Colonial America
February 1757 French & Indian War Caps & Powder Receipt
February 21, 1757-Dated French & Indian War, Manuscript Document, Receipt for Caps, Powder and other items purchased in 1753, for use in the French and Indian War of 1754-1763.
Manuscript Document, 1 page, 3.25" x 7.5," Falmo(uth) (ME), Choice Very Fine. Statement of Accounts for purchases made by Ebenezer Gordon from Enoch Freeman, including Caps, Powder, a bushel of Salt, a gallon of molasses, and other supplies. We know from handling another document relating to these two men that this receipt was the basis of a lawsuit between them, with Freeman hoping to enforce a judgment against Gordon for payment of the monies owed to him. The importance of this document relates to the purchase of caps and powder that would have been used in the French and Indian War. Crisp, clear writing and brighter than usual clean laid period paper.
The French and Indian War (1754"1763) 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.



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 the United States as a singular conflict which was not associated with any European war.[5] French Canadians call it Guerre de la Conqute ("War of the Conquest").



The British colonists were supported at various times by the Iroquois, Catawba, and Cherokee tribes, and the French colonists were supported by Wabanaki Confederacy member tribes Abenaki and Mi'kmaq, and the Algonquin, Lenape, Ojibwa, Ottawa, Shawnee, and Wyandot tribes. Fighting took place primarily along the frontiers between New France and the British colonies, from the Province of 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.