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| Colonel James Smith (1737 -1813) |
Eight years before the Boston Tea Party and ten years before Lexington and Concord, many believe the first shots in the American Revolution were fired in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, in 1765. Known as the Smith Rebellion or the Black Boy's Rebellion, this crucial turning point in American history set the stage for modern American politics.
The Smith family were Scots-Irish Presbyterians and originally from the Isle of Skye in Scotland. They moved to the north of Ireland and a few generations later emigrated to Pennsylvania from southern Ulster around 1720. James Smith’s family were early settlers in Chester County, Pennsylvania. In 1755, during the French & Indian War, 18 year old James was hired to help cut a wagon road from Fort Loudon, Pennsylvania to join with the British General Braddock’s Road to Fort Duquesne (later Fort Pitt). He was attacked and made captive by a war party of Indians, forced to run the brutal Indian gauntlet, given a complete physical transformation and adopted by the Caughnawaga Mohawk tribe. He lived with them as an Indian for the next five years. He learned their language as well as other Indian languages, acquired their skills of hunting, fishing and survival. He read his Bible and kept a journal. The detailed account he published in 1799 is one of amazing adaptability to and understanding of the ways of the Indian. He escaped near Detroit and walked back to his home in Franklin County, PA.
By 1765 this western part of Pennsylvania was often under attack by Indians. The Scots-Irish whom took the brunt on the frontier became aware that illegal trade goods, such as tomahawks, scalping knives, and gun powder, were being transported to Fort Pitt by a British official to rearm the Indians. James Smith's community believed they had a right to stop it.
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| Smith during the Black Boys Rebellion |
