Editing French and Indian War (section)

====Construction of French fortifications====
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[[File:Fort Le Boeuf.jpg|thumb|[[Fort Le Boeuf]] in 1754. In the spring of 1753, the French began to build a series of forts in the Ohio Country.]]
In the spring of 1753, [[Paul Marin de la Malgue]] was given command of a 2,000-man force of Troupes de la Marine and Indians. His orders were to protect the King's land in the Ohio Valley from the British. Marin followed the route that Céloron had mapped out four years earlier. Céloron, however, had limited the record of French claims to the burial of lead plates, whereas Marin constructed and garrisoned forts. He first constructed [[Fort Presque Isle]] on Lake Erie's south shore near [[Erie, Pennsylvania]], and he had a road built to the headwaters of [[LeBoeuf Creek (Pennsylvania)|LeBoeuf Creek]]. He then constructed a second fort at [[Fort Le Boeuf]] in [[Waterford, Pennsylvania]], designed to guard the headwaters of LeBoeuf Creek. As he moved south, he drove off or captured British traders, alarming both the British and the Iroquois. [[Tanaghrisson]] was a chief of the [[Mingo]] Indians, who were remnants of Iroquois and other tribes who had been driven west by colonial expansion. He intensely disliked the French whom he accused of killing and eating his father. He traveled to Fort Le Boeuf and threatened the French with military action, which Marin contemptuously dismissed.<ref name="fowler 31">Fowler, p. 31.</ref>

The Iroquois sent runners to the manor of [[Sir William Johnson, 1st Baronet|William Johnson]] in upstate New York, who was the British Superintendent for Indian Affairs in the New York region and beyond. Johnson was known to the Iroquois as ''Warraghiggey'', meaning "he who does great things." He spoke their languages and had become a respected honorary member of the [[Iroquois|Iroquois Confederacy]] in the area, and he was made a colonel of the Iroquois in 1746; he was later commissioned as a colonel of the Western New York Militia.

The Indian representatives and Johnson met with Governor [[George Clinton (Royal Navy officer)|George Clinton]] and officials from some of the other American colonies at [[Albany, New York]]. [[Mohawk people|Mohawk]] [[Chief Hendrick]] was the speaker of their tribal council, and he insisted that the British abide by their obligations{{which|date=April 2017}} and block French expansion. Clinton did not respond to his satisfaction, and Hendrick said that the "[[Covenant Chain]]" was broken, a long-standing friendly relationship between the Iroquois Confederacy and the British Crown.