The British victory in the French and Indian War had a great impact on the British Empire. Firstly, it meant a great expansion of British territorial claims in the New World. But the cost of the war had greatly enlarged Britain’s debt. The war had an equally profound but very different effect on the American colonists.

As white settlers moved into the Great Plains region, they battled the Plains Indian tribes in a series of conflicts known as the Sioux Wars, which lasted from 1854 to 1890.

The westward expansion of America into Native American territory lead to tension between the Indians and Americans. The removal of Native peoples from their land to reservations and the destruction of their livelihood was a main contributing factor to the many battles that made up the Indian Wars.

The French had far more American Indian allies than the English because they were more successful at converting the various tribes to Christianity and they focused more on trading than on settling North America, so the American Indians saw them as less of a threat to their land and resources.

It was a conflict that pitted two of history’s greatest empires, Great Britain and France, against each other for control of the North American continent. Swept up in the struggle were the inhabitants of New France, the British colonists, the Native Americans, and regular troops from France and Britain.

The French and Indian War ended in 1763 with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. A twist to the ending was that many of the British soldiers and settlers taken into captivity by the Natives during the war refused to leave after the war ended.

In spite of the war’s moniker, not all Native Americans sided with the French. While the majority of Native American tribes backed the French, numerous tribes remained neutral, fought alongside the British or shifted allegiances with the winds of war.