The Ohio Company, formally known as the Ohio Company of Virginia, was a land speculation company organized for the settlement by Virginians of the Ohio Country and to trade with the Native Americans. The company had a land grant from Britain and a treaty with Indians, but France also claimed the area, and the conflict helped provoke the outbreak of the French and Indian War.
Thomas Lee, president of the Virginia Council of State, organized the Ohio Company of Virginia in 1748.
The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. 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 their native allies.
The coureurs des bois were French-Canadian fur traders, who did business with natives throughout the Mississippi and St. Lawrence watershed.
Iroquois expansion, 1711. By the mid-18th century, the Iroquois Confederacy had expanded from Upstate New York to the Ohio Country.
The Cherokee, c. 1762. The Cherokee were subject to diplomatic efforts from the British and French to gain their support or neutrality in the event of a conflict.
General James Wolfe, British commander
