French and Indian War Word Search Printable

Print 12 French and Indian War words in one grid, from Fort and Frontier to Treaty, with the answer key.

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French and Indian War Word Search

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0 of 12 words found

CFETSFORTPQQ

ONNRTSHFAPSU

LYIEFZIRKOHE

OYBATBOOKSYB

NRNTIMVNUWPE

YRTYYKATLSMC

MZHCMILITIAT

FRANCELEUEVE

UALLYEERSGPP

EHRLQNYDREDH

ATBRITAINDGM

BFURTRADETAC

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BritainBRITAIN
FranceFRANCE
ColonyCOLONY
FortFORT
MilitiaMILITIA
Fur TradeFUR TRADE
AllyALLY
TreatyTREATY
SiegeSIEGE
Ohio ValleyOHIO VALLEY
QuebecQUEBEC
FrontierFRONTIER

12 words from the French and Indian War list.

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Answer key: French and Indian War Word Search

CFETSFORTPQQ

ONNRTSHFAPSU

LYIEFZIRKOHE

OYBATBOOKSYB

NRNTIMVNUWPE

YRTYYKATLSMC

MZHCMILITIAT

FRANCELEUEVE

UALLYEERSGPP

EHRLQNYDREDH

ATBRITAINDGM

BFURTRADETAC

BRITAIN, FRANCE, COLONY, FORT, MILITIA, FUR TRADE, ALLY, TREATY, SIEGE, OHIO VALLEY, QUEBEC, FRONTIER

Next step Make a puzzle from your own unit's words Scramble these French and Indian War words

All 133 words

Britain, France and the Colonies 26

Acadia A French-speaking region of the northeast, in what is now New Brunswick and part of Nova Scotia.
Albany New York town where delegates of seven colonies met from June 19 to July 11, 1754.
Border The line between two lands. In 1753 the one between French and British holdings was not well defined.
Britain The kingdom that won the war and gained French land as far west as the Mississippi.
Canada The heart of French North America, along the St. Lawrence. British armies had conquered it by 1760.
Claim To declare that land is yours. In 1749 a French officer buried lead plates to mark his king's.
Colonist Someone living in a colony. The British ones outnumbered the French about 20 to 1.
Colony A settlement ruled by a home country across the ocean.
Empire Many lands under one crown. Two of them wanted the same river valley.
Expedition A long armed march with one goal. The march on Fort Duquesne in 1755 ended in defeat.
Fleet Warships sailing together. A British one blocked the French coast, so little reached New France.

Show all 133 words (122 more)

Britain, France and the Colonies, continued

Fort A strong post held by soldiers. In 1753 the French began a line of them south of Lake Erie.
France The kingdom that gave up Canada and kept two small islands near Newfoundland.
Fur Trade The business of buying and selling animal pelts, which linked the French to many Native nations.
Governor The head of a colony. Virginia's sent a 21-year-old major in 1753 to tell the French to leave.
Join or Die Caption of a May 1754 newspaper cartoon that drew the colonies as the pieces of a cut-up snake.
King British colonists named earlier wars after theirs. This one they named for their opponents.
Militia Part-time soldiers called up from a colony's own farms and towns, usually for short periods.
Ohio Company Virginia land business granted ground in 1749 on condition that it settle 100 families and build a fort.
Provincial A soldier raised by one of the colonies, serving beside the king's own troops.
Rangers Scouts trained for the woods. British ones were ambushed near Ticonderoga in January 1757.
Regulars Full-time soldiers of a king's army. France shipped six regiments of them to North America in 1755.
Rival A competitor for the same prize, as two kingdoms were for North America.
Surveyor A person who measures and maps land. One traveled with the Virginia major to Fort Le Boeuf in 1753.
Trader A buyer and seller of goods. British ones in the Ohio Country worried the governor of New France.
Union Joining as one. A plan of 1754 for a single government over the colonies was never carried out.

