North America
New France was the name of the French holdings in the North American continent and the Caribbean. Unlike the British (and other Europeans) who settled predominantly along the Atlantic coast, impeded from moving inland by the American Indians, the French pushed deeply into the interior, establishing trading outposts, towns, and fortified positions. During the numerous wars which were fought in Europe, French allied Indians harassed the English colonials, with each succeeding war becoming more violent, with greater numbers of French and English troops involved. North America became the major point of contention between the British and the French by the mid-eighteenth century.
To support the Indians and contain expanding British settlement, the French built a chain of fortresses along the natural waterways descending into the interior of the continent. During the wars in Europe and as a result of actions in North America these posts changed hands between the French and British, both of which viewed North America as just one piece of global empires. During the War of the Austrian Succession a British naval squadron supported an attack on the French fortress at Louisbourg in Nova Scotia. The American colonial militia, mostly from New England, captured the fortress.
In the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle the British negotiators returned the French fortress in exchange for Great Britain retaining Madras on the Indian subcontinent. The American militia was forced to abandon the fort. In New England, resentment against the cavalier manner in which Great Britain disregarded the needs of the colonies grew. Great Britain then built a military base and port at Halifax, to counter the French presence at Louisbourg. In 1758, during the Seven Years War, another expedition of British and colonial troops captured Louisbourg again, using it as a springboard for the expedition against Quebec led by James Wolfe.
The Seven Years war was a global war between all of the major European powers, but to the American colonists it was a war against the French and their Indian allies to secure the American frontier. The fighting in Europe limited the men available to be sent to North America and the British relied heavily on the colonial militia. The French relied on their Indian allies. There were conflicts between the French and British troops in North America, but compared to the battles fought on the continent they were relatively small. In the resolution of the global conflict Great Britain acquired nearly all of New France east of the Mississippi.
Because the North American battles between the French and the British were viewed as a theater of a global war, and the American colonists benefited from its result, the British government view was the costs of that portion of the war should be borne in part by the colonies. The colonial legislatures view was that they had borne a large share of the costs of the war, which had ended with Great Britain becoming the dominant military power on earth. Leaders in the American colonies began to realize that they were but pawns on the chessboard of world domination being played by the great European powers, with little say about their own destiny.