(flames crackle) (man shouts) - [Narrator] Previously on The War That Made America, 20 years before he led a revolution, a young George Washington stumbled into a very different kind of war.

His orders were to get the French to leave the Pennsylvania Woods.

(man shouts in French) - Fire!

(guns fire) - [Narrator] But the Indians, the third force in this contest, had motivations of their own.

(ominous notes play) (tomahawk thwacks) This incident in 1754 triggered a war that spread from these woods to the Caribbean, Africa, Europe, and India.

The war's outcome would decide which of two great European empires would dominate North America.

(water ripples) (crow caws) And caught in the middle were the Indians.

(guns fire) - The French claim all the land on one side of the river and the English claim everything on the other.

Where does the Indian land lie?

(Native American warriors shout) - [Narrator] As they pursued their own aims, the Indians were drawn deeper into the struggle.

(guns fire) In 1755, with the help of a small French force, they defeated the powerful British army and killed General Edward Braddock.

(horse whinnies) (guns fire) But by 1759, Britain was scoring victories and the French were struggling to maintain hold on their territory.

(soldiers shout) - The fortress at Louisbourg has fallen.

The way to Quebec is now wide open.

Now, how shall we hold the west?

(flames crackle) (suspenseful music plays) (suspenseful music continues) (suspenseful music continues) - [Announcer] This program is made possible by Richard King Mellon Foundation, the Heinz Endowments, Eden Hall Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities and the following.

(soft violin music plays) (violin music dwindles) (drums beat) (man shouts in the distance) (chess piece clatters) (periscope clinks) (chess piece clacks) (soldier shouts) - [Chess Player] Check.

(soldier shouts) (wind rustles through tree branches) (soldier shouts) - Have you found an opening yet?

You're an imbecile.

(soldier shouts) (chess pieces clatter) - [Narrator] Major General James Wolfe, a sickly but highly ambitious officer is determined to prove himself on the battlefield.

For two months, he has played a waiting game.

His army is camped on the opposite shore, ready to take the City of Quebec.

If only he can draw the Marquis de Montcalm into battle but the Marquis does not want to engage the British.

- Hello, let Wolfe amuse himself where he is.

If we drive him off, he may go someplace where he can really do us harm.

(soldiers shout indistinctly) - [Narrator] After three months of trying, Wolfe still has not managed to capture the city.

If he doesn't attack Quebec before winter sets in, he'll be forced to give up the siege.

(periscope clicks) And the chance for a crucial victory in the French and Indian War.

The British are poised to expel the French army from Canada.

They now control the St.

Lawrence River, cutting off France from North America's interior.

They could soon control the continent, but first they must take the enemy stronghold at Quebec.

But Quebec is proving impenetrable, perched on a triangle of land atop steep cliffs where water surrounds the city on two sides.

(cannons fire) Wolfe first attacks from the east, only to see nearly 500 of his men killed or wounded at the Battle of Montmorency.

"Many excellent officers hurt in this foolish business," he writes.

Frustrated, Wolfe lashes out.

- I have changed my measures and laid waste to the country, - Burn all the doors!

- Partly to engage the Marquis de Montcalm and partly in return for many insults offered to our own people upon our own frontiers.

(tree crashes down) - [Narrator] Wolfe orders his red coats to burn the settlements beyond Quebec.

1400 houses are torched, but the capital of New France is far from giving up.

(flames crackle) British forces try to bombard Quebec into submission.

The fires that engulfed the city produce some of the most horrifying moments of the entire war.

But in France, Louis XV considers the struggle for North America just one part of a global war with Britain.

Instead of reinforcements, he sends Montcalm encouragement, saying, "His Majesty relies completely on your zeal and your knowledge of what can best be done to save Canada."

(bell tolls) (paper rustles) Wolfe grows desperate.

(Wolfe coughs) He has fallen victim to fever and so have his soldiers.

(paper rustles) (cannon fires) By summer's end, a third of his army is unfit to serve.

The British have been shelling the city for six weeks (cannons fire) and still, Montcalm will not come out to fight.