Native Nations and Alliances 29

Abenaki A people who held much of Maine and parts of Acadia in the 1750s.
Alliance An agreement to stand together in war or in trade.
Ally A partner in war. Each side in this one had Indigenous nations fighting for it.
Catawba A Siouan-speaking nation of the Southeast interior.
Cayuga One of the league's five original nations, the Seneca's neighbor to the east.
Cherokee A southern nation that backed the British until a war between the two began in 1758.
Council A meeting of leaders to settle questions of peace, trade and war.
Covenant A solemn promise. A chain named for one linked the Iroquois league and the British Crown. A Mohawk leader declared it broken in 1753.
Diplomacy Winning friends by talks, not battles. Both empires tried it with the Cherokee and the Creek.
Easton Pennsylvania town where a 1758 agreement won the neutrality of Ohio Country nations.
Haudenosaunee The Iroquois league's own name for itself. It means people of the longhouse.
Iroquois A league of nations in what is now upstate New York, known as the Six Nations after 1722.
Lenape A people living in the Ohio Country in the 1750s, also called the Delaware.
Logstown Ohio River village where Native leaders and Virginia's agent reached an agreement in 1752.
Mi'kmaq A people of Nova Scotia and Acadia who fought alongside the Acadians.
Mohawk The easternmost of the league's nations, called the Keepers of the Eastern Door.
Neutral Taking no side. The Iroquois league began this way, to keep trading with both powers.
Odawa A Great Lakes people, also written Ottawa, whose warriors fought beside the French.
Ojibwe A people of the western Great Lakes whose fighters the French recruited when war broke out.
Oneida One of the league's five original nations, second from the east.
Onondaga The middle one of the league's five original nations, counted from east to west.
Potawatomi A people of the western Great Lakes region who took the French side.
Sachem A title for leaders among Algonquian peoples of the northeastern coast.
Seneca The westernmost of the league's nations, called the Keepers of the Western Door.
Shawnee An Algonquian-speaking people of the Ohio Country.
Treaty A written agreement between nations.
Tuscarora An Iroquoian-speaking people from the southeast, taken into the league after 1722 as its sixth nation.
Wampum Shell beads of the northeastern peoples, strung or woven into belts that recorded treaties.
Wyandot A Great Lakes people, also known as the Huron, recruited by the French.

Forts of the War 25

Ambush A surprise attack from hiding, like the one of July 9, 1755, near the Monongahela.
Blockhouse A small, strong building for defense. Oswego had one from 1722.
Crown Point New York site of the French Fort St. Frédéric, one of four British targets in 1755.
Fort Beauséjour French post between Nova Scotia and Acadia. The British captured it in June 1755.
Fort Carillon The French name for the star-shaped post near the south end of Lake Champlain.
Fort Duquesne French post of 1754 where the Allegheny and Monongahela join. Its builders destroyed it in 1758.
Fort Edward British camp at the upper end of boat travel on the Hudson River.
Fort Frontenac French post of 1673 where the St. Lawrence leaves Lake Ontario. The British destroyed it in 1758.
Fort Le Boeuf French post of 1753 near Lake Erie, where Virginia's demand to leave was delivered that December.
Fort Ligonier British post built in September 1758 on the new road across Pennsylvania. It was never taken.
Fort Necessity Post at the Great Meadows where Virginia troops surrendered on July 3, 1754.
Fort Niagara French post where a river of the same name enters Lake Ontario. The British took it in 1759.
Fort Oswego British trading post on Lake Ontario, set up in 1727 and taken by the French in 1756.
Fort Pitt Built by the British from 1759 to 1761 near the ruins of the French post at the Forks.
Fortress A large, strong place of defense, often with a whole town inside its walls.
Garrison The soldiers stationed in a fort to hold it.
Louisbourg French fortress town on Cape Breton Island. It fell in July 1758.
Palisade A fence of upright stakes. The first Fort Frontenac was a crude wooden one.
Presque Isle The first French fort of 1753, on the south shore of Lake Erie.
Siege Surrounding a fort or town until it gives up. Louisbourg's ran from June 8 to July 26, 1758.
Skirmish A brief fight between small forces, like the one that opened the war on May 28, 1754.
Stockade A wall of upright logs. Virginians were raising one at the Forks in the first months of 1754.
Surrender To give up to an enemy. Montreal's defenders did so on September 8, 1760.
Ticonderoga The British name, from a Mohawk word for a junction of two waterways, given to a fort won in 1759.
Trading Post A place where furs were swapped for goods. Fort Oswego began as one.

