Before the Revolutionary War, the French and Indian War was the final significant war in North America before the American Revolution. At the time of the American Revolution, both Britain and France had been progressively expanding their holdings into the Ohio River basin. Because the fur trade flourished in this area, both nations desired to maintain control over it. However, when the French began to intrude on their area, the British colonists issued an ultimatum to the French government. None other than George Washington, who had been sent by the British governor to deliver the message, delivered this telegram. The French, on the other hand, made it plain that they had no intention of backing down. Washington and 150 men erected a British outpost near present-day Pittsburgh, not far from where the French had established themselves at Fort Duquesne, in response to the French occupation of the area. During the spring and summer of that year, warfare erupted.

Washington confronted the French, and while he and

his forces put up a valiant fight, the British suffered heavy casualties in the early going. However, under the direction of Britain’s minister of state, William Pitt, a resurgent British army captured French forts along the Allegheny River in western Pennsylvania and engaged French forces in combat at Quebec. In 1755, Washington was promoted to the rank of colonel, and he was in charge of protecting the Virginia border against French and Indian incursions. Despite the fact that the British eventually gained control of Fort Duquesne in 1758, warfare persisted until the Treaty of Paris ended the war in 1763.

As a result, with the exception of New Orleans, the British gained control of all French possessions in Canada as well as all French territory east of the Mississippi River during the American Revolutionary War. In return for Havana, Cuba, Spain agreed to cede Florida to the United States of America. Only two tiny islands off the coast of Newfoundland in Canada, as well as the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, remained under French authority after having formerly ruled a large swath of territory throughout North and South America.