During the War of the Austrian Succession (1744-1748), four distinct groups--the British; the French; the Three Fires Confederacy (composed of the Odawa, Ojibwa, and Potawatomi), and an anti-French coalition sought to exercise power in the Great Lakes region. The British sought to enlist the Amerindians of the Lakes in their war against the French. The French attempted to mobilize Amerindians to attack British traders south of Lake Erie. Elements of some Amerindian nations formed a coalition which attempted to replace French with British traders in the Great Lakes region. The pro-French faction among the Three Fires Confederacy sought to avoid entanglement in French actions against the British south of Lake Erie, and to end the violence in the west. Of these groups, it was the Amerindians, particularly the Three Fires Confederacy, who proved capable of initiating and controlling events in the west. Their actions indicate that, in 1744-1748, the Amerindians of the Great Lakes retained their independence and freedom of action, and regarded European alliances as instruments of convenience, not subordination. Moreover, in spite of French pretensions to overlordship and overlapping European claims to Amerindian territory, the Three Fires Confederacy were the paramount power in the Great Lakes region in the mid-eighteenth century.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/7596 |
| Date | January 1992 |
| Creators | MacLeod, Peter. |
| Contributors | Jaenen, Cornelius J., |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 212 p. |
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