Military Struggles with European Nations - Essay Example

-- who suffered defeats during the war but had been involved in the initial battle at Jumonville and gained highly valuable experience in commanding his forces (Cave, 2004, p.7). Additionally, the British conquest, in driving out the French and setting up a decades-long struggle with the Native American populations, cleared the way for American westward expansion and created a pretext for the American Revolutionary War by establishing a permanent British occupation and the institutionalization of taxes (to reimburse the British crown for fighting the war) that Americans deeply resented (Marston, 2005, pp. 1-2; Borneman, 2006, pp. 305-208). If the French and Indian War effectively removed the French from consideration as a continental power, its conclusion made it seem as though the British would have unopposed reign. Even the Spanish in Florida left the continent in the wake of the British rule, and the French Canadian populations came to identify solidly with the British crown. It might easily have resulted in the US simply becoming a part of the British power. However, the installation of the British troops in the new world was not as successful as might have been expected. The American states began to develop their own ideological justification for independence and the population rebelled against British taxes and the imposition of what they saw as unfair rule from an overseas despot (Marston, 2005, pp. 1-2). The American Revolutionary War began, therefore, out the ashes of that earlier conflict, with George Washington once again answering the call to lead the American forces against the British. Having fought alongside the British during the French and Indian War, he had come to know their tactics and devised successful