The Scratch of a Pen
1763 and the Transformation of North America
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
In this superb volume in Oxford's acclaimed Pivotal Moments series, Colin Calloway reveals how the Treaty of Paris of 1763 had a profound effect on American history, setting in motion a cascade of unexpected consequences, as Indians and Europeans, settlers and frontiersmen, all struggled to adapt to new boundaries, new alignments, and new relationships.
Britain now possessed a vast American empire stretching from Canada to the Florida Keys, yet the crushing costs of maintaining it would push its colonies toward rebellion. White settlers, free to pour into the West, clashed as never before with Indian tribes struggling to defend their way of life. In the Northwest, Pontiac's War brought racial conflict to its bitterest level so far. Whole ethnic groups migrated, sometimes across the continent: it was 1763 that saw many exiled settlers from Acadia in French Canada move again to Louisiana, where they would become Cajuns. Calloway unfurls this panoramic canvas with vibrant narrative skill, peopling his tale with memorable characters such as William Johnson, the Irish baronet who moved between Indian campfires and British barracks; Pontiac, the charismatic Ottawa chieftain; and James Murray, Britains first governor in Quebec, who fought to protect the religious rights of his French Catholic subjects.
Most Americans know the significance of the Declaration of Independence or the Emancipation Proclamation, but not the Treaty of Paris. Yet 1763 was a year that shaped our history just as decisively as 1776 or 1862. This captivating book shows why.
Winner of the Society of Colonial Wars Book Award for 2006
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dartmouth historian Calloway (author of the outstanding One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West Before Lewis and Clark) tells a spellbinding tale of a year in American history. In 1763, with the peace treaty that ended the French and Indian War, France and Spain handed over all the territory east of the Mississippi, as well as Canada, to the British. In this one stroke, settlers both on the East Coast and on the frontier came under British rule. Calloway's enthralling chronicle follows the lives of settlers, Indians and immigrants as this new British rule affected them. He demonstrates convincingly that the seeds of the American Revolution were planted in 1763, as a near-bankrupt Britain began to impose heavy "taxation without representation." The year brought bloody skirmishes between Indians, who were being pushed off more of their lands, and settlers; Calloway also narrates the expulsion of Acadians from Nova Scotia and their resettlement in Louisiana. This first-rate cultural history, part of Oxford's Pivotal Moments in American History series, reveals that the events of 1763 changed not only the political geography of a nation but also its cultural geography, as various groups moved from one part of the country to another. B&w illus., maps.
