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.
Thomas Lee, president of the Virginia Council of State, organized the Ohio Company of Virginia in 1748.
The French and Indian War was a conflict in North America between Great Britain and France, along with their respective Indigenous allies, which were called "Indians" at the time. Historians generally
Ohio Company
…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. Virginian explorers recognized the potential of the Ohio region for colonization and moved to capitalize on it, as well as to block French expansion…
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.
Three Cherokee chiefs, 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