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The slaughter of Major-General Edward Braddock’s army at Monongahela on June 9, 1755 did not just bring the campaign against Fort Duquesne to an early end, but also left the Virginia and Pennsylvania frontiers open to Indian raids. At the same time, British focus switched to the Maritimes and the New York frontier, so Virginia and Pennsylvania were basically left to fend for themselves. The French happily took advantage of the situation, although the Indians naturally needed little encouragement. Instead of trading for goods, they could simply loot settlers’ homes and even capture prisoners who could be sold or adopted into the tribe. Most of the raids were carried out by Miamis, Ottawas, Hurons and Potawatomis, while the Delawares seized the opportunity to force back the settlers who were encroaching against their land. Young warriors were especially eager for the opportunity to acquire prestige by proving themselves in war and being able to give gifts. There were too many raids for the French to direct, but Canadian rangers often accompanied raids against military targets.

The raids were lightning quick, usually against tiny forts that protected settlements, preferably when most of the garrison was guarding farmers outside of the fort. Larger forts would be set on fire but the assault would quickly be called off if resistance was too strong. Cattle would be driven off to feed the tribe, and men, women and children would be taken as prisoners, although women and children were preferred since they could be more easily absorbed into the tribe, so they were actually treated quite well. Men were more likely to resist and any man who did so was quickly killed. Roughly two thousand prisoners were taken between 1755 and 1758, and prisoners who had lived with Indian tribes for several years or more found it difficult to readjust to white society when they were freed, while many refused to leave.

Despite the relatively kind treatment that captives received, the threat of capture or death was so terrifying that thousands of settlers fled the frontier even though abandoning their farms and plantations meant economic ruin. The growing numbers of refugees strained the resources of each colony’s government and spread the fear that the Indians would push the frontier further and further back. Since attempts to organize militia companies to fight Indian raids had failed miserably, a twelve-hundred man Virginia regiment was formed under George Washington. The men in the regiment were provincials, not militia, so they were volunteers, often from outside of Virginia, drawn by the promise of land and they were better trained than militia.

However, Washington did not find raising a regiment to be an easy matter. While he was recruiting and training troops, Indian raids in the area around Fort Cumberland (where Willis Creek and the Potomac meet in Maryland) in October forced many settlers to flee. Worse, large numbers of his regiment deserted shortly after it was finally ordered out to the frontier. The lack of enthusiasm was partly due to the widespread belief that the war had been caused by land speculators’ deliberate provocation of the French. Furthermore, farmers could simply not afford to leave their farms for extended periods.

Fortunately, there was not a major raid in Virginia until April 1756 as the more weakly defended Pennsylvania became the Indians’ target during the winter. While Virginia’s militia was relatively ineffective, at least Washington had been able to construct a line of eighty-one blockhouses over an area of four hundred miles to provide some element of protection. Admittedly, many of them were little more than fortified cabins, but Pennsylvania could not even accomplish that minimum degree of protection. As a result, the winter was hard and almost five hundred settlers were killed or captured before volunteer units began to provide sufficient protection. However, whenever militia or volunteers would arrive in one area, the raiders would simply move into an unprotected area. In fact, the raids intensified during the summer of 1756, so that during the course of a year, several hundred Indians were able to terrorize two of the most populated American colonies and kill a thousand settlers and soldiers, while capturing another thousand people, roughly 1% of the two colonies’ total population.

An additional problem was that Pennsylvania and Virginia had known peace for the past fifty years since the nearest Indians were several hundred miles away from the more settled areas, which were safe behind the Blue Ridge mountains. However, beginning in 1730, people had begun moving into the area between the Blue Ridge and Allegheny Mountains, and by 1750 that area was officially part of Virginia. Although the new frontier had experienced little trouble with Indians prior to the war, these areas were the natural target of Indian raids during the Seven Years’ War. As a result, their militias were no longer capable of defending the colonies, instead they had become social institutions. Also, since militia units routinely served for thirty days, the time it took to reach their posting usually used up most of that time. However, the biggest problem was that the men were simply neither well-trained soldiers nor skilled woodsmen, but rather farmers with little experience with guns. Also, elected officers were naturally unwilling to give unpopular orders, which made it difficult to convince the men to do things they did not want to do, like risk their lives hunting Indian raiding parties. All of these factors were present to a greater degree in Pennsylvania because the large Quaker minority opposed voting any money for war.

The Virginia Regiment had difficulty recruiting men until 1757 when the British government announced that it would cover the costs of defending the frontier, so Virginia was able to offer a large bounty instead of relying on the draft, which had been so unpopular that it had essentially failed. The policy of building a string of forts across the frontier had also enjoyed little success because the larger forts with garrisons of fifty men were simply ignored and were too small to patrol the area, while the smaller forts with garrisons of ten to fifteen men could simply be overwhelmed.

However, by 1757, both the Virginia Regiment and the Pennsylvania Regiment had become relatively professional through experience, and Cherokee assistance enabled the Virginia Regiment to launch offensives. Unfortunately, incompetent leadership by the southern superintendent for Indian Affairs caused the Cherokee to abandon the war in late 1757. In the end, the Royal Navy’s blockade of Canada meant that the colony was barely able to feed itself, never mind subsidize Indian raiders. At the same time, Pitt sent regular troops to garrison the frontier and the British government’s financial support meant that each colony was able to recruit two thousand men, which secured the frontier. This was fortunate since all of the English colonies were in a precarious position following a series of French victories at Oswego and Fort William Henry during the summer.

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Further Reading:

Breaking the Backcountry: The Seven Years’ War in Virginia and Pennsylvania, 1754-1765-Matthew C. Ward, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003.

The effect of the Seven Years’ War on Virginia and Pennsylvania has received little attention even though the two colonies bore the brunt of Indian raids and economic destruction, while gaining little of the wealth that accompanied the war since both states lacked ports. This was especially true since the area suffered Indian raids from 1755 to 1758 following Braddock’s defeat and then again during Pontiac’s Uprising in 1763. Ward provides a good examination of the spread of settlers into the two colonies during the fifty years before the war started, as well as a detailed examination of how the two colonies handled Indian raids during the seven years’ war and how they were affected by the actions of other colonies. It is a well-written and well-researched book that is probably of more interest to the specialist than general readers, but it is extremely valuable for devotees of this period, since the majority of books on the Seven Years’ War seem to be general studies, rather than deal with individual campaigns.

The Old Dominion at War: Society, Politics, and Warfare in Late Colonial Virginia-James Titus, Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 1991.

As the title suggests, it focuses entirely on how Virginia reacted to the challenge it faced during the Seven Years War. To be specific, Titus explores how the different elements of society interacted, showing how the richer part of society provoked trouble and the middle and lower classes only rallied to the military when their homes were threatened by Indian raids. He also explains that while the middle class property owners did not have the time or resources to form parties and challenge the rich planters for control of the local government, their unwillingness to serve unless in self-defence makes it clear that they were not as deferential as previous historians have believed. It also contains a very in-depth look at Virginia’s military structure with several detailed tables presenting the makeup and origin of men serving in the regiment. To be honest, despite the impressive amount of research, it is probably of interest to academics only.

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