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King George's War

King George's War (1744-1748) was the North American theater of the War of the Austrian Succession, fought primarily between British and French colonial forces, along with their respective Native American and colonial allies, in the regions of New England, Nova Scotia (Acadia), and New York. It was the third of the four French and Indian Wars and takes its name from King George II of Great Britain. The war ended inconclusively with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, which restored most pre-war territorial boundaries.

Current State of Knowledge

Historians broadly agree on the war's major events and outcomes, including the 1745 siege and capture of the French fortress of Louisbourg on Île Royale (Cape Breton Island) by a New England militia force under William Pepperrell, supported by a British naval squadron under Peter Warren. The war also saw extensive raiding along the New England-Acadia frontier and in the Mohawk Valley of New York, involving Abenaki, Mi'kmaq, and Iroquois participants alongside colonial militias. There is some continuing scholarly discussion regarding the relative weight given to colonial initiative versus imperial direction in explaining the Louisbourg expedition's success, and regarding the war's role in shaping subsequent Anglo-French colonial rivalry. For background on the broader sequence of conflicts, see french-and-indian-wars-history. For more on the war's antecedents and course, see king-georges-war-history.

Viewpoints

Controversies

Footnotes

  1. Fred Anderson, *Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766* (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000), 15-18.
  2. William Pencak, *War, Politics, and Revolution in Provincial Massachusetts* (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1981), 145-168.
  3. Geoffrey Plank, *An Unsettled Conquest: The British Campaign Against the Peoples of Acadia* (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), 60-85.
  4. John A. Schutz, *William Shirley: King's Governor of Massachusetts* (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961), 80-112.