Queen Anne's War was the second of the French and Indian Wars in colonial North America. Roughly speaking, it corresponded with Europe's War of the Spanish Succession; it lasted from 1702 until 1713, and stretched from Acadia to Florida. This forced the British, based mostly in New England, to fight a war on two fronts: against the French and their First Nations allies in the north, and against the Spanish in the south as they sought to widen their sphere of influence and in so doing eliminate the Spanish presence along the eastern seaboard.
Overseas, the peace that had been reached in 1697 ended when Philip of Anjou laid claim to both the French and Spanish thrones. Queen Anne's ascension to the English throne in 1702 coincided with the spread of the conflict to North America; this gave the war its name.
The northern theatre of Queen Anne's War followed along much the same lines as King William's War, which preceded it, and King George's War, which followed: French and English forces backed up by local militias and First Nations confederacies allied with each side fought for control of the Atlantic colonies, occasionally veering into New England and the continent's interior. The southern theatre forced a change in tactic; the Spanish presence in Florida was concentrated along the coastline, so much of the fighting took place on the water.
Due to the strength of the Royal Navy, and the relative insignificance of the Spanish force that existed in Florida, the events in the south were characterised by British success. The capture of Spanish-held Saint Augustine in 1702 was the single most important event in the south; British domination was cemented by a failed Spanish attack on Charleston, South Carolina, several years afterward. The bulk of the war was concentrated in the north.
Like King William's War, the early stages of this war consisted of a series of rapid-fire surprise raids followed by equally sudden retreats, which resulted in bloody massacres and many casualties. In the war's early stages, the brunt of the violence fell on western New England.
The most notorious massacre of the war was at Deerfield, Massachusetts in early February of 1704. A war party of several hundred French infantry soldiers and Algonquin warriors surrounded the town and moved in before dawn; by dusk much of the town had been razed, more than fifty of its inhabitants slaughtered, and over a hundred more carried off as prisoners.
The French and the Algonquin were fast-moving, merciless, and relentless in their attacks on the villages and towns of New England. After several years of smaller-scale raids and skirmishes, the town of Haverville met with the same fate as had Deerfield. Many of the colonists of western New England lived in fear of being the next in line; the dread anticipation was almost as effective for paralysing counterstrikes as were the attacks themselves.
Meanwhile, English troops were gathering under Francis Nicholson for a push to the north; Acadia, on the east coast, was one of the most strategically important areas of New France, and to take it would greatly weaken the strength of the French, hopefully forcing them to let up the pressure on New England. 1704 saw an unsuccessful attack on Port Royal, originating in Boston. Skirmishes kept both sides busy for several years following the attempt. Then, in 1707, the Act of Union brought Scotland and England together under a single monarch; this ended most of the domestic dissent, and Britain was finally able to send reinforcements to the colonies. The combined force launched another attack on Port Royal the same year; it too was a failure, but a third and final assault in 1710 met with success. Port Royal fell to the British; it was renamed Annapolis, in honour of Queen Anne, and Acadia became a British possession.
The victory at Port Royal led to speculation about the rest of New France, and how it might be conquered. A fleet was sent from Britain under Sir Hovendon Walker, with support from Boston and those that remained from the conquest of Acadia, until a force of unprecedented size and strength had been amassed: nine warships, nearly seventy transport vessels, and all manner of smaller crafts, carrying in total twelve thousand men. At the end of the summer in 1711, the fleet set off from Boston, along with a land force of twenty-five hundred under Colonel Nicholson. Their intent was to conquer Quebec and Montreal before winter descended and made it impossible.
Unfortunately, the endeavour failed spectacularly. Walker was an inept commander; having had no experience whatsoever with a force of this size, he had no idea what to expect nor of how to lead his men effectively. He was also rather cowardly, prone to giving up easily. A fog at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River cost him eight ships and a thousand men, who drowned after their vessels ran aground and sank; deciding that this was an omen, Walker ordered the fleet to return to Boston, convinced that he was saving the men from certain disaster.
Nicholson, hearing of the fleet's retreat, was understandably outraged. He ordered that the wooden forts that his army had erected be burnt, and the army itself disbanded. The people of New France, who had gotten word of the fleet's demise, were also convinced that they had been spared only by divine intervention; Governor Vaudreil ordered that a mass be said each month for a year to commemorate their salvation.
By 1712, both the French and the British were thoroughly sick of a war that seemed to be going nowhere. An armistice was declared to end the fighting; in 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht finalised a peace in both Europe and the colonies.
The treaty gave Acadia to Great Britain; it was officially renamed Nova Scotia ("New Scotland") after the Act of Union, by which name it had been known as early as 1621 when the land was presented as a grant to Sir William Alexander. Newfoundland and a number of trading posts surrounding Hudson Bay were also given to Britain, as was the island of St. Kitts in the Caribbean. Cape Breton Island remained a French possession, as did the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon south of Newfoundland.
Leaving as it did only a small French presence in the Maritimes, the treaty could not possibly be a permanent resolution. Something had to give -- and it would, in 1744 when the War of the Austrian Succession moved to North America as King George's War.
Sources:
Elson, William Henry. History of the United States of America. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1904.
Nova Scotia Info. http://www.canadainfolink.ca/ns.htm
Queen Anne's War. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Anne's_War
Queen Anne's War 1702-1713. http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h846.html
Queen Anne's War. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/queen_anne.htm
(All pages accessed 5 August 2004.) | 
