Queen Anne's War: The Second Contest for North America, 1702–1713

by Michael G. Laramie

Although King William’s War (1689–1697) had established the basic disputes between New France and the English colonies, the conflict had resolved little beyond making it clear that the smaller French colony was more than capable of defending itself. When news of the War of Spanish Succession (1701–1714), or Queen Anne’s War as it would become known in North America, arrived in 1702, few envisioned that the resumption of the previous conflict would grow to engulf eastern North America from Newfoundland to Florida, pitting the Spanish, English, and French colonies along with their respective native allies into a concerted contest for control of the continent. From the storming of Spanish St. Augustine and the opening shots along the Maine frontier, through the implementation of a series of profit-driven Indian Wars and the destruction of the Spanish mission system in Georgia and Florida, to the direct involvement of Britain in the closing days of the conflict, Queen Anne’s The Second Contest for North America, 1702–1713 carries the reader through this oft forgotten, but crucial period in North American history.
    Told from the halls of power in North America and Europe, and through the eyes of the men and women who found themselves embroiled in this brutal realignment of colonial interests, Queen Anne’s War recreates the world of early North American expansion at the ground level, providing riveting accounts of the battles across settlements and wilderness as well as the motives, conditions, triumphs, and failures of the Europeans and their respective Native American allies. Based on extensive primary source research and command of English, French, and Spanish sources, the narrative not only describes the economic and geopolitical ramifications of the war that reshaped North America, but intriguingly reveals the sense of independence emerging in the colonies, from Puritan New England to plantation South Carolina, at the close of the war.

Genres: History, American History

352 pages, Hardcover

Published June 11, 2021

About the author

A native of Vermont, Michael G. Laramie is an independent historian with a focus on the colonial conflicts of North America.

Reviews

[Lou Chodosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well researched history of North America before the revolution. A must read for anyone interested in learning about this era.

[Anthony Ragan · Rating 4 out of 5]

When the “French and Indian War” is referred to, most think of the conflict from 1754 to 1763 between the British and French colonies, and the tribal allies of each, in North America, a part of the larger Seven Years War. But this, while the most famous, was just the fourth in a series of wars between these parties: before it came King William’s War (1688-1697), part of the European Nine Years War; Queen Anne’s War (1702-1713), part of the War of the Spanish Succession; and King George’s War (1744-48), the North American theater of the War of the Austrian Succession.

Michael Laramie’s “Queen Anne's War: The Second Contest for North America, 1702–1713” covers the second of these conflicts. Unlike King William’s War, which was confined to New England, New York, and Canada, this war ranged from Quebec to Spanish Florida and French holdings along the Gulf Coast. As in the other conflicts, the native tribal nations were heavily involved, from the Iroquois and Algonquin peoples in the north to the Chickasaw, Cherokee, Yamasee, and Timucua peoples (among others) of the south. It lead to the loss of Newfoundland and Acadia (renamed Nova Scotia) to the British and the destruction of the Spanish mission system in what would become Georgia, as well as the wrecking of the Timucua and Apalachee tribes. Though the Spanish settlements at Pensacola and St. Augustine survived, Spanish Florida as a whole never recovered.

Laramie covers the war in largely chronological style, beginning with the arrival of a new governor in New York at the end of the 1690s. (Fun fact, the governor he replaced “supplemented” his income by providing legal cover to pirates in return for a cut of the loot.) Laramie’s style is that of narrative history, informal and readable, though occasionally he veers too much into “storyteller mode,” such as when talking about the personal qualities of figure. He is careful to give attention to all major parties in the war and the dilemmas they faced, though the major focus is on the French and English colonial officials. He is fair also to the tribal nations, discussing their complex and often violent relations with each other and with the colonizing European powers.

Three hundred years removed from this conflict and influenced by the stately portraits of the time, we have largely forgotten both what a wild frontier North America was and just how brutal the fighting could be. New York City was a small, struggling port of just over 2,000 people (What is that, about half a block in today’s Manhattan?), and not far from bustling Boston began the often-dangerous forests. Both sides, including the native peoples, engaged in massacre and slave-taking, and several times the governors of New France and New England engaged in correspondence to negotiate the return of their captured people.

