How did Great Britain come to control so much of North America?
Great Britain gained control of North America by winning wars against France. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries British and French explorers began claiming many parts of the present-day United States and Canada. During the late 1600s and into the mid-1700s, the two European powers fought a series of four wars, known as the French and Indian wars (1689–1763), in their struggle for control of territory in North America. (France had Native American allies, so the term “Indian” was used in naming the conflicts.) Three of the conflicts—King William’s War (1689–97), Queen Anne’s War (1702–13), and King George’s War (1744–48)—broke out in Europe before spreading to North America, where British and French colonists participated in the effort to acquire new lands. Neither the British nor the French made any gains in King William’s…
