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NARRATOR: In the late 1600s, the European powers were struggling for control of the continent. These conflicts were mirrored in North America, where they fought for land and trade routes.

- There's a sort of constant, intermittent warfare between France and England. And the colonies get drawn into that. And they and they don't like it, because they consider it none of their-- these quarrels are not their quarrels.

NARRATOR: In 1689, the War of the League of Augsburg broke out in Europe. England, Spain, and others fought against France. In North America, it was called King William's War.

- The wars in Europe have names like the War of the Spanish Succession or the War of the League of Augsburg, or the War of the Austrian Succession. But the colonists called them Queen Anne's War, King William's War. As far as they're concerned, the monarch is forcing them into these positions, which they don't like.

NARRATOR: These conflicts escalated when Native Americans became involved.

- There were also very, very powerful and growing Indian polities in the Ohio Valley and in the Southeast and in the Great Lakes region. And so you have the Iroquois League and their allies up in the Great Lakes region, and groups in the Ohio Valley in the south-- polities like the Cherokees and the Creeks who are becoming now, tremendously more powerful.

NARRATOR: As King William's War ended in 1997, Queen Anne's War broke out only a few years later in, 1702, with many of the same countries battling over the same territories in the American frontier. In 1713, England, Spain, and France signed the Treaty of Utrecht. England took possession of Acadia, Newfoundland, and the valuable Hudson Bay region.

France gained control of the continent's vast Indian-occupied interior. Spain maintained its holdings in Florida and in Central and South America. With the Treaty of Utrecht, the violence in Europe and North America was finally quelled, but only for a few decades.

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