- My antagonist has wisely set himself up in inaccessible entrenchments so I can't get at him without spilling a torrent of blood and that perhaps to little purpose.

(cannons fire) - [Narrator] Wolfe believes he may soon die and fears his failure to act will bring him disgrace.

Finally, in September, his attention is drawn to a path leading up steep cliffs to the plains just west of Quebec.

(equipment rattles) (men whisper indistinctly) In an audacious nighttime maneuver, he orders 4,500 men to scale the steep cliffs.

(soldiers whisper indistinctly) It takes them less than five hours.

The element of surprise works.

By dawn, the British assemble on the Plains of Abraham just outside the city walls.

Wolfe employs a novel formation, spreading his men out in two ranks instead of the traditional three to cover the half mile width of the plains.

Montcalm knows that the British are the more disciplined soldiers, but the British line seems especially thin.

He believes that a column of troops can smash it.

- March!

(firearms rattle) - [Narrator] It's a classic European battle that will depend on the skill and precision of each side's infantry.

But as the French advance, order breaks down.

Their line becomes ragged.

- [French Commander] We had not gone 200 paces before the left was too far in the rear and the center too far in front.

(commander shouts orders in French) (firearms clack) (commander shouts orders in French) - [Narrator] The French begin to fire before they're within range.

(commander shouts orders in French) (guns fire) The British do not flinch.

(commander shouts orders in French) (firearms clack) (commander shouts orders in French) (leaves rustle) (horse whickers) (commander shouts orders in French) (grass crunches underfoot) (soldiers shout) Wolfe waits to the last for maximum effect.

(firearms clack) - Fire!

(guns fire) (soldiers shout) (guns fire) (soldiers shout indistinctly) - [Narrator] The British attack is overwhelming.

(weapons clack) (soldiers shout and yell) A British sailor would later note (gun fires) the entire battle lasts no more than 10 minutes.

Decimated, the French flee back to the city.

Four days later, they surrender.

During the battle, Wolfe is wounded in the wrist and the chest.

When asked if he needs a surgeon, he replies, "It is needless.

It is all over with me."

Wolfe becomes a hero throughout the British empire and his death glorified in a succession of idealized paintings.

Across the battlefield, Montcalm is shot in the abdomen.

The depiction of his death is even more fanciful.

In fact, he died not on the battlefield, but in a doctor's house back in town.

The paintings have also left the lasting impression that this was the climactic and decisive end of the war.

(crickets chirp) - In truth, it was anything but.

The French and Indian war would drag on for another year.

The real turning point came when the Indians tipped the balance of power.

In 1759, the Iroquois made a momentous decision to abandon 50 years of neutrality and ally themselves with the British.

(water ripples) - [Narrator] In the summer of 1760, Britain prepares to take the last French holdout at Montreal.

(water rushes) (birds sing) To do so, they must navigate the Whitewater Rapids of the St.

Lawrence River.

The trip is made all the more dangerous by passing through territory, controlled by Canadian Mohawk, allied with the French.

The Indians of North America are diverse nations with complicated, often conflicting interests.

Mohawk and Canada have different allegiances than Mohawk in New York who are part of a larger Confederacy, the Iroquois Six Nations.

It's these Indians that side with the British.

(Native Americans speak indistinctly) As the British head down the St.

Lawrence River, Iroquois diplomats go from village to village, convincing the Canadian Mohawk to stay neutral.

The expedition owes its success to their efforts.

But the Iroquois, the most valuable men on the expedition, were despised and distrusted by the army's commander, General Jeffery Amherst.

Amherst orchestrates an impressive campaign.

Three British armies converge on Montreal at the same time.

The British arrive with crushing force.

The result is a bloodless surrender.

On September 8th, 1760, the French and Indian War comes to an end.

The Chevalier de Bougainville is sent to meet general Amherst - General.

I have come from Governor-General Vaudreuil with the instructions to propose an armistice until it might be ascertained whether a peace has been concluded in Europe.

(finger brush) (birds chirp) (horse whinnies) - Tell the Governor-General I have come to take Canada and I do not intend to take anything less.

