THE SEVEN YEARS WAR

Competition for colonies erupts into global conflict

The Seven Years War from 1756 to 1763 was pivotal in the foundation of the British Empire, as tumultuous Anglo-French hostility resulted in the annexation of French colonial outposts in both North America and India.

In North America, the British sought to conquer Acadia and New France, wresting control of the St. Lawrence River from the French and, with it, the main waterway into the North American interior. Taking advantage of existing enmities among Indigenous peoples, the British used their alliance with the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) people to fight against the French and their Indigenous allies. In 1758, the British captured the fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, France’s most important east coast stronghold. The following year, they defeated the French in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham and captured the city of Quebec. In 1760, the British captured Montreal and brought about the final fall of New France.

Meanwhile, in India, the East India Company used its private army to fight for territory against both local Indian rulers and its French rival, the Compagnie française des Indes orientales. An important figure in this conflict was Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Clive. In 1757 Clive seized Calcutta in the Battle of Plassey, using both military force and a secret agreement with a turncoat Indian general to defeat the ruler of India’s Bengal province. This marked a decisive turning point in the company’s transformation from a commercial entity into a governing colonial power. Clive became the first British governor of the Bengal Presidency, a position he held until 1760, and is credited with having laid the foundation of the EIC as a colonial power in India. The EIC also conquered the fortified French trading posts of Chandernagore in 1757 and Pondicherry (now Puducherry) in 1761.

When the Seven Years War ended with the Treaty of Paris, the British emerged as the dominant colonial power in both North America and India. In North America, France surrendered New France, Acadia, and Cape Breton Island to the English, retaining only the small fishing islands of SaintPierre and Miquelon. In India, the East India Company gave Pondicherry and Chandernagore back to France. (Later, these French towns would provide refuge and support to revolutionaries fighting for India’s independence.) However, the EIC’s other territorial conquests, especially in Bengal, established the base from which the company expanded its rule over the Indian subcontinent in the coming decades.

The Battle of Plassey on June 23, 1757, pitted the East India Company army under Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Clive against the Nawab of Bengal Siraj-ud-Daulah and his French allies.

A painting of British General James Wolfe’s death at Quebec in 1759.

Above left: French soldiers mourn their losses in India, in an undated illustration. Left: A 1903 painting shows Indigenous and French soldiers slaying British General Edward Braddock in the 1755 Battle of the Monongahela. Above: An 1818 painting shows the defeated Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II granting the Diwani to the East India Company, represented by Robert Clive. This allowed the EIC to collect taxes in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa provinces.