Naming The French And Indian War

The conflict is known by several names. In British North America, wars were often named after the sitting British monarch, such as King William's War or Queen Anne's War. Because there had already been a King George's War in the 1740s, British colonists named the second war in King George's reign after their opponents, and thus it became known as the French and Indian War.[1] This traditional name remains standard in the United States, although it obscures the fact that American Indians fought on both sides of the conflict.[2] American historians generally use the traditional name or the European title (the Seven Years' War), and have also invented other, less frequently used names for the war, including the Fourth Intercolonial War and the Great War for the Empire.[1]

In Great Britain and France, the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War war usually has no special name, and so the entire worldwide conflict is known as the Seven Years' War (or the Guerre de sept ans). The "Seven Years" refers to events in Europe, from the official declaration of war in 1756 to the signing of the peace treaty in 1763. These dates do not correspond with the actual fighting in North America, where the fighting between the two colonial powers was largely concluded in six years, from the Jumonville Glen skirmish in 1754 to the capture of Montreal in 1760.[1]

In Canada, both French- and English-speaking Canadians refer to it as the Seven Years' War (Guerre de Sept Ans) or the War of the Conquest (Guerre de la Conquête), since it is the war in which New France was conquered by the British and became part of the British Empire. This war was also known as the Forgotten War.