The Sixty Years' War for the Great Lakes, 1754-1814

The Sixty Years' War for the Great Lakes contains twenty essays concerning not only military and naval operations, but also the political, economic, social, and cultural interactions of individuals and groups during the struggle to control the great freshwater lakes and rivers between the Ohio Valley and the Canadian Shield. Contributing scholars represent a wide variety of disciplines and institutional affiliations from the United States, Canada, and Great Britain.

Collectively, these important essays delineate the common thread, weaving together the series of wars for the North American heartland that stretched from 1754 to 1814. The war for the Great Lakes was not merely a sideshow in a broader, worldwide struggle for empire, independence, self-determination, and territory. Rather, it was a single war, a regional conflict waged to establish hegemony within the area, forcing interactions that divided the Great Lakes nationally and ethnically for the two centuries that followed.

Among the varied topics are discussions of the impact of disease upon the Natives' military power and culture; the importance of the French familial and commercial interactions with the British and Indians; the emergence of intercultural cooperation in a region too often characterized as constantly at war; and the internal struggles by Native Americans to present a united front against European intrusion. Other scholars examine economic, political, and idealogical responses to the American Revolution; detailed accounts of military struggles, the Gnadenhutten massacre, and analyses of Indian and naval involvement in the War of 1812.