As a result of the French and Indian War, the Ohio Country and the land around the Great Lakes changed from French to British control in the early 1760s. Indian nations worried that their way of life would be adversely affected by this change, and a charismatic Ottawa chief named Pontiac was determined to prevent this from happening. In late 1762, Pontiac sent emissaries to tribes across the region, challenging them to join his endeavor to drive out the British.

Since 1607, when the first English settlers arrived in Jamestown, British America had largely been confined to the eastern seaboard. As the colonies began to expand west in the mid-1700s, they came into conflict with their longtime nemesis, the French, primarily over which nation would dominate the lucrative fur trade in the Ohio Country. In 1754, these tensions erupted into the French and Indian War, and when it ended, the map of North America was redrawn. France was essentially expelled from the continent and England was awarded all lands east of the Mississippi to the Atlantic seaboard and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, except for New Orleans.

During the American Revolution, Fort Ticonderoga was a strongpoint on the natural waterway between the American colonies and British-controlled Canada. The cannons captured there provided the heavy artillery General Washington needed to intimidate the British out of Boston.

In the 1750s, American colonists were happy to be part of the British Empire. Were it not for the French and Indian War, fought between England and France from 1754 to 1763, America might not have sought her independence.