COLONIAL WARS
King Philips War was named after one of the native chiefs who was called "King Philip" It was very violent and the most devastating of all wars. Nearly drove all the English out of the North American continent. There were 90 English settlements, 52 attacked, 12 completely totally destroyed by the natives. In this war, the natives were using fire-arrows into the log cabins and they just BURNED! As the people fled, the natives killed them, if they didn't flee, they went in and killed them. King Philip was defeated ultimately.
King William’s War (the first of the French and Indian Wars) began in New England as an extension of the war between England and France, when in July 1689 the French governor of Canada incited the Indians to brutally attack Dover, N.H., then known as Cochecho.
This time, France, England, Natives AND SPAIN on the American continent around the New York area. (Trivia: America used to be known as "Columbia" after Christopher Columbus, with the "ia" generally meaning "land of" - or land discovered by Columbus - eventually being called America in reference to the explorer Amerigo Vespucci).
Back to between England, France and the Natives but up over the Acadian Peninsula this time, the fourth of a series of wars between France and England and the natives, while it ended in 1748, it left many unresolved territorial disputes that resulted in further wars such as the...
British soldiers fought against French soldiers and Native Americans. Native Americans joined in the battle against the British because they were afraid the British would take over their land.
The War officially came to an end on February 10, 1763, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. France officially ceded all of its holdings in North America, east of the Mississippi; while regaining the Islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique. The most long lasting effect of the war was not negotiated between the parties rather, it was the effect the war had on the American colonies. The cost of the war and of controlling the newly acquired territories was high. The British looked to the colonies to help pay those costs. That began the long spiral of events that led to the Revolution.
However, lest the causes of the revolution be watered down to simply England expected colonists to pay taxes, and the colonists throwing a child-like temper tantrum refused, see the Declaration of Independence for a list of grievances that sparked the American Revolution.
Was actually a civil war between English loyalists and English separatists or revolutionaries. Those loyal to the King moved across the St.
Lawrence river into Canada, some stayed permanently and others came
back after a few generations, into Michigan and other northern states. You may find relatives from Ohio, Illinois, etc., who look like they came from "nowhere" - check the New England Register and see if they were there before the Revolution and then left for Canada.
Most important records from this war are the pension records. Those pensions lasted a LONG time. Often old ailing veterans would marry a 15 or 16 year old girl to care for him and when he died, she got the pension for the rest of her life which means a fifteen year old girl could marry a man who was a boy in the Colonial Militias as a drummer or other position, he might be 70 or so in the 1850's and then she live another sixty years beyond that.
Indexes to the revolutionary war records are found in the State Archives. You can get name, birth, serial number and physical description of individual veterans. Physical descriptions were used to identify corpses in the wars.
If you don't find the pension records, it may just mean that he didn't take the pension or didn't need it and he was healthy and went on his way.
No single archive is going to hold all the records.
Don't forget to check the Daughters and Sons of the American Revolution Home Pages (On the right of this webpage).
Three kinds of pensions were given:
- Disability/invalid - suffered physