Discontent and resistance against royal authority was found throughout the frontier and urban centers of pre-Revolutionary America. In an attempt to examine the defiant Pennsylvania frontiersmen, this paper will investigate a small portion of the life of one Pennsylvanian, James Smith, during the years he spent as leader of the rebellious "Black Boys." Born in 1737 in the Conococheague Valley, a frontier settlement located in present day Franklin County, Pennsylvania, Smith was raised in a typical frontier fashion. He experienced a limited academic education yet was proficiently trained in woodcraft, hunting, farming, and other pioneer skills needed to survive on the Pennsylvania frontier. This rough education influenced and prepared him for the diverse life he would lead as an Indian captive, soldier, rebel, politician, writer, missionary, and loving husband and father.
Not much is known about Smith until he reached the age of eighteen and was taken hostage by some Indians. In May 1755, during the early phases of the French and Indian War, eighteen-year-old James Smith was involved with the opening of the road from Fort Loudon to Bedford. He was part of a contingent of three hundred men, under the direction of Colonel James Burd, whose objective was to cut a military road from McDowell's Mill to Turkey Foot in advance of General Edward Braddock and his men who were marching northwest to seize Fort Duquesne.1 On 5 July 1755 Smith was captured by some Indians and taken to Fort Duquesne where he was a prisoner until 9 July 1755, when the French and Indians soundly defeated Braddock. In his journal Smith describes how the prisoners were tortured and burned alive and admits that the screams of the dying men were sounds he was never able to forget.
Several days after the Fort Duquesne tragedy, Smith began his period of captivity with the Indians, spending five years learning, observing, and experiencing survival under the harsh conditions found beyond the white man's frontier. He escaped in July of 1759 and returned to the Conococheague Valley possessing invaluable knowledge about Indian customs, manners, and strong feelings against the arms and liquor trade that was being conducted at the time. He spent the next three years in relative peace as he settled down to farming and marriage. This existence was interrupted in late 1763 when the Indians renewed their attacks on the frontier settlements during Pontiac's rebellion.
After Braddock's defeat in 1755, the Conococheague Valley was nearly evacuated, and near the end of the French and Indian War, the routed families began returning to the area. As the number of settlers increased, they began pushing the settlement west, claiming land the Indians still considered their own. Eventually the Crown issued the Proclamation of 1763 pledging to respect the land claims of the Indians west of the Appalachians. It warned residents to refrain from selling or permitting settlement in this area without consent.2
This became an explosive situation involving the settlers, Indians, and British officials. British forces stationed at Fort Pitt were ordered to eliminate squatting and hunting beyond the proclamation line, but the policy did not deter the settlers. The result of this disregard for Indian lands was one of the causes of Pontiac's uprising.3
In 1763, with the frontier in a state of defenselessness, the Indians commenced roaming and attacking the western borders of Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland. According to Smith the new threat of violence caused many settlers to re-evaluate their positions. They decided the attacks would not force them to evacuate their homes a second time and became determined to take a stand against the natives. Knowing from past experience there would be no help from the Pennsylvania Assembly, which in the past did next to nothing to alleviate the pressures from marauding Indians, the valley people decided to look to themselves for the strength needed to combat this latest frontier threat.
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