Black Boys Rebellion
Peters Township, Franklin County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
This conflict began in 1765 on the site of the Widow Barr's house west of here, when British troops from Fort Loudon skirmished with a group of white settlers, wounding colonist James Brown. "The Black Boys," led by James Smith, opposed renewed trade relations with the Indians due to recent attacks, often disrupting British supply shipments to western forts. The incident is considered by many to be the first armed resistance to British rule.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In 1765, on the frontier west of here, a band of settlers known as "The Black Boys"—led by James Smith—clashed with British troops from Fort Loudon over the reopening of trade with Native peoples. Still raw from recent frontier attacks, the settlers disguised themselves and repeatedly disrupted British supply trains bound for the western forts; in one skirmish colonist James Brown was wounded. Many consider this defiance the first armed resistance to British authority in the colonies.
Why it matters
A decade before Lexington, frontier Pennsylvanians took up arms against imperial policy, a little-remembered spark of the mounting colonial resistance that would erupt into revolution.
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Related people
- · James Smith
- · James Brown
Related events
- · Black Boys Rebellion
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Fort Loudon
Peters Township, PA · est. 1947
Built by the provincial government in 1756, Fort Loudon guarded the frontier during the French and Indian War and in 1758 served as a staging point for Gen. John Forbes's expedition that captured Fort Duquesne. In 1765 the fort became a flashpoint of a different kind when frontiersmen led by James Smith — the "Black Boys" — forced a British garrison to withdraw, an early act of armed colonial defiance. The site thus spans both the imperial war and the friction that would build toward revolution.
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