RPTM Podcast Episode Fourteen: French and Indian War, Louisiana, and The Stamp Act

Full disclosure, we are going to have a little more self-indulgence on this episode. I was born and raised in Michigan, and as I boy, I would make my way up to the most northern part of the lower peninsula to Mackinaw Island. This is a typical tourist destination for travelers, as it is next to the bridge that connects the lower and upper peninsulas of Michigan. While most people wanted to gorge themselves on fudge (a familiar stable in the area), I was fascinated by history. On the shores of Lake Michigan, a replicate Fort Michilimackinac had been constructed as a tourist trap. And it did a number on me. I was obsessed with the cannons and the period costumes, and I wanted to know more. If This is something that had I just read about; I would have instantly lost interest. But the interaction with history gave me something tangible to pique my interests. As a boy being selected to lead the King’s men, by an actor in a British uniform, I remember getting to order around these troops and get them to march. This, I realize as I am saying it, is most likely incredibly lame. But at the time, I was interacting with history, and it meant so much to me. So much that when I had children of my own, I made sure to bring my wife and kids to see the fort. My youngest son was fascinated with the “King’s salt,” barrels of salt in the storage at the fort that labeled property of the King. This led to a brief discussion of monarchies and the geopolitical landscape of the 18th century. He grabbed his mother by the hand, walked her to the storage room, and stated, “Look, mom! This is the King’s salt!”

Who would have thought something as mundane as salt would have had such a lasting impression?

HIGHLIGHTS

• The French and Indian War is the name given to the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War, a global conflict involving Europe's major powers.
• On a June day in 1763, the commandant of Fort Michilimackinac was invited to watch a game of baggatiway between the Ojibwe and Sauk. The attack on Fort Michilimackinac was executed flawlessly. 
• The Proclamation Line of 1763 was a British-produced boundary marked in the Appalachian Mountains at the Eastern Continental Divide. On October 7, 1763, the Proclamation Line prohibited Anglo-American colonists from settling on lands acquired from the French following the French and Indian War. 
• Pontiac's Rebellion begins when Native American warriors' confederacy under Ottawa chief Pontiac attacks the British force at Detroit. After failing to take the fort in their initial assault, Pontiac's forces made up of Ottawas and reinforced by Wyandots, Ojibwas, and Potawatamis, initiated a siege that would stretch into months.
• The Treaty of Fontainebleau was a secret agreement of 1762 in which the Kingdom of France ceded Louisiana to Spain. The treaty followed the last battle in the French and Indian War in North America, the Battle of Signal Hill in September 1762, which confirmed Canada's British control. 
• The Stamp Act of 1765 was the first internal tax levied directly on American colonists by the British Parliament. The act, which imposed a tax on all paper documents in the colonies, came when the British Empire was deep in debt from the Seven Years' War  and looking to its North American colonies as a revenue source. 

CHAPTERS
0:00 Start
0:37 Introduction
2:29 French and Indian War
14:03 Fort Michilimackinac
24:18 Proclamation Line of 1763
30:10 Pontiac's War
33:22 Louisiana
37:13 The Stamp Act
44:50 Outro

RESOURCES
French and Indian War
Deadly Lacrosse Game in Mackinac Straits at Fort Michilimackinac in 1763
Proclamation Line of 1763
Ottawa Chief Pontiac’s Rebellion against the British begins
Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762)
Stamp Act

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