Major Robert Rogers and His Rangers

In New York's Mohawk Valley, Sir William Johnson was forging an alliance between Britain and the League of Iroquois.  Johnson was one of the few colonels who genuinely liked the Indians. In 1756 Johnson became superintendent of the Northeast Indian Affairs. 

The Iroquois controlled the primary route to the south and west, making it possible to block French protection of inland ports.  Armed with British weapons, the Iroquois were more powerful than the French allies, the Algonquin.

Along with the Iroquois, the British had another weapon - Major Robert Rogers and his Rogers Rangers...Frontiersman, Indian fighter and author, Major Rogers became a hero, despite his legendary character deficiencies. (During the Revolutionary War, Rogers fought on the side of the British.)

He was a natural forest fighter and a man of great strength.  He and his Rangers wiped out the village of St. Francis Indians near the St Lawrence River in 1754.  The removal of this village put an end to the source of bloody Indian raids on New England settlers.

Major Robert Rogers commanded a force of irregulars and struck terror into the hearts of Frenchmen and their Indian allies.  Swift, punishing raids were his stock-in-trade and the ambush was his successful tactic. 

The climax of the French and Indian War came on the Plains of Abraham beside the French New World capital of Quebec.  On September 13, 1759  General James Wolfe overwhelmed the French in a bitterly fought battle in which both Wolfe and the French commander, Louis Joseph de Montcalm were killed.

French ambitions in America lessened and in 1760 Montreal was taken.  Official peace took two more years, but the west over the Appalachians now belonged to the British.

Next time...Dennis the Menace

________________________________
Today in Pioneer History: On September 14, 1901,  42-year-old Theodore Roosevelt is suddenly elevated to the White House when President McKinley dies from an assassin’s bullet. 17 years earlier two other deaths had sent the young Roosevelt fleeing to the far West where his political ambitions were almost forgotten - his beloved mother and wife within 12 hours of each other.