(horse whinnies) (hat rustles) (feet shuffle) (chair creaks) (fire crackles) - [Narrator] When the French learned that Amherst intends to deny them even the honor of keeping their regimental flags, officers prefer to burn their colors rather than hand them over to the British as trophies.

(wind blows) After a century of trade and alliance with the Indians, French influence in North America is at an end.

The French and Indian war is finally over.

Voltaire would later quip that in surrendering Canada, France had lost only a few acres of snow.

(flames crackle) It is, of course, much more.

Britain's holdings are suddenly transformed into a continental empire of nearly a half billion acres.

The territory holds vast potential, but, as the British will discover, the fruits of imperial victory can also carry the seeds of an empire's disintegration.

(firearms clack) (birds sing) (soil shifts) To the young men who'd been at the center of the war, the news from Canada should have been more exciting, - Perhaps I- - [Narrator] But George Washington is a civilian again.

Each morning, Washington rides out to oversee activity on his estate, made larger through his marriage to the wealthy widow, Martha Custis.

- I am now, I believe, fixed at this seat with an agreeable consort for life and hope to find more happiness in retirement than I ever experienced amidst a wide and bustling world.

- [Narrator] Washington has also been elected to Virginia's assembly, the House of Burgesses.

He sits on the Committee of Propositions and Grievances.

It's an exciting time to enter politics in America.

The reason it's exciting is the King's Prime Minister, William Pitt, he had encouraged the colonists to think of themselves as active partners with the crown in a great imperial enterprise.

- We asked that you consider that next year- - [Narrator] Colonists willingly put up money and manpower for the war.

- In return, they assumed Parliament recognized it was their right to levy taxes through their elected representatives.

It's a misunderstanding that would eventually lead to revolution.

(quill scribbles) - [Narrator] After his victory at Montreal, the job of keeping order in the colonies is given to General Amherst, along with a knighthood.

But Britain has not given Sir Jeffery what he needs to do the job, leaving him to struggle with tight budgets and dwindling manpower.

Britain has shifted its manpower away from America.

It is now fighting for control of French islands in the West Indies, part of the global conflict known as the Seven Years War.

Britain succeeds in taking French territory in Africa and French trading posts in India.

When Spain sides with France, the war spreads to Spanish possessions in the Philippines and elsewhere.

Amherst's job isn't made any easier by his view of the Indians.

Though Indians were crucial to him in delivering the French surrender, Amherst has little regard for what he calls "the savage enemy."

(fire crackles) (feet shuffle) Amherst orders a series of reforms.

He restricts Indian access to ammunition and to save the empire money, he curtails gift-giving, a time honored custom.

His aim is to transform the crown's relationship with Indians from that of powerful allies into master and subjects.

(quill scribbles) (snow crunches) But the Indians do not see themselves as subjects and they are wary of further encroachments on their land.

They see the British building a tremendous stronghold called Fort Pitt on the forks of the Ohio, despite the Treaty of Easton, which promised no British settlement west of the Allegheny Mountains.

There's growing talk of war.

(Native Americans speak indistinctly) (man shouts in the far distance) William Johnson, the Crown's Superintendent of Indian Affairs, is one man who appreciates that a war with Indians is something Britain can ill afford.

(feet shuffle) - Your Excellency.

I am pretty well-informed by other hands that the Six Nations, Shawnees, and Delawares Indians are ill-disposed.

- Me bug bears.

(man shouts in the distance) I am persuaded this alarm will end in nothing more than a rash attempt of what they've been threatening for some time.

- They say we mean to make slaves of them by taking so many posts in the country.

- I am fully convinced that the only true method of treating those savages is to keep them in proper subjection and punish without exception, the transgressors.

- (breathes deeply) Good day, sir.

(feet shuffle) Your lordship.

(feet shuffle) (flames hiss) (man speaks in Native American language) - Brethren, the English have treated us with much disrespect.

- [Narrator] In 1763, an Ottawa war chief named Pontiac uses powerful religious ideas to stir his fellow Indians to action.

