Benjamin Church (military Officer)

Benjamin Church (military Officer)

Colonel Benjamin Church (c. 1639 – January 17, 1718) is considered the father of American ranging. He was the captain of the first Ranger force in America (1676). Church was commissioned by the Governor of the Plymouth Colony, Josiah Winslow to form the first ranger company for King Philip's War. He later employed the company to raid Acadia during King Williams War and Queen Anne's War.

Church designed his force primarily to emulate Indian patterns of war. Toward this end, he endeavored to learn to fight like Indians from Indians. Americans became rangers exclusively under the tutelage of the Indian allies. (Until the end of the colonial period, rangers depended on Indians as both allies and teachers.)

Church developed a special full-time unit mixing white colonists selected for frontier skills with friendly Indians to carry out offensive strikes against hostile Indians and French in terrain where normal militia units were ineffective. His memoirs "Entertaining Passages relating to Philip's War" were published in 1716 and are considered the first American military manual.