Historical Notes

The following facts provide insight into the world of the French and Indian War.

• Camp followers -- women, children, servants and slaves -- were integral to both the French and British militaries.  They traveled with the soldiers to cook, do laundry, sew, and serve in hospitals, putting themselves in harm's way.
• En route to capturing Fort Duquesne, General Forbes builds a line of forts from Philadelphia to present-day Pittsburgh -- the start of what would one day become the Pennsylvania Turnpike.  
• Upon capturing Fort Beausejour, the British expelled French Acadians from Nova Scotia.  Many of them fled to Louisiana, and their descendants are known as the Cajuns. 
• Louis Coulon de Villiers, the French captain who led the attack on Fort Neccessity, also had a personal motive.  He was the brother of Ensign Jumonville, whose killing helped spark the French and Indian War. 
• George Washington was the only representative to arrive in uniform at the Second Continental Congress -- signaling that he was ready to fight for the revolution. 
• To reduce the number of Indian dissenters in Pontiac's War, General Amherst suggests germ warfare -- giving smallpox-infected blankets to Indians at the siege on Fort Pitt.
• General Braddock, mortally wounded in the Battle of Monongahela, was buried in the middle of a road in Southwestern Pennsylvania.  His soldiers then marched over the road so the French and Indians would not discover the whereabouts of his remains. 
• The Indians took settlers captive as a means to replace family members lost in conflicts and scare colonists from their land.  Captives were released as part of the Treaty of Easton, but some, like Mary Jemison, chose to stay with their new Indian families.