Dunmore's War - Background

Background

Further information: Great Britain in the Seven Years' War

The area south of the Ohio River had long been claimed by the Iroquois Confederacy. Although they were the most powerful Indian nation in the Northern Colonies, other tribes also made claims to the area and often hunted the region. The Ohio Country was one of the causes of the Seven Years' War between France and Britain, which ended with France ceding notional control over the entire area at the Treaty of Paris in 1763.

When British officials acquired the land south of the Ohio River in the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix from the Iroquois, Ohio Indians who hunted the land refused to sign the treaty and prepared to defend their hunting rights.

At the forefront of this resistance were the Shawnee. They were the most powerful among the anti-Iroquois Indian nations. They soon organized a large confederacy of Shawnee-Ohio Confederated Indians who were opposed to the British and the Iroquois in order to enforce their claims. British and Iroquois officials worked to isolate the Shawnee diplomatically from other Indian nations. When Dunmore's War broke out in 1774, Shawnee faced the Virginia militia with few allies.

Following the 1768 treaty, British explorers, surveyors, and settlers began pouring into the region.(see Vandalia (colony)

In September 1773, an obscure hunter named Daniel Boone led a group of about 50 emigrants in the first attempt by British colonists to establish a settlement in Kentucky County, Virginia. On October 9, 1773, Boone's oldest son James and a small group of men and boys who were retrieving supplies were attacked by a band of Delawares, Shawnees, and Cherokees. They had decided "to send a message of their opposition to settlement…" James Boone and another boy were captured and tortured to death. The brutality of the killings shocked the erstwhile settlers along the frontier, and Boone's party abandoned their expedition.

The deaths among Boone's party were among the first events in Dunmore's War. For the next several years, Indian nations opposed to the treaty continued to attack settlers, ritually mutilated and tortured to death the surviving men, and took the women and children into slavery.

1774 - Another lawful Field Surveyor leader, William Preston, sends a letter of report to the head engineer of the frontier fort construction and who was one of the surveyor leaders also, George Washington, May 27, 1774 shows the understanding of the surveyors before Dunmore's War.
"FINCASTLE May 27. 1774.
DEAR SIR
Agreeable to my Promise I directed Mr. Floyd an Assistant to Survey your Land on Cole River on his Way to the Ohio, which he did and in a few Days afterwards sent me the Plot by Mr. Thomas Hog. Mr. Spotswood Dandridge who left the Surveyors on the Ohio after Hog Parted with them, wrote me that Mr. Hog and two other Men with him had never since been heard of. I have had no Opportunity of writing to Mr. Floyd Since. Tho' I suppose he will send me the Courses by the first Person that comes up, if so I shall make out the Certificate and send it down. This I directed him to do when we parted to prevent Accidents. But I am really afraid the Indians will hinder them from doing any Business of Vallue this Season as the Company being only 33 and dayly decreasing were under the greatest Apprehension of Danger when Mr. Dandridge parted with them. It has been long disputed by our Hunters whether Louisa or Cumberland Rivers was the Boundary between us and the Cherokees. I have taken the Liberty to inclose to you a Report made by some Scouts who were out by my Order; and which Sets that matter beyond a Doubt. It is say'd the Cherrokees claim the Land to the Westward of the Louisa & between Cumberland M and the ohio. If so, and our Government gives it up we loose all the most Valluable part of that Country. The Northern Indians Sold that Land to the English at the Treaty of Lancaster in 1744. by the Treaty of Logs Town in 1752 and by that at Fort Stanwix in 1768. At that Time the Cherrokees laid no Claim to that Land & how the come to do it now I cannot imagine...", Edited by Stanislaus Murray Hamilton (The Washington Papers, Library of Congress).