MAP 4.4 European Spheres of Influence in North America, 1754
In the mid-eighteenth century, France, Spain, and the British-owned Hudson Bay Company laid claim to the vast areas of North America still inhabited primarily by Indian peoples. British settlers had already occupied much of the land east of the Appalachian Mountains. To safeguard their lands west of the mountains, Native Americans played off one European power against another. As a British official remarked: “To preserve the Ballance between us and the French is the great ruling Principle of Modern Indian Politics.” When Britain expelled France from North America in 1763, Indians had to face encroaching Anglo-American settlers on their own.