- The master of life took Neolin and by the hand and gave him a fancy hat.

- [Narrator] Pontiac tells them of the visions of a Delaware Indian prophet named Neolin and his encounter with their creator, the master of life.

- The master of life spoke to him.

"This land that I created was for you and no one else."

As for those who came to trouble your lands, Neolin said, "Drive them out.

Make war upon them!"

- War belts spread Pontiac's message.

Indians who once played the two European empires against each other, now band together against the British.

This would be a new war.

(staves clack) - [Man] There it is!

- [Narrator] On the morning of June 2nd, 1763, warriors from the Ojibwe and Sauk nations are engaged in a heated game of Baaga'adowe, or as the French call it, lacrosse.

(players shout indistinctly) The game is entering its third day outside Fort Michilimackinac on the northern most reaches of modern day Michigan.

(players shout and cheer) We know of the game that day from the writings of one of the first English traders to venture into the territories, Alexander Henry.

- I did not go to see the match, which was to be played outside the fort, but rather employed myself in writing letters.

(players cheer) (onlooker whistles) - The British had no idea why this game of lacrosse was really being played here.

They didn't realize that Amherst's reforms had insulted and enraged the native people and they had not yet heard a very important piece of news.

Only the Indians knew that a month earlier, Pontiac had inspired an Indian attack on Fort Detroit.

- Make war upon them!

- [Narrator] It was a sign of things to come and now it comes to Michilimackinac.

(Native Americans give war cries) (tomahawk thwacks) (soldiers cry out) (soldiers shout) - Going instantly to my window, I saw a group of Indians within the fort.

They were furiously cutting down and scalping every Englishman they found.

The dying were writhing and shrieking under the knife and tomahawk.

(Native American warrior shouts triumphantly) I was shaken, not only with horror but with fear.

I found many of the French-Canadian inhabitants calmly looking on.

- [Narrator] The attack at Michilimackinac would be repeated as one British outpost after another falls to the Indians and this new war spreads across the land.

Under Amherst's command, the British managed to lose all but three of their major forts in the back country to Indians inspired by Pontiac.

Hundreds of soldiers and thousands of civilians are killed or taken captive.

(crowd chatters indistinctly) - Today is an historic event.

Gentlemen, a toast.

- Cheers.

- [Narrator] Coincidentally, on that same day in 1763, George Washington joins a group of Virginians in a land venture to colonize the Ohio country.

They seek a land grant of nearly 4,000 square miles.

Washington and his partners hope it will bring them wealth and the status they crave as English gentlemen.

But there's a problem.

Five years earlier in the Treaty of Easton, Britain promised the Indians that whites would not settle west of the Allegheny Mountains, but this claim lies hundreds of miles beyond the Alleghenies in what is today Indiana.

- Cheers.

- [Narrator] To men like Washington though, the treaty of Easton was just the local agreement that didn't affect their land claim.

Washington was looking to the future, to the day when the British would establish new colonies in the heart of the continent and he wasn't adverse to being in on the ground floor.

(child screams) Pontiac's war rages on and Britain loses control of the frontier.

(woman cries out indistinctly) (child screams) As with Mary Jemison's family in the French and Indian war, Indians are again taking settlers captive.

After Mary was taken in Pennsylvania, her family was killed.

- [Mary] I can remember my mother's words.

"My dear little Mary, your life, my child, I think will be spared, but we shall be tomahawked in this lonesome place.

Be careful and do not forget your English tongue."

- [Narrator] Mary was taken to a Seneca village and adopted into the tribe.

With the frontier in turmoil again, producing more stories like Mary's, pressure mounts on Jeffery Amherst to do something.

(liquid pours) (decanter clinks) Amherst is short of money, he's short of men, and he's not getting much help from the colonial legislatures.

Now Sir Jeffery raises the possibility of a weapon he would never consider using against a European foe.

- Could it not be contrived to send smallpox among those disaffected tribes of Indians?

We must on this occasion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them.

We would do well to try to infect the Indians by means of blankets as well as try every other method that can serve to extubate this execrable race.

