<P> The French and Indian War (1754--63) pitted the colonies of British America against those of New France, each side supported by military units from the parent country and by American Indian allies . At the start of the war, the French colonies had a population of roughly 60,000 settlers, compared with 2 million in the British colonies . The outnumbered French particularly depended on the Indians . </P> <P> The European nations declared a wider war upon one another overseas in 1756, two years into the French and Indian war, and some view the French and Indian War as being merely the American theater of the worldwide Seven Years' War of 1756--63; however, the French and Indian War is viewed in America as a singular conflict which was not associated with any European war . The name French and Indian War is used mainly in the United States, referring to the two enemies of the British colonists, while European historians use the term the Seven Years' War, as do English - speaking Canadians . French Canadians call it Guerre de la Conquête (the War of the Conquest) or (rarely) the Fourth Intercolonial War . </P> <P> The British colonists were supported at various times by the Iroquois, Catawba, and Cherokee, and the French colonists were supported by Wabanaki Confederacy members Abenaki and Mi'kmaq, and Algonquin, Lenape, Ojibwa, Ottawa, Shawnee, and Wyandot . Fighting took place primarily along the frontiers between New France and the British colonies, from Virginia in the south to Newfoundland in the north . It began with a dispute over control of the confluence of the Allegheny River and Monongahela River called the Forks of the Ohio, and the site of the French Fort Duquesne in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania . The dispute erupted into violence in the Battle of Jumonville Glen in May 1754, during which Virginia militiamen under the command of 22 year - old George Washington ambushed a French patrol . </P> <P> In 1755, six colonial governors in North America met with General Edward Braddock, the newly arrived British Army commander, and planned a four - way attack on the French . None succeeded, and the main effort by Braddock proved a disaster; he lost the Battle of the Monongahela on July 9, 1755 and died a few days later . British operations failed in the frontier areas of the Province of Pennsylvania and the Province of New York during 1755--57 due to a combination of poor management, internal divisions, effective Canadian scouts, French regular forces, and Indian warrior allies . In 1755, the British captured Fort Beauséjour on the border separating Nova Scotia from Acadia, and they ordered the expulsion of the Acadians (1755--64) soon afterwards . Orders for the deportation were given by William Shirley, Commander - in - Chief, North America, without direction from Great Britain . The Acadians were expelled, both those captured in arms and those who had sworn the loyalty oath to His Britannic Majesty . Indians likewise were driven off the land to make way for settlers from New England . </P>

Which area of land was in dispute prior to the french and indian war
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