British imperial leaders hoped to prevent the conflict in the Ohio Country from leading to a larger war. One obvious strategy was to strengthen an old partnership with the Mohawks of New York’s Iroquois Confederacy, who since 1692 had joined with New York fur merchants in an alliance called the Covenant Chain. Yet unsavory land speculators caused the Mohawks to doubt British friendship. Authorities in London directed New York’s royal governor to convene a colonial conference to repair trade relations and secure the Indians’ help—or at least their neutrality—against the looming French threat. The conference convened at Albany, in June and July 1754. All six tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy attended, along with twenty-four delegates from seven colonies, making this an unprecedented pan-colony gathering. The elderly Mohawk chief Hendrick gave a powerful and widely reprinted speech, asserting that recent British neglect would inevitably reorient Indian trade relations to the French. “Look at the French, they are men; they are fortifying every where; but we are ashamed to say it; you are like women, bare and open, without any fortifications.” Hendrick urged the assembled colonists to prepare for defense against the French. (See “Visualizing History.”)

Two delegates at the congress seized the occasion to present an ambitious plan. Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and Thomas Hutchinson of Massachusetts, both rising political stars, coauthored the Albany Plan of Union, a proposal for a unified but limited government to exercise sole authority over questions of war, peace, and trade with the Indians. Delegates at the Albany Congress, alarmed by news of the defeat of Virginians at Fort Necessity, agreed to present the plan to their respective assemblies. To Franklin’s surprise, not a single colony approved the Albany Plan. The Massachusetts assembly feared it was “a Design of gaining power over the Colonies,” especially the power of taxation. Others objected that it would be impossible to agree on unified policies toward scores of quite different Indian tribes. The British government never backed the Albany Plan; instead, it appointed two superintendents of Indian affairs, one for the northern and another for the southern colonies, each with exclusive powers to negotiate treaties, trade, and land sales with all tribes.

The Indians at the Albany Congress were not impressed with the Albany Plan either. The Covenant Chain alliance with the Mohawk tribe was reaffirmed, but the other nations left without pledging to help the British battle the French. Some of the Iroquois figured that the French military presence around the Great Lakes would discourage the westward push of American colonists and therefore better serve the Indians’ interests.