Setlers versus Crown: the James Smith Rebellion

As we've seen in other posts, tribes often disagreed internally about how to handle White encroachment on their land.  These disagreements forged rifts in one Native nation after another, the Creeks, the Cherokees, and even the Iroquois.  Settlers were often angry with their respective governments, as well, believing that the government was too lenient with the Natives after raids and uprisings, often in cahoots for kickbacks on the more lucrative trade items, liquor, weapons and ammunition.  We'll look at one such uprising here.


James Smith (1737-1814) was a colorful character on the frontier.  Captured by the Lenape/Delaware while working on Braddock's Road in 1755, he was spared and traded to the Mohawk instead of being killed.  There, he was adopted by a Mohawk family and learned tribal customs.  He stayed with them for several years before escaping and returning to White society in 1763, just in time for the outbreak of Pontiac's War.  He joined himself to the expedition led by Col. Henry Bouquet as a scout, his skills from his time with the Natives no doubt coming in handy.  His relationship with his new employers rapidly soured when the British, instead of driving the Natives out of the Ohio Valley completely, or worse, instead tried to conciliate them with trade goods, including alcohol and firearms. 

Smith and a group of like-minded colonists organized a group called the Loyal Volunteers, Brave Fellows or Black Boys, because they would paint their faces black when raiding British supply trains suspected of carrying trade goods to Native Americans.  They also served as a posse on the frontier, protecting American settlements from Native raids.  In 1765, they stopped a British supply train that, in reality, was carrying liquor and weapons owned by trader George Croghan, who was also Deputy Superintendent of the British Indian Department.  When confronted with evidence that one of their own officials was trading with the very Natives they were fighting, British officials decided to look the other way and return the property to Croghan.  The Black Boys' raids continued. 

The Black Boys laid siege to Fort Loudon, forcing the 42nd or Black Watch Regiment to eventually abandon it.  The British captured some of the Black Boys but, in 1766, Smith and his men led a raid on Fort Bedford and reclaimed their fellow rebels, marking the first time Colonials had successfully stormed a British fort.  In 1769, Smith was accused of being the leader of the Black Boys by loyal citizens seeking to make an arrest.  Shots were fired and one of these men died.  Smith was later acquitted of manslaughter because it could not be proved that he fired the shots in question.  After this incident, the rebellion fizzled with no reprisals from the British.  Of the two evils, unrest on the frontier or uprisings by the Natives, they preferred to put their resources into conciliating the Natives, for the time being.