Kittanning Expedition - Background

Background

Although it eventually became a worldwide conflict known as the Seven Years' War, the French and Indian War began on the Pennsylvania frontier as a struggle for control of the Ohio Country. With the surrender of George Washington at Fort Necessity in 1754 and Braddock's defeat in 1755, the settlers on the Pennsylvania frontier were without professional military protection, and scrambled to organize a defense.

The French-allied Indians who had defeated General Edward Braddock at the Monongahela were primarily from the Great Lakes region to the north. The local Indians, mostly Delaware and Shawnee who had migrated to the area after white colonists had settled their lands to the east, had waited to see who would win the contest—they could not risk siding with the loser. With Fort Duquesne now secured, the victorious French encouraged the Delaware and Shawnee to "take up the hatchet" against those who had taken their land.

Beginning about October 1755, Delaware and Shawnee war parties, often with French cooperation, began raiding settlements in Pennsylvania. Although European-Americans also waged war with cruelty, they found Indian warfare particularly brutal and frightening. Notable among the Indian raiders were the Delaware war leaders Shingas and Captain Jacobs, both of whom lived at Kittanning. The colonial governments of Pennsylvania and Virginia offered rewards for their scalps. Captain Jacobs was on an expedition led by Louis Coulon de Villiers that descended on Fort Granville (near present-day Lewistown) on the morning of August 2, 1756. The attackers were held off, but the garrison commander was killed, and his second in command surrendered the garrison, including the women and children, the next morning. The commander's brother, Lieutenant Colonel John Armstrong, immediately organized an expedition against Kittanning in response.