Negotiating Informal Empire: Trans-Appalachian Diplomacy, 1765

Upon signing the Treaty of Paris in 1763, France ceded their territorial holdings in the Ohio Country to the British. By official standards, French imperialism in the region had ended. However, the transition from French to British control was anything but seamless. In the face of an indigenous armed resistance, commonly referred to as Pontiac's War, British sovereignty was little more than a fiction written upon European maps. Simultaneously, even as British officials and soldiers attempted and failed to occupy formerly French forts, French traders remained in the region, while Indian military leaders and politicians repeatedly emphasized that their war effort was supported by their French allies.  As such, it would seem that French informal empire persisted, while the intended British imperialism in the region remained unrealized. To date, no official document has been uncovered that demonstrates official French support of the Indian resistance. Yet, within the context of diplomacy, the perception of residual French imperialism repeatedly appears within the record. With that discrepancy in mind, this paper explores how French imperialism persisted in the Ohio Country on purely diplomatic terms. For indigenous and British diplomats, the persistence of French informal empire was very real indeed. It was the assumption upon which negotiations moved forward. Considering that these negotiations defined the contours of British imperialism, the assumptions were impactful causalities. As such, these assumptions must be taken seriously, whether or not they were reflecting official French policy.