Thayendanegea or Joseph Brant was a Mohawk military and political leader, based in present-day New York, 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 George Washington and King George III.
The 1779 Sullivan Expedition was a United States military campaign during the American Revolutionary War, lasting from June to October 1779, against the four British allied nations of the Iroquois. The campaign was ordered by George Washington in response to the 1778 Iroquois–British attacks on Wyoming, German Flatts, and Cherry Valley, where the Iroquois and British massacred American villagers. The campaign had the aim of "taking the war home to the enemy to break their morale". The Continental Army carried out a scorched-earth campaign in the territory of the Iroquois Confederacy in what is now western and central New York.
The Battle of Oriskany was a significant engagement of the Saratoga campaign of the American Revolutionary War, and one of the bloodiest battles in the conflict between the Americans and Great Britain. On August 6, 1777, a party of Loyalists and several hundred Indian allies from different tribes ambushed an American military party that was marching to relieve the siege of Fort Stanwix. This was one of the few battles in which the majority of the participants were Americans; Patriots and allied Oneidas fought against Loyalists and allied Iroquois in the absence of British regular soldiers. There was also a detachment of Hessians in the British force, as well as Western Indians including members of the Mississaugas.
John Butler was an American-born military officer, landowner, merchant and colonial official in the British Indian Department. During the American Revolutionary War, he was a prominent Loyalist who led the provincial regiment known as Butler's Rangers on the frontiers of New York and Pennsylvania. Born in Connecticut, he moved to New York with his family, where he learned several Iroquoian languages and worked as an interpreter in the fur trade. He was well-equipped to work with Mohawk and other Iroquois warriors who became allies of the British during the rebellion.
Butler's Rangers (1777–1784) was a Loyalist provincial military unit of the American Revolutionary War, raised by American loyalist John Butler. Most members of the regiment were Loyalists from upstate New York and northeastern Pennsylvania. Their winter quarters were constructed on the west bank of the Niagara River, in what is now Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. The Rangers fought principally in New York and Pennsylvania, but ranged as far west as Ohio and Michigan, and as far south as Virginia and Kentucky.
The Cherry Valley massacre was an attack by British and Iroquois forces on a fort and the town of Cherry Valley in central New York on November 11, 1778, during the American Revolutionary War. It has been described as one of the most horrific frontier massacres of the war. A mixed force of Loyalists, British soldiers, Senecas, and Mohawks descended on Cherry Valley, whose defenders, despite warnings, were unprepared for the attack. During the raid, the Seneca in particular targeted non-combatants, and reports state that 30 such individuals were killed, in addition to a number of armed defenders.
The Battle of Wyoming, also known as the Wyoming Massacre, was a military engagement during the American Revolutionary War between Patriot militia and a force of Loyalist soldiers and Iroquois warriors. The battle took place in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania on July 3, 1778 in what is now Luzerne County. The result was an overwhelming defeat for the Americans. There were roughly 300 Patriot casualties, many of whom were killed by the Iroquois as they fled the battlefield or after they had been taken prisoner.
Onaquaga was a large Iroquois village, located on both sides of the Susquehanna River near present-day Windsor, New York. During the American Revolutionary War, the Continental Army destroyed it and nearby Unadilla in October 1778 in retaliation for British and Iroquois attacks on frontier communities.
The Battle of Minisink was a battle of the American Revolutionary War fought at Minisink Ford, New York, on July 22, 1779. It was the only major skirmish of the Revolutionary War fought in the upper Delaware valley. The battle was a decisive British victory, as the Patriot militia was hastily assembled, ill-equipped and inexperienced.
The King's Royal Regiment of New York, also known as Johnson's Royal Regiment of New York, King's Royal Regiment, King's Royal Yorkers, and Royal Greens, were one of the first Loyalist regiments, raised on June 19, 1776, in British Canada, during the American Revolutionary War.
