Albany (new York) In The 1750’s Essay, Research Paper

Albany in the 1750?s

By the beginning of the 1750?s many English colonies were well established along the northeastern seaboard. These colonies forts were under constant attack by the impeding French forces that sought power in the Americas.

In retaliation to this ongoing threat the Lords of Trade and Governor Clinton called upon the governors of the states of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and the Iroquois natives to send delegates to Albany. In June of 1754, the Congress meeted in Albany?s Stadt Huyst, or City Hall, and drew up the Albany Plan of Union. An excerpt from the plan states that a union should be formed, ?For their (the colonies) mutual defense and security, and for extending the British settlements in North America.? This proposal helped plant a seed that would be an underlying factor in the Revolutionary War, some 20 years after that charter.

In 1753 the brewing of the French and Indian War was beginning in northern New York and the Ohio Valley. This heightened offensive on forts came down the Hudson River through Saratoga and Schenectady in late 1757, and became a great threat to the important city of Albany. In 1758 the vivacious William Pitt ascended to command over foreign affairs in England, and devoted all of his policy towards breaking French power in America. After repeated failed battles under Lord Abercrombie, who planned to take Fort Ticonderroga in the future, the English army was losing badly to the oncoming French. But morale was raised when Captain John Bradstreet, the leader of a large Albany-organized militia, in common intrest of the English army, had a huge victory on the east end of lake Ontario, on Fort Frontenac to drive the French back towards Canada. There in the Ohio Valley the soldiers burned many French camps and storefronts, seizing the land and leading to a coupe de grace by Amherst?s English army in seizing the abandoned Fort Ticonderroga (Which Abercrombie failed to do), and advancing all the way to Montreal in 1760.

By then all fighting with the French had ceased. For over one hundred years the established English fought with and opposed to the neutral Native Americans, and tirelessly against the pressuring French. The grim time in this Nation?s history would ebb as bloodshed would cease for a short time; allowing for the advancement of Albany?s society, and for settlers to come to the Hudson Valley in search of prosperity.