~ The French and Indian War, a colonial extension of the Seven Years War that ravaged Europe from 1756 to 1763, was the bloodiest American war in the 18th century.
~ It took more lives than the American Revolution, involved people on three continents, including the Caribbean.
~ The war was the product of an imperial struggle, a clash between the French and English over colonial territory and wealth. Within these global forces, the war can also be seen as a product of the localized rivalry between British and French colonists.
~ Tensions between the British and French in America had been rising for some time, as each side wanted to increase its land holdings.
~ What is now considered the French and Indian War (though at the time the war was undeclared), began in November 1753, when the young Virginian major George Washington and a number of men headed out into the Ohio region with the mission to deliver a message to a French captain demanding that French troops withdraw from the territory.