Rivers, Lakes and Battlegrounds 27

Allegheny River that meets the Monongahela at Pittsburgh. A French party followed it south in 1749.
Appalachians Mountains that marked the inland limit of the 13 British colonies in 1753.
Cape Breton Island that the French called Île Royale.
Forbes Road The route cut across Pennsylvania in 1758 for a march of about 6,000 men.
Forks The meeting place of two rivers that form the Ohio, the prize of the war's first years.
Frontier The edge of a colony's settled land. Both empires claimed the country beyond it.
Great Lakes Five inland seas. New France ran through them on its way from Louisiana to Canada.
Great Meadows Open ground in what is now Fayette County, Pennsylvania, where about 150 Virginians built a fort in 1754.
Hudson River whose valley the British held, facing the French-held valley to the north.
Jumonville Glen The place in Pennsylvania where Virginians and their Native allies surprised a French patrol in 1754.
Lake Champlain Long, narrow water in northern New York on the route between the Hudson and the St. Lawrence.
Lake Erie The Ohio Country lay south of it.
Lake George New York water beside which colonial and French forces fought on September 8, 1755.
Lake Ontario The easternmost of the five big lakes, with Oswego on its shore.
Mississippi After 1763 this river was the line between British land and Spanish land.
Monongahela River that joins the Allegheny to form the Ohio. A battle named for it was fought on July 9, 1755.
Montreal City that three British forces surrounded in September 1760, ending the fight for Canada.
New France The French colony beyond the Appalachians: large, thinly settled, reaching from Louisiana to Canada.
Newfoundland Island where the French seized a town in 1762. The British won it back that September.
Niagara A portage here took travelers from Lake Ontario toward Lake Erie.
Nova Scotia Northern colony that Britain gained from France in 1713.
Ohio Country Loosely defined region south of Lake Erie, home to the Lenape and the Shawnee in the 1750s.
Ohio Valley The French name for the river country both empires wanted, west of the Appalachians.
Pittsburgh Pennsylvania city that grew up where two forts of this war once stood.
Portage Carrying boats and goods overland between two waterways.
Quebec Capital of New France. The British took it in September 1759 after a battle on the Plains of Abraham.
St. Lawrence River of Quebec and Montreal, where most French colonists lived.

