By 1720, French imperial forces had long since established a serious presence in North America. Although they had lost some ground to the aggressive English since 1700, the French still laid claim to the eastern part of what we now call Canada except for Hudson's Bay, Acadia, and Newfoundland, to northern sections of what we now call the American Midwest, and to a significant share of the Mississippi basin. Québec, Montréal, Detroit, St. Louis, Mobile, and New Orleans had all come into being as French cities and fortresses. French merchants, soldiers, and administrators controlled the major waterways linking the continental interior to Europe. Violence, intrigue, and venality intertwined in their imperial system of rule. The French held their ground until the 1760s under incessant pressure from Spanish and English competitors including frontier settlers. Defeat by the English in the Seven Years War (1756–1763) radically reduced France's North American territories. Up to then, nevertheless, the French still had some hope of becoming the dominant power in North America.

Despite their looming presence on the continent, the French never achieved more than contingent domination over the Indian populations they encountered from their earliest arrival in North America. They tried, but their very efforts to conquer Indian peoples or to push them aside for French settlements created new forms of connection among previously distinct villages, bands, tribes, and federations. Remember the three sorts of resources that rulers generally apply to subordinate populations:

1. coercion: all concerted means of action that commonly cause loss or damage to the persons, possessions, or sustaining social relations of social actors

2. […]