North America east of the Mississippi River…

1756 CE

North America east of the Mississippi River in the 1750s is largely claimed by either Great Britain or France; large areas have no settlements by Europeans.

The French population numbers about seventy-five thousand and is heavily concentrated along the St. Lawrence River valley, with some also in Acadia (present-day New Brunswick and parts of Nova Scotia, including Île Royale (present-day Cape Breton Island)).

Fewer live in New Orleans, Biloxi, Mississippi, Mobile, Alabama and small settlements in the Illinois Country, hugging the east side of the Mississippi River and its tributaries.

French fur traders and trappers travel throughout the St. Lawrence and Mississippi watersheds, do business with local tribes, and often marry native women.

Traders marry daughters of chiefs, creating high-ranking unions.

British settlers outnumber the French twenty to one, with a population of about one and a half million ranged along the eastern coast of the continent, from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland in the north, to Georgia in the south.

Many of the older colonies have land claims that extend arbitrarily far to the west, as the extent of the continent was unknown at the time their provincial charters were granted.

While their population centers are along the coast, the settlements are growing into the interior.

Nova Scotia, which had been captured from France in 1713, still has a significant French-speaking population.

Britain also claims Rupert's Land, where the Hudson's Bay Company trades for furs with local tribes.

In between the French and the British, large areas are dominated by native tribes.

To the north, the Mi'kmaq and the Abenaki, who had engaged with British in Father Le Loutre's War, still hold sway in parts of Nova Scotia, Acadia, and the eastern portions of the province of Canada, as well as much of present-day Maine.

The Iroquois Confederation dominates much of present-day Upstate New York and the Ohio Country, although the latter also includes Algonquian-speaking populations of Delaware and Shawnee, as well as Iroquoian-speaking Mingo.

These tribes are formally under Iroquois rule, and are limited by them in authority to make agreements.

Further south, the Southeast interior is dominated by Siouan-speaking Catawba, Muskogee-speaking Creek and Choctaw, and the Iroquoian-speaking Cherokee tribes.

The French and Indian War had started in 1754 over territorial disputes between the North American colonies of France and Great Britain in areas that are now western Pennsylvania and upstate New York.

When war breaks out in 1756 between Britain and France, the French use their trading connections to recruit fighters from tribes in western portions of the Great Lakes region (an area not directly subject to the conflict between the French and British), including the Huron, Mississauga, Ojibwa, Winnebago, and Potawatomi.

The British are supported in the war by the Iroquois Six Nations, and by the Cherokee.

Most of the other northern tribes side with the French, their primary trading partner and supplier of arms.

The Creek and Cherokee are subject to diplomatic efforts by both the French and British to gain either their support or neutrality in the conflict.

It is not uncommon for small bands to participate on the "other side" of the conflict from formally negotiated agreements, as most tribes are decentralized and bands make their own decisions about warfare.