One notable feature of the conflict is how often the respective colonies were “on their own,” without much help from Britain or France. New France was in the strategically more parlous situation, as the Royal Navy could often cut them off from resupply. As a consequence, the governors of the colony relied on what they called “petite guerre,” what we would today call “guerrilla warfare.” On the other hand, the English colonies often had to raise their own forces, with the British military tied up in Europe. These often performed erratically at best, until at last, toward the end of the war, substantial regular army and navy reinforcements arrived. One is also struck by the blithe incompetence of some of the frontier settlements that, even though a war was on and the danger real, failed to mount an adequate guard, with tragic results.

Overall, this was an enjoyable book providing a good introduction to a now rather obscure conflict. Laramie provides an extensive bibliography for those wishing to do further research. The one major problem, for which I deducted a star, is the large number of typos in the Kindle text. For example, “letter of marque” is often rendered “letter of marquis,” and the names of native tribes are misspelled in several places. It looks as if a spell-checker was allowed to run unsupervised.

Still, recommended for those with an interest in this period of history.

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic book, many typos in Kindle

The content of this well-written account of an often overlooked period in North American history deserves 5 stars. I removed a star for the poor proofreading of the Kindle edition..."letter of marquis" instead of "marque", the port of "Breast" instead of "Brest", etc. Such a thoroughly researched and well presented work deserves better treatment than it was given. I still recommend it.

[William Edmund Wilkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Laramie has again done a service for Americans who need to know more about our colonial past. The important War of the Spanish Succession was known in the English (and after 1707, British) colonies as Queen Anne's War. The Maine coastline was a battle front as was Nova Scotia. Laramie also kindly detours into the previous century to provide background to the story of Florida and the Georgia front. Readers of his King William's War will again notice his attention to the warring tribes of Native Americans who had their own objectives and hatreds. The maps are useful--I kept bookmarks on the maps to make flipping to them easier. An important book for American appreciation of French Canada, too.

[Ron Kastner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book and its companion volume on King William's War fill in much detail on the tribulations of the Colonies in the late 17th and early 18th centuries with both the French and the various native American tribes. It also illumines why the British and the Colonists were moving apart from each other, well before the commonly discussed issues of 1763-1776.

Each volume is well worth reading.

[William Shep · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author is an Arizona based historian and veteran writer on North American conflicts, most notably the prequel to this work: King William’s War: The First Contest for North America, 1689-1697 (2017). Thanks to temporal proximity to The American Revolution and the literary works of James Fenimore Cooper and Francis Parkman, the French and Indian War (Seven Years War in Europe) is the most famous of the Anglo-French conflicts over the North American colonies, especially their lucrative fur trade. However, it was the fourth and culminating conflict, so Laramie reveals the relatively unknown yet pivotal earlier struggles. Laramie’s contention is that both King William’s War, 1689-1697, and Queen Ann’s War, 1702-1713, known respectively in Europe as The War of the League of Augsburg and The War of the Spanish Succession, set the stage for more than a half century of conflict and generational hostility from the frontiers of Maine to the Gulf Coast.
Laramie recounts waves of frontier raids waged by both French and English combined with Native American allies, usually Ottawa and Wabanaki for the former and various Iroquois tribes for the latter, ravaging settlements from Maine to Florida. Such chronic carnage was supplemented by destructive but usually indecisive descents upon coastal cities, with English attacks ranging from Port Royal in Acadia (Nova Scotia) to St. Augustine in Spanish Florida and French assaults on St. John’s, Newfoundland, or Charleston, South Carolina. Logistical challenges and endemic disease afflicted both sides, as well as bad luck, such as the storm that devastated the English-Colonial fleet that might have taken Montreal in 1711. However, over time the English naval blockade as well as battlefield success in Europe ensured an English (after 1707 Act of Union), British victory, clearing the French out of both Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, although the remnants of French Canada survived along the St. Lawrence River.
Queen Anne’s War is well written and ably supported by the excellent use of English, French, and Spanish sources, while not ignoring the Native American point of view. There are 40 maps, mostly from the Library of Congress, and many illustrations, mostly eighteenth century portraits, interspersed throughout the text, with index, endnotes, and bibliography. There are only a few minor though amusing typos, ‘Letter of Marquis’ for ‘Letter of Marque’ (7) and ‘Breast’ for the city of ‘Brest’ (99). Otherwise, this highly recommended book should now be considered the standard history.

[Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

8/10