USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -The American Indians were fighting to maintain control of their land and their cultural future. The French claimed the Upper Ohio River Valley. They wanted to trade with the American Indians and control the area. The British also claimed the Upper Ohio River Valley.

Detailed explanation-2: -Specifically, regions around the Ohio Valley into the Ohio River and up near the Great Lakes produced the largest controversy. France, who first discovered the Ohio country, claimed control because they had not only arrived in that area first but also established trading centers to ensure a lasting hold on the region.

Detailed explanation-3: -By the middle of the 1700s, British fur traders had crossed the Appalachian Mountains into the Ohio River Valley into land that was claimed by both Great Britain and France. The French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle had laid claim to a huge land area called New France.

Detailed explanation-4: -In 1754, the French built Fort Duquesne where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers joined to form the Ohio River (in today’s Pittsburgh), making it a strategically important stronghold that the British repeatedly attacked.

Detailed explanation-5: -The French and Indian War, the North American phase of the larger Seven Years’ War, began after a series of incidents in the upper Ohio River valley, which the French and British governments both claimed as their territory.