At stake were the lucrative fur trade and access to the all-important Mississippi River, the lifeline of the frontier to the west.
Indian Wars is the name generally used in the United States to describe a series of conflicts between the colonial or federal government and the indigenous peoples.
The French-Indian War was fought between Britain and France, along with their respective colonists and allied Indian groups, for control of land in North America.
Occurring from 1754 to 1763, it helped trigger – and then formed part of the Seven Years War. It has also been called the fourth French-Indian war, because of three other early struggles involving Britain, France, and Indians.
Consequences
Britain, by any count, won the French-Indian war. But in doing so it had altered and further pressurized its relationship with its colonists, with tensions arising from the numbers of troops Britain had tried to call upon during the war, as well as the reimbursement of war costs and the way Britain handled the whole affair. In addition, Britain had incurred greater yearly expenditure on garrisoning an enlarged area, and it tried to recoup some of these debts by greater taxes on the colonists. Within twelve years the Anglo-Colonist relationship had collapsed to the point where the colonists rebelled and, aided by a France eager to upset its great rival once more, fought the American War of Independence. The colonists, in particular, had gained great experience of fighting in America. - ThoughtCo.com
See a representative survey of conflicts between Native Americans and Europeans over three centuries at U-S-History.com.