(fire crackles) (woman coughs) - [Narrator] In fact, smallpox has already ravaged the Indians.

Amherst's orders make little difference.

(Native Americans speak together indistinctly) (items rattle) Sir Jeffery is unable to keep order.

He is relieved of his command.

On November 17th, 1763, Amherst heads home to England aboard a ship named the Weasel.

(Amherst sighs) (crow caws) (birds sing) Although Indian raids have subsided, the Pennsylvania frontier remains tense.

In early December, Matthew Smith and friends from Paxton, Pennsylvania report an exaggerated rumor of hostile Indians nearby.

In fact, the Indians of Conestoga are peaceful farmers.

(Matthew's group whispers indistinctly) - We cautiously crawled to get a view.

I saw Indians armed.

They were strangers.

They outnumbered us by dozens.

(fires crackle) - [Narrator] On December 14th, 50 armed vigilantes descend on Conestoga.

Instead of dozens, only six Indians were in the camp.

(woman screams) (vigilantes shout indistinctly) (baby cries) (baby cries) They tracked down 14 more who have escaped and slaughtered them too, scalping the children for effect.

(vigilantes shout indistinctly) (fire crackles) (gun fires) The Paxton Boys spread the word that they intend to kill every Indian in Pennsylvania.

In an effort to end the bloodshed, the British and the Ohio Indians establish a truce.

A treaty is signed and hundreds of captives taken by Indians are returned, some against their will.

Many, like Mary Jemison, have adopted an Indian way of life.

(baby babbles) - I had been with the Indians four summers and four winters.

Sheninjee and I were married according to Indian custom.

My anxiety, to be said at liberty, had almost subsided.

- [Narrator] To encourage the return of captives, the King of England offers a bounty.

In Mary, a neighboring Dutchman sees a chance to make some money.

- Come here!

(grass rustles) (baby cries) - I ran from him with all the speed I was mistress of and got home.

The chiefs gave orders that I should not be taken without my consent, and that, as it was my choice to stay, I should live amongst them quietly and undisturbed.

- [Narrator] Mary Jemison lived as a Seneca for the rest of her life.

(festive music plays) (fireworks crackle) In February, 1763, Britain and France signed the Treaty of Paris, ending at last the Seven Years War.

King George III now ruled more territory across the globe than was ever held by the Roman Empire.

But the territory in North America is now so vast, the British must find a new way to manage it.

The king issues the Royal Proclamation of 1763.

Among its provisions is a new boundary.

The proclamation goes even further than the Treaty of Easton, asserting that all lands west of the Appalachians, the heart of the continent, are reserved for the Indians.

(ax thwacks) And yet, more immigrants than ever are settling in the back country.

In the 1760s, the Ohio country plays host to a new migration from Britain and other parts of Europe.

Newcomers cut their way into North America's interior, often marking the corners of their land claims with their initials.

The migration was fueled by letters from friends and relatives who had served with British forces, during the French and Indian war.

(guns fire) Colonials had been fighting for access to the continent's vast interior.

After all, that's what they thought the war was all about.

(guns fire) (hammers clink) And now the king has declared the very land they are settling is off limits, reserved for Indians.

- And there was another source of tension.

Money.

The war had doubled Britain's national debt.

British taxpayers had long shouldered the burden.

Now, Parliament expected American colonists to pay their share.

(drums beat) - [Narrator] A small tax on paper, the Stamp Act, causes an unexpectedly violent reaction in the colonies.

(fire crackles) Riots break out.

Tax officials are burned in effigy and forced from their jobs.

The tax is widely ignored.

Why is the reaction so incendiary?

The root of colonial frustrations can be traced to the French and Indian War.

As far back as 1755, General Braddock had met resistance when he demanded the colonists pay toward the cost of the war.

- You cannot tell me you have not the power to make these little assemblies do the king's will.

- [Narrator] The relationship changed when William Pitt became the king's prime minister and treated the colonists with respect.