The Battle of Cobleskill was an American Revolutionary War raid on the frontier settlement of Cobleskill, New York on May 30, 1778. The battle, having taken place in the modern-day hamlet of Warnerville, New York, near the modern (2019) Cobleskill-Richmondville High School, marked the beginning of a phase in which Loyalists and Iroquois, encouraged and supplied by British authorities in the Province of Quebec, raided and destroyed numerous villages on what was then the United States western frontier of New York and Pennsylvania.
The northern theater of the American Revolutionary War after Saratoga consisted of a series of battles between American revolutionaries and British forces, from 1778 to 1782 during the American Revolutionary War. It is characterized by two primary areas of activity. The first set of activities was based around the British base of operations in New York City, where each side made probes and counterprobes against the other's positions that sometimes resulted in notable actions. The second was essentially a frontier war in Upstate New York and rural northern Pennsylvania that was largely fought by state militia companies and some Indian allies on the American side, and Loyalist companies supported by Indians, British Indian agents, and occasionally British regulars. The notable exception to significant Continental Army participation on the frontier was the 1779 Sullivan Expedition, in which General John Sullivan led an army expedition that drove the Iroquois out of New York. The warfare amongst the splinters of the Iroquois Six Nations were particularly brutal, turning much of the Indian population into refugees.
William Stacy was an officer of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and a pioneer to the Ohio Country. Published histories describe Colonel William Stacy's involvement in a variety of events during the war, such as rallying the militia on a village common in Massachusetts, participating in the Siege of Boston, being captured by Loyalists and American Indians at the Cherry Valley massacre, narrowly escaping a death by burning at the stake, General George Washington's efforts to obtain Stacy's release from captivity, and Washington's gift of a gold snuff box to Stacy at the end of the war.
The Battle of Klock's Field was an engagement during the American Revolutionary War in the Mohawk Valley region of New York between British, Loyalist and Iroquois forces led by Lieutenant Colonel Sir John Johnson, and New York Levies and militia led by Brigadier General Robert Van Rensselaer. The battle occurred on the north side of the Mohawk River in what is now St. Johnsville in Montgomery County. The result was inconclusive with neither side able to claim a clear victory.
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 Indian Department was established in 1755 to oversee relations between the British Empire and the First Nations of North America. The imperial government ceded control of the Indian Department to the Province of Canada in 1860, thus setting the stage for the development of the present-day Department of Crown–Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada.
The siege of Fort Stanwix began on August 2, 1779 and ended on August 22, 1779. Fort Stanwix, at the western end of the Mohawk River Valley, was a primary defense point for the Continental Army against the British and indigenous forces aligned against them during the American Revolutionary War. The fort was occupied by Continental Army forces from New York and Massachusetts under the command of Colonel Peter Gansevoort. The besieging force was composed of British regulars, Loyalist soldiers, Hessians, and indigenous warriors, under the command of Brigadier General Barry St. Leger. St. Leger's expedition was a diversion in support of Lieutenant General John Burgoyne's campaign to take control of the Hudson River Valley to the east.
Captain Peter Hare was a company officer in Butler's Rangers, a militia unit during the American Revolutionary War, and British Loyalist. After the war ended Hare emigrated and settled with his family in Lincoln County, Ontario where he farmed until his death in 1834.
The Raid on Unadilla and Onaquaga was a series of military operations by Continental Army forces and New York militia against the Iroquois towns of Unadilla and Onaquaga in what is now upstate New York. In early October 1778, more than 250 men under the command of Lieutenant Colonel William Butler of the 4th Pennsylvania Regiment descended on the two towns and destroyed them, razing most of the buildings and taking or destroying provisions, including the people's winter stores.
Colonists who supported the British cause in the American Revolution were Loyalists, often called Tories, or, occasionally, Royalists or King's Men. George Washington's winning side in the war called themselves "Patriots", and in this article Americans on the revolutionary side are called Patriots. For a detailed analysis of the psychology and social origins of the Loyalists, see Loyalist.
