User:Anewman45/sandbox

= The Black Boys Rebellion = The Black Boys Rebellion, Smith's Rebellion or Allegheny Uprising, was a nine month long armed insurrection between citizens of the Colony of Pennsylvania and the British Army between March and November 1765.

Setting the Stage: The End of the French and Indian War
By 1763, New France was defeated and the French Monarch rescinded claims in North America to the victors, Britain and its colonies. The Native Americans previously aligned with the French began to see their power and influence wane. In an effort recover this influence, Ottawa Chief Pontiac, united the various Indian nations to push British civilization as far east as possible. Fort after fort fell in the West, until the conflict finally reached western Pennsylvania. The front line in this war, Pontiac’s War, was the Allegheny Mountains. Centered in the valley of the Pennsylvania Alleghenies was the Conococheague settlement, comprising land that straddled the Conococheague creek from western Maryland into south-central Pennsylvania. Settling this backcountry wilderness were Scots-Irish and German immigrants. This land, offered by the Quaker government in Philadelphia was cheap but what these people may not have known was that they served as a buffer between Indian land and more affluent European settlements. When Pontiac’s warriors attacked frontier homesteads, killing their inhabitants, fear gripped the region much like the early days of the recent French & Indian War (1755-1760).

In want of protection, these settlers looked for men capable of defending against the Indian warriors. Settlers donated monies to establish a company of rangers to protect the settlement and selected a twenty-eight-year-old man from a Scots-Irish immigrant family by the name of James Smith to lead this German and Scots-Irish unit. As a teenager, James Smith joined a road-cutting crew in 1755 in response to the French and Indian threat. He was one of James Burd’s men, responsible for hacking out a road to support General Edward Braddock’s invasion of western Pennsylvania. One day, on work detail, he was captured by an Indian scouting party, taken to Fort Duquesne, and made to run the gauntlet. Surviving the beating, he was adopted into an Ohio tribe and lived as an Indian for five years until escaping back to the Conococheague in 1760.

As an expert on Indian ways, notably survival and fighting, Smith was an obvious choice to lead this company in the defense of the Conococheague in 1763. Smith chose two men, also former captives, to serve as his subalterns. Thirty to thirty-five German and Scots-Irish men volunteered and were trained in the Indian manner of fighting and living. Each brought man brought their personal firelock, either a rifle, fusil, or smoothbore rifle, and were outfitted according to Smith:"Sometime in May, this year [1763]…about that time the Indians again commenced hostilities, and were busily engaged in killing and scalping the frontier inhabitants in various parts of Pennsylvania. The whole Conococheague Valley, from the North to the South Mountain, had been almost entirely evacuated during Braddock’s war…As the people were now beginning to live at home again, they thought [it] hard to be driven away a second time, and were determined if possible, to make a stand: therefore they raised as much money by collections and subscriptions, as would pay for a company of rifle-men for several months. The subscribers met and elected a committee to manage the business. The committee appointed me captain…and gave me the appointment of my subalterns. I chose two of the most active young men that I could find, who had also been…in captivity with the Indians. As we enlisted our men, we dressed them uniformly in the Indian manner, with breech-clout, leggings, moccasins and green shrouds which we wore in the same manner that the Indians do, and nearly as the Highlanders wear their plaids. In place of hats we wore red handkerchiefs, painted our faces red and black, like Indian warriors. I taught them the Indian discipline, as I knew of no other at that time, which would answer the purpose much better than British."