The Treaty of Paris and After 26

Boundary A dividing line. In 1763 one was drawn along the Appalachian Mountains.
Cede To give up land by agreement, as France did with its holdings east of the Mississippi.
Conquest Taking a land by force. French Canadians name the war after that of New France by the British.
Cuba Island that Britain returned to Spain in the peace.
Debt What a borrower owes. The war left Britain's nearly twice as large.
Florida Spanish colony traded to Britain in 1763 so that Spain could have Cuba back.
Guadeloupe Caribbean sugar island that France chose to get back rather than hold on to Canada.
Havana Cuban city captured by British forces late in the war.
Louisiana French land west of the Mississippi, handed to Spain along with New Orleans.
Martinique Caribbean island that a British force attacked in 1762 and that the peace returned to France.
Miquelon One of a pair of little islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence that France kept.
New Orleans Port that passed from France to Spain along with the land west of the Mississippi.
Parliament Britain's lawmakers, who approved the peace with 319 votes in favor.
Peace The end of fighting. The French king called for talks toward it in March 1762.
Proclamation A royal order. One of October 7, 1763, kept land west of the Appalachians for Native nations.
Reserve Land set aside. In 1763 the country west of the mountains was kept as one for Native nations.
Revolution Quarrels over frontier rules and the cost of the war led toward the American one.
Settlement A new town or group of farms. The order of 1763 forbade any beyond the mountains.
Seven Years' War The wider struggle of 1756 to 1763, of which the fighting in America was one part.
Spain France's partner, which gave up Florida and gained French land west of the Mississippi.
Stamp Act Law of 1765 that taxed printed paper in the colonies to pay for troops stationed there.
Sugar Act Law of April 1764 passed to raise money in the colonies for the cost of defending them.
Taxes Money a government collects. After the war Britain tried to raise new ones in its colonies.
Territory Land under a government's control. Britain gained all that France held east of the Mississippi.
Treaty of Paris The agreement of February 10, 1763, that ended the war.
Victory A win. The war ended as a British one.

How this list was compiled: Own work: the 133 words and every meaning were written for this page. Dates, places and names were checked on October 13, 2026 against the U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, Milestones pages on the French and Indian War, the Albany Plan, the Treaty of Paris and the Proclamation Line (https://history.state.gov/milestones/1750-1775) and English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Indian_War and the article on each fort, place and nation named. Licence: own work

How it works

This French and Indian War word search printable hides 12 words: Britain, France, Colony, Fort, Militia, Fur Trade, Ally, Treaty, Siege, Ohio Valley, Quebec and Frontier. Five more lists follow the war of 1754 to 1763.

Read the full guide

Five lists, from the Forks to the Treaty of Paris

Start from a list splits the 133 words: Britain, France and the Colonies (26) has Regulars, Albany and Join or Die; Native Nations and Alliances (29) has Haudenosaunee, Lenape and Wampum; Forts of the War (25) has Fort Duquesne and Ticonderoga; Rivers, Lakes and Battlegrounds (27); The Treaty of Paris and After (26) runs from Cede to Stamp Act.

Meanings with dates and places

"Post at the Great Meadows where Virginia troops surrendered on July 3, 1754." is Fort Necessity. "A royal order. One of October 7, 1763, kept land west of the Appalachians for Native nations." is Proclamation. No person is a puzzle word. To add one from your unit, type Washington, Montcalm or Wolfe on the last line of the list.

Easy French and Indian War keeps to 16 words of 4 or 5 letters, such as Fort, Ally, Cede, Siege and Forks.
The grid drops spaces and apostrophes, so look for OHIOVALLEY, FURTRADE, FORTDUQUESNE and SEVENYEARSWAR.

Questions and answers

When was the French and Indian War?

From 1754 to 1763. The first fight was at Jumonville Glen on May 28, 1754, most fighting in North America ended when Montreal surrendered in September 1760, and the Treaty of Paris was signed on February 10, 1763.

Why is it called the French and Indian War?

British colonists often named a war after their monarch, but a King George's War had already been fought in the 1740s. So they named this one after their opponents, although Native nations fought on both sides.

What caused the French and Indian War?

Britain and France both claimed the upper Ohio River valley. The French built forts there, Virginia sent troops in 1754 to make them leave, and that frontier fight grew into a full war, the State Department's history of it says.

What did the Treaty of Paris of 1763 do?

France gave Britain Canada and its land east of the Mississippi, and Louisiana west of the river went to Spain. Spain traded Florida to Britain to get Cuba back. For what came next, print the Boston Tea Party word search.

All 133 words

Britain, France and the Colonies 26

Britain, France and the Colonies, continued

Native Nations and Alliances 29

Forts of the War 25

Rivers, Lakes and Battlegrounds 27

The Treaty of Paris and After 26

How it works

Five lists, from the Forks to the Treaty of Paris

Meanings with dates and places

Questions and answers

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