The Saratoga campaign in 1777 was an attempt by the British high command for North America to gain military control of the strategically important Hudson River valley during the American Revolutionary War. It ended in the surrender of the British army, which historian Edmund Morgan argues, "was a great turning point of the war, because it won for Americans the foreign assistance which was the last element needed for victory."
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.
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 and British attacks on the Wyoming Valley, German Flatts, and Cherry Valley. 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 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 significant engagement of the Saratoga campaign of the American Revolutionary War, and one of the bloodiest battles in the conflict between Patriot forces and those loyal to Great Britain. On August 6, 1777, several hundred of Britain's Indigenous allies, accompanied by Loyalists of the King's Royal Regiment of New York and the British Indian Department, ambushed a Patriot militia column which was marching to relieve the siege of Fort Stanwix. This was one of the few battles in which the majority of the participants were American colonists. Patriots and allied Oneidas fought against Loyalists and allied Iroquois and Mississaugas. No British regulars were involved; however, a detachment of Hessians was present.
Brigadier General Nicholas Herkimer was an American Palatine military officer who fought during the Revolutionary War. He died of wounds after the Battle of Oriskany.
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.
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.
Fort Stanwix was a colonial fort whose construction commenced on August 26, 1758, under the direction of British General John Stanwix, at the location of present-day Rome, New York, but was not completed until about 1762. The bastion fort was built to guard a portage known as the Oneida Carry during the French and Indian War. Fort Stanwix National Monument, a reconstructed structure built by the National Park Service, now occupies the site.
Adam Frederick Helmer, also known as John Adam Frederick Helmer and Hans Adam Friedrich Helmer, was an American Revolutionary War hero 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.
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.
Sayenqueraghta was the war chief of the eastern Seneca tribe in the mid-18th century. He was born the son of Cayenquaraghta, a prominent Seneca chief of the Turtle clan in western New York. He lived most of his life at Kanadaseaga, near the present day town of Geneva, New York. He obtained his rank of war chief in 1751. Before the American Revolution he was referred to as chief of the Senecas.
Johannes Justus Schuyler was a Tory with patriot roots, who was used by American General Benedict Arnold to repel the British and Indian forces of Colonel Barry St. Leger and Joseph Brant from their siege of Fort Stanwix following the Battle of Oriskany during the American Revolution.
Oriskany Battlefield State Historic Site is a historic site in Oneida County, New York, United States that marks the Battle of Oriskany, fought in 1777 during the American Revolution, one of the bloodiest engagements of the war.
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.
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 siege of Fort Stanwix began on August 2, 1777 and ended on August 22, 1777. 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.
Drums Along the Mohawk (1936) is a novel by American author Walter D. Edmonds. The story follows the lives of fictional Gil and Lana Martin, settlers in the central Mohawk Valley of the New York frontier during the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). Frank Bergmann wrote in 2005 that the novel, "as a best-seller and a novel perennially assigned in the state's high schools, has substantially shaped the popular view of the region's pioneer period."
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.
