Attack on German Flatts | |||||||
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Part of the French and Indian War | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
France New France Iroquois | Province of New York | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
François-Marie Picoté de Belestre | Johan Jost Petrie | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
300 regulars, militia and Indian warriors | 75 militia | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
5 wounded [1] | 40–50 killed 150 captured [1] |
The attack on German Flatts was the successful assault on the British North American settlement of German Flatts, New York by a combined French-Indian force on November 12, 1757 during the French and Indian War. Inhabited by Palatine colonists, the settlement's defenders (consisting of 75 militiamen) were defeated by the 300-strong force of attackers, and German Flatts was captured and destroyed. Between 40 and 50 of the colonists were killed, and 150 were captured; in comparison, the French-Indian force only suffered 5 wounded.
The campaign season for 1757 had been a successful one for authorities in New France. The British had failed in an expedition against Louisbourg, and defeated at Fort William Henry by the French and their Indian allies. New France's governor, the Marquis de Vaudreuil, had attempted to convince German settlers in the Mohawk River valley to support the French cause. When the Germans failed to support the French in the assault on Fort William Henry in August, Vaudreuil decided to send a punitive expedition against them. He attacked the settlement called German Flatts, on the north side of the Mohawk River west of Little Falls. (This settlement is where present-day Herkimer, New York, is located, and not the modern German Flatts on the south side of the Mohawk River.)
Vaudreuil assembled a force of about 300 at Lachine under the command of François-Marie Picoté de Belestre, an experienced commander in the troupes de la marine . On October 20, this company left Lachine and traveled up the Saint Lawrence River and along the shore of Lake Ontario to the mouth of the Oswego River, site of another French victory in 1756. From there they traveled up the river, crossed the Oneida Carry to the Mohawk River, and descended to German Flatts. They arrived near the settlement on November 11. [2]
At the time, German Flatts consisted of about 60 homes and 300 settlers, with five fortified blockhouses. Although friendly Oneida had warned of the attack, the settlers had made no defensive preparations.
On November 12, 1757, at around 3 am, Belestre's force launched an attack on German Flatts from the hills north of the village. The five blockhouses quickly surrendered before the superior force. Forty people were killed or drowned, all the buildings were destroyed, and more than 150 of the inhabitants, men, women and children, including the mayor, the surgeon, and some militia officers were captured and taken back to Montreal. [3] Some of the inhabitants fled across the Mohawk to Fort Herkimer for safety. The fort's commander sent out a detachment of fifty men, but they retreated after a brief exchange of gunfire with Belestre's force. The next day Belestre departed, his canoes loaded with prisoners and plunder; he returned to Montreal on November 20.
News reached Schenectady the day after the attack. General George Howe immediately came up the river with the 42nd Regiment, but found nothing more than the smoking ruins of the settlement.
Most of the prisoners were later exchanged for those held by the British. Gradually the German residents returned and rebuilt the settlement. During the American Revolutionary War, German Flatts was attacked in 1778, with considerable loss of life and crops. Fighting on the frontier in the valley was fierce during those years.
The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the start of the war, the French colonies had a population of roughly 60,000 settlers, compared with 2 million in the British colonies. The outnumbered French particularly depended on their native allies.
German Flatts is a town in Herkimer County, New York, United States. The population was 12,263 at the 2020 census down from 13,258 at the 2010 census.
Thayendanegea or Joseph Brant was a Mohawk military and political leader, based in present-day New York and, later, Brantford, in what is today Ontario, who was closely associated with Great Britain during and after the American Revolution. Perhaps the best known Native American of his generation, he met many of the most significant American and British people of the age, including both United States President George Washington and King George III of Great Britain.
Herkimer is a village on the north side of the Mohawk River and the county seat of Herkimer County, New York, United States, about 15 miles (24 km) southeast of Utica. As of the 2020 Census, it had a population of 7,234, and a predicted population of 7,283 on July 1, 2022. It was part of the Burnetsfield Patent and the first colonial settlement this far west in the Mohawk Valley.
The Mohawk Valley region of the U.S. state of New York is the area surrounding the Mohawk River, sandwiched between the Adirondack Mountains and Catskill Mountains, northwest of the Capital District. As of the 2010 United States Census, the region's counties have a combined population of 622,133 people. In addition to the Mohawk River valley, the region contains portions of other major watersheds such as the Susquehanna River.