- Letters, gentlemen, from London, - [Narrator] They had been happy to contribute to the war effort, as long as they were considered full partners in the empire with the same rights as people in Britain.

But now, Parliament imposes this new tax without their consent.

The colonists feel betrayed.

(birds sing) British policy increasingly frustrates George Washington.

It is an obstacle on his path towards prosperity as a planter and land speculator.

In the fall of 1770, Washington visits his land surveyor who has lined up some choice parcels in the Ohio country.

His journey takes him back to the places where he had once fought for the British empire, near the forks of the Ohio, where he had barely survived the first real battle of the war at Fort Necessity.

(gun fires) (water splashes) As a reward for their service in the French and Indian War, colonial soldiers were promised land.

Washington is here today to reap his reward, but because the Royal Proclamation of 1763 preserves the west for the Indians, he knows he can't take possession yet.

- Thank you.

- [Narrator] Like many people, he believes it won't be long before he can.

On his trip, Washington dines at Fort Pitt.

(silverware clinks) - I saw some exceeding fine land.

There is an opening prospect in the back country for adventurers where an enterprising man with very little money may lay the foundation of a noble estate in new settlements for himself and posterity.

- And what of the proclamation line?

Are we not to protect the Indian lands?

(dinner guest chuckles) Surely we must give the Indians something if we are to keep the peace.

- I can never look upon that proclamation in any other light but as a temporary expedient to quiet the minds of the Indians.

It must fall surely in a few years.

- The crown itself has not yet consented.

- Consent or no, they're settling it as fast as a wildfire.

Last year, I am sure there were between four and 5,000 and all this spring and summer, the roads are lined with wagons, all moving to the Ohio.

- Any person who neglects the opportunity of hunting out good lands and in some measure, marking and distinguishing them as their own, will never regain the opportunity.

- Hmm.

(water ripples) - [Narrator] It was 20 years before that Washington had first been dispatched to secure this territory for the British empire.

His guide on that journey was the Seneca Chief, Guyasuta.

(birds sing) It's ironic that they would meet again now as Washington seeks to acquire the land for himself.

(water ripples) Like so many Indians, Guyasuta was used to a world where two empires could be played off each other.

Nevertheless, the Seneca chief seems pleased to see Washington again.

- In the person of Guyasuta, I found an old acquaintance, he being one of the Indians that went with me to the French in 1753.

He expressed satisfaction in seeing me and greeted us with great kindness.

He thanked me for saying that peace and friendship was the wish of my people, and again expressed his people's desire and their friendly disposition to the white people.

(water ripples) - Despite their friendliness.

Guyasuta knows that Washington is not here merely to pay a social call, but to acquire land.

It is only British policy that's holding Washington back, just as British policies are angering colonists elsewhere.

(crowd shouts indistinctly) In New England, a clash of expectations leads to mounting tension.

(guns fire) British rule is seen as heavy-handed.

A riot ends when red coats kill five in what colonists call the Boston Massacre.

They see Britain as riding roughshod over the rights of colonial assemblies.

Radicals increasingly assert the right of self-rule.

In December, 1773, things come to a head over yet another tax, this time on tea.

Britain's reaction to the Boston Tea Party is severe.

The crown floods Boston with troops and rewrites the colonies' charter.

(firearms clack) (water pours) Even moderates like Washington find these developments disturbing.

When he and his colleagues express solidarity with Boston, the royal governor dissolves Virginia's legislature.

They reconvene at the nearby Raleigh Tavern.

- For my part, I shall not undertake to say where the line between Great Britain and the colonies should be drawn but I am clearly of the opinion that one ought to be drawn and our rights clearly ascertained.

I could wish I own that this dispute had been left to posterity to determine but the crisis is upon us and our rights must be asserted.

- [Narrator] And yet, even at this moment of crisis, colonists like Washington have no interest in breaking away from the empire.

Their concerns amount to a family argument, not a call to revolution.

This portrait shows Washington wearing a gorget, the mark of a British officer.

It affirms his allegiance to the crown.

In September, 1774 at the first Continental Congress, Washington and other colonial representatives call for a coordinated effort to resist British actions.

