Raiders From New France

Though the French and British colonies in North America began on a 'level playing field', French political conservatism and limited investment allowed the British colonies to forge ahead, pushing into territories that the French had explored deeply but failed to exploit. The subsequent survival of 'New France' can largely be attributed to an intelligent doctrine of raiding warfare developed by imaginative French officers through close contact with Indian tribes and Canadian settlers. The ground-breaking new research explored in this study indicates that, far from the ad hoc opportunism these raids seemed to represent, they were in fact the result of a deliberate plan to overcome numerical weakness by exploiting the potential of mixed parties of French soldiers, Canadian backwoodsmen and allied Indian warriors. Supported by contemporary accounts from period documents and newly explored historical records, this study explores the 'hit-and-run' raids which kept New Englanders tied to a defensive position and ensured the continued existence of the French colonies until their eventual cession in 1763.

Supported by full-color illustrations, this study explores in startling new detail the “musket and tomahawk” forest warfare by which the French colonists and their allies battled to ensure the survival of “New France.” Though the French and British colonies in North America began on a “level playing field," French political conservatism and limited investment allowed the British colonies to forge ahead, pushing into territories that the French had explored deeply but failed to exploit. The subsequent survival of “New France” can largely be attributed to an intelligent doctrine of raiding warfare developed by imaginative French officers through close contact with indigenous tribes and Canadian settlers. The groundbreaking new research explored in this study indicates that, far from the opportunism these raids seemed to represent, they were in fact the result of a deliberate plan to overcome numerical weakness by exploiting the potential of mixed parties of French soldiers, Canadian backwoodsmen, and allied indigenous warriors. Supported by contemporary accounts from period documents and newly explored historical records, this study explores the “hit-and-run” raids which kept New Englanders tied to a defensive position and ensured the continued existence of the French colonies until their eventual cession in 1763.

The Raiders is the continuing saga of the Marin Family in New France in the 18th century as they struggle to survive while France and England fight for supremacy on the North American continent.

A figure of legendary, almost mythic proportions, Robert Rogers is widely considered the father of U.S. Army Rangers. He gained his fame during the French and Indian War, fighting in the American and Canadian wilderness for the British colonies and the English Empire against the French and Indians, but a decade later, during the Revolution, he was almost a man without a country. During the American Revolution, George Washington didn’t trust him—indeed, he had Rogers arrested in 1776—nor did the British, who, desperate, gave him a command anyway, and Rogers was pivotal in arresting and executing American spy Nathan Hale. However, Rogers' saga begins in the French and Indian War in what was a true American Odyssey. Ranger Raid digs deep into Rogers’ most controversial battle: the raid on St. Francis in Canada during the French and Indian War. On October 4, 1759, Rogers and 140 Rangers raided the Native American town of St. Francis, Canada, as part of British general Jeffery Amherst’s plan to gain intelligence in the St. Lawrence region. At the time, and for many decades thereafter, this was seen as a great victory—but now it seems like more of a massacre. Phillip Thomas Tucker refreshes this story, combining the biography of Robert Rogers, the history of his Rangers, and the history of the native peoples in this region, to tell a new story of the St. Francis raid and its influence in the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War, and ever after.

In 1758, at the height of the French and Indian War, British Brigadier General John Forbes led his army on a methodical advance against Fort Duquesene, French headquarters in the Ohio valley. As his army closed in upon the fort, he sent Major Grant of the 77th Highlanders and 850 men on a reconnaissance in force against the fort. The French, alerted to this move, launched their own counter-raid. 500 French and Canadians, backed by 500 Indian allies, ambushed the highlanders and sent them fleeing back to the main army. With the success of that operation, the French planed their own raid against the English encampment at Fort Ligonier under less than fifty miles away. With only 600 men, against an enemy strength of 4,000, he ordered a daring night attack on the heart of the enemy encampment. This book tells the complete story of these ambitious raids and counter-raids, giving in-depth detail on the forces, terrain, and tactics.

The French and Indian War was but the American front of a much larger war taking place in Europe, the outcome of which had significant consequences for both North America and the world. As the frontier sideshow of the Seven Years' War, being fought between the powerful English and French empires in the 1760s, the French and Indian War brought northern America firmly under the control of Great Britain, and removed the vital French counter-weight used by native American Indian tribes to block the westward encroachment of land-hungry English settlers. An excellent introduction to the study of this pivotal war, The French and Indian War begins with a detailed timeline that provides both local and global contexts and a narrative chapter providing a bird's-eye view of the war's unfolding. Also included are chapters detailing the complex and fascinating interactions of Native Americans, French settlers, British colonials, and imperial officials. The work concludes with a chapter delving into the long-term local and global consequences of the war. Primary documents, biographical sketches of major figures, an annotated bibliography, and a thorough index round out this user-friendly, to-the-point reference guide to one of the least understood conflicts in American history.

Liberté? Egalité? Fraternité? Or just plain gall? In this provocative and brilliantly researched history of how the French have dealt with the United States, John J. Miller and Mark Molesky demonstrate that the cherished idea of French friendship has little basis in reality. Despite the myth of the “sister republics,” the French have always been our rivals, and have harmed and obstructed our interests more often than not. This history of French hostility goes back to 1704, when a group of French and Indians massacred American settlers in Deerfield, Massachusetts. The authors also debunk the myth of French aid during the Revolution: contrary to popular notions, the French did not enter the war until very late and were mainly interested in hurting their rivals, the British. After the war, the French continued to see themselves as major players in the Western hemisphere and shaped their policies to limit the growth and power of the new nation. The notorious XYZ affair, involving French efforts to undermine the government of George Washington, led to an undeclared naval war with France in 1798. During the Civil War, the French supported the Confederacy and installed a puppet emperor in Mexico. In the twentieth century, Americans clashed with the French repreatedly. The French victory over President Wilson at Versailles imposed a short-sighted and punitive settlement on Germany that paved the way for the rise of fascism in the 1930s. During World War II, Vichy French troops killed hundreds of American soldiers in North Africa, and diehard French fascist units fought against the Allies in the rubble of Berlin. During the Cold War, Charles DeGaulle yanked France out of NATO and obstructed our efforts to roll back Soviet expansion. The legacy of French imperial power has been no less disastrous. The French left Haiti in a shambles, got us into Vietnam, and educated many of the world’s worst tyrants at their elite universities, including Pol Pot, the genocidal Cambodian dictator. The fascist Baath regimes in Iraq and Syria are another legacy of failed French colonialism. Americans have been particularly irritated by French cultural arrogance—their crusades against American movies, McDonalds, Disney, and the exclusion of American words from their language have always rubbed us the wrong way. This irritation has now blossomed into outrage. Our Oldest Enemy shows why that outrage is justified.

"New France" consisted of the area colonized and ruled by France in North America from the 16th to the 18th centuries. This title, which follows on from Fortress 27: French Fortresses in North America 1534-1763: Qu_bec, Montr_al, Louisbourg and New Orleans and Fortress 75: The Forts of New France in Northeast America 1600-1763, takes a look at the forts guarding the frontier defenses of New France from the Great Lakes, down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. Among the sites examined are forts Cr_vecoeur (Illinois), Biloxi (on the Mississippi), St Jean-Baptiste (Louisiana), Natchitoches (Louisiana), de Chartres (on the Mississippi), Cond_ (Alabama), and Toulouse (Alabama).