ABSTRACT
From 1730 to 1770, the British colonies emerged as the dominant power east of the Mississippi River. But in 1730, let alone 1750, it was not entirely clear that things would turn out this way. The power of Indian confederacies in the South, and the Iroquois in the north, meant that most land in the region was in Indian hands, and remained so in 1770. Moreover, the French not only posed a threat to the British from Canada but, actively and more successfully than the British, were expanding through the interior continent. The strength of the British colonies lay in their demographic and economic growth. The British colonies’ rapid, if not phenomenal, expansion of population made conquest by French or Indians all but impossible. French and Indians could limit British territorial expansion and harass and destroy British colonial communities, but they could not effectively strike to reduce the British colonies. All they could hope for was to keep the British colonials east of the Appalachians and south of Canada.