Relations with Britain continue to deteriorate, and Washington is drawn further into the fray.

A stream of admirers come to Mount Vernon to seek his political and military council.

Americans prepare to defend what they see as their rights by force of arms if necessary.

(gun fires) (horses whinny) In April, 1775, fighting erupts in Massachusetts between colonial and British forces.

This is no longer a family feud, a dispute between loyal members of the empire.

Once blood has been shed, there's no going back.

(clothing rustles) With Boston under siege, a second continental Congress is convened.

Washington no longer aspires to be a British gentleman.

He used to order his suits cut to the latest styles in London.

To this Congress, he wears the uniform he designed for Virginia's new militia.

It has been 20 years since the young, naive colonel set off into the back country to join a battle sparking an epic struggle.

Now he anticipates a new battle.

The second Continental Congress must organize a war and decide who will lead it.

- Washington, ha ha, welcome!

- [Narrator] Some take Washington's uniform as a statement that he is prepared to lead the colonial forces.

John Adams notes, "His great experience and abilities in military matters is of much service to us."

Then Adams nominates him to be commander of the continental forces.

- [Official] Resolved that a general be appointed, George Washington, Esquire is unanimously elected and that he will command- - It was utterly out of my power to refuse this appointment without exposing my character to such censure as would've reflected dishonor upon myself.

I shall rely therefore confidently upon that providence, which heretofore has preserved and been bountiful to me.

(drums beat) (saddle clacks) - [Narrator] A year later, Washington is preparing ragtag continental troops for battle.

(commander gives orders indistinctly) (firearms clack) It is 21 years to the day since Washington witnessed General Braddock's stunning defeat (gun fires) in the first major battle of the French and Indian War.

(horse whinnies) - I did not let the anniversary of the ninth of this month pass without a grateful remembrance of the escape we had on the banks of the Monongahela.

- [Narrator] It is the same providence that spared him that horrendous day, Washington hopes, which will see them through the battle to come.

(commander shouts) Like Washington, many of these soldiers are veterans of another war, a war fought fervently on behalf of their empire, not against it.

How unexpected.

How ironic.

Britain won the war for America but in doing so, it unleashed passions that will lead it to lose America.

- Gentlemen, a declaration by the representatives of the United States of America.

In general, Congress assembled, when in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bans.

The history of the present King of Great Britain is the history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having indirect objectives of our frontiers.

The merciless Indian savages whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction.

And that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved.

- [Troops] Hip, hip, huzzah!

Hip, hip, huzzah!

Hip, hip, huzzah!

(man speaks Native American language) - [Narrator] That same month at the forks of the Ohio, the heart of events for the past 23 years, colonial representatives meet with Guyasuta.

- You have not told us to- - [Narrator] He tries to assert Indian dominion over the land.

- We will not suffer either the English or Americans to march an army through our country.

I'm appointed by the Six Nations to take care of this country, and I will.

- [Narrator] And he tries.

To maintain the independence of his people, Guyasuta needs a powerful ally but the French are gone forever.

And the British would abandon the Indians to their fate.

Under President Washington, Americans forced the Indians off the lands that Guyasuta vowed to defend.

(tomahawk thwacks) In 1754, no one in America imagined that a backwoods territorial dispute would end up transforming the world.

- But the French and Indian War did just that by eliminating France's empire in North America, by allowing British leaders to believe they could exercise power without restraint, by convincing colonists they had no choice but to resist that power, even to the point of revolution, and by depriving Indian people of the allies needed to help protect their land and their autonomy.

No one expected any of this to happen but by changing the face of the continent, the French and Indian War became the war that made America.

(peaceful music plays) (peaceful music continues) (peaceful music continues) (peaceful music continues) (peaceful music continues) (peaceful music continues) (peaceful music continues) (peaceful music continues) (peaceful music continues) (peaceful music continues) (peaceful music continues) (peaceful music continues) - [Announcer] This program was made possible by Richard King Mellon Foundation, the Heinz Endowments, Eden Hall Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities.

And the following.

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