The Battle of Oriskany was a major engagement of the Saratoga campaign during the American Revolutionary War. On August 6, 1777, an American column of Tryon County militia and Oneidas marching to relieve the siege of Fort Stanwix was ambushed by a contingent of Britain's Indigenous allies and Loyalists. It was one of the few battles of the war in which most non-Indigenous participants were settlers born in the Thirteen Colonies. The Americans suffered heavy casualties during the battle.
Brigadier-General Nicholas Herkimer was an American military officer who fought during the French and Indian War and Revolutionary War. He died in 1777 from wounds suffered during the Battle of Oriskany.
Drums Along the Mohawk is a 1939 American historical drama film based upon a 1936 novel of the same name by American author Walter D. Edmonds. The film stars Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert, was produced by Darryl F. Zanuck, and directed by John Ford.
Adam Frederick Helmer, also known as John Adam Frederick Helmer and Hans Adam Friedrich Helmer, was an American Revolutionary War soldier among those of the Mohawk Valley and surrounding regions of New York State. He was made nationally famous by Walter D. Edmonds' popular 1936 novel Drums Along the Mohawk with its depiction of "Adam Helmer's Run" of September 16, 1778, to warn the people of German Flatts of the approach of Joseph Brant and his company of Indians and Tories.
Fort Dayton was an American Revolutionary War fort located on the north side of the Mohawk River at West Canada Creek, in what is now Herkimer, New York. A fort had previously been built on the same site during the French and Indian War.
Fort Herkimer was a colonial fort located on the south side of the Mohawk River, opposite the mouth of its tributary West Canada Creek, in German Flatts, New York, United States.
Norridgewock was the name of both an Indigenous village and a band of the Abenaki Native Americans/First Nations, an Eastern Algonquian tribe of the United States and Canada. The French of New France called the village Kennebec. The tribe occupied an area in the interior of Maine. During colonial times, this area was territory disputed between British and French colonists, and was set along the claimed western border of Acadia, the western bank of the Kennebec River.
Palatines were the citizens and princes of the Palatinates, Holy Roman States that served as capitals for the Holy Roman Emperor. After the fall of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the nationality referred more specifically to residents of the Rhenish Palatinate, known simply as "the Palatinate".
The Battle of Johnstown was one of the last battles in the northern theatre of the American Revolutionary War, with approximately 1,400 engaged at Johnstown, New York on October 25, 1781. British regulars and militia, commanded by Major John Ross of the King's Royal Regiment of New York and Captain Walter Butler of Butler's Rangers, had raided the border area. Local American forces, led by Colonel Marinus Willett, blocked the British advance. As the British withdrew northwards Willett and his men marched to German Flatts to try to cut them off. The British managed to escape, but Walter Butler was killed.
The Battle of Fort Bull was a French attack on the British-held Fort Bull on 27 March 1756, early in the French and Indian War. The fort was built to defend a portion of the waterway connecting Albany, New York to Lake Ontario via the Mohawk River.
François-Marie Picoté, sieur de Belestre II was a colonial soldier for both New France and Great Britain.
The attack on German Flatts was a raid on the frontier settlement of German Flatts, New York during the American Revolutionary War. The attack was made by a mixed force of Loyalists and Iroquois under the overall command of Mohawk leader Joseph Brant, and resulted in the destruction of houses, barns, and crops, and the taking of livestock for the raiders' use. The settlers, warned by the heroic run of Adam Helmer, took refuge in local forts but were too militarily weak to stop the raiders.
The Lachine massacre, part of the Beaver Wars, occurred when 1,500 Mohawk warriors launched a surprise attack against the small settlement of Lachine, New France, at the upper end of Montreal Island, on the morning of 5 August 1689.
Starkville is a hamlet located west of Fort Plain on NY 80, in the eastern part of the town of Stark in southern Herkimer County, New York, United States. Established in the late 18th century, at one time the hamlet had a post office, three churches, two hotels, a store, several mills, a cheese factory, a number of shops and about 40 homes. In 2014, many of these structures are gone, but several remain, including an old carriage house factory and two churches on Rt. 80, one of which is in private ownership as an art studio.
The Battle of Wilton was fought in 1693 in Wilton, New York between Colonial Militia and allied Native forces on one hand and French forces and their Native allies as part of King William's War.