across the frontiers of New York; therefore one of the principal men in the countryside, Sir William Johnson of Johnson Hall, in central New York, made it the labor of his life to gain their good will, and he kept them in good temper for many years.

The country farther west, beyond the Appalachians, was as hard to reach as Alaska is now. The only Englishmen who then traveled through those immense forests were the traders, who led their pack horses from Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia to the villages of the Cherokees and Creeks of the Southwest, and to the Shawnees and Miamis of the Northwest.

69. Rivalry on the Ohio (1748-1754). — The time was approaching when the English would begin to push for possession of the interior. In 1749 a French officer named Céloron de Bienville was ordered to go down the Ohio River, and at various places to bury lead plates inscribed with the arms of France, as a proof that this was French territory. In defiance of this claim some Virginia gentlemen formed what they called the Ohio Company, and invited settlers to take up land near the Ohio River.

The French then built a chain of forts from Lake Ontario to the Ohio Valley; and the governor of Virginia sent out (1753) a gallant young Virginian, named George Washington, to warn the French to withdraw from the Ohio country. This young man, tall, strong, and spirited, belonged to a well-known

family. He had been a surveyor on the frontier and had the friendship of Lord Fairfax, a great landowner in Virginia. Since the French refused to withdraw, Washington was sent out again in 1754, in command of an armed party, to defend an English post on the Ohio River. He was too late. On his way to the Ohio he met a small French force, and attacked and defeated it. He then hastily threw up an intrenchment which he called Fort Necessity; but a larger French force soon came up and captured it. These little battles on the eastern edge of the Ohio basin were the beginning of another war.

70. French and Indian War (1754-1758). This struggle, called in America the French and Indian War, and in Europe the Seven Years' War, raged in America, on the continent of Europe, in far-off India, and at sea, where hundreds of merchant ships were captured on both sides. The two most notable events in the early war were the Albany Congress and Braddock's expedition.

Just as the war was breaking out, seven of the colonies sent delegates to Albany in 1754 to induce the Indians to fight on their side. One of the members was Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, who proposed a kind of colonial union, which is the germ of the later Union of the United States.

Braddock's expedition was sent out in 1755 against a small force of French troops which was building Fort Duquesne at "the forks of the Ohio," the site of the present Pittsburgh. Braddock was a brave officer and a good commander, but did not understand how to fight savage foes in a wooded country. His soldiers built a narrow road, which came to be called Braddock's Road, and parts of which can still be traced. The most capable man in his army was Colonel George Washington, who two years before had been over the route.

The little column arrived almost in sight of Fort Duquesne, when it was attacked by the French with Indian allies, and totally defeated. Washington wrote to his mother, "I luckily escaped without a wound though I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me." It was three years before the English were able to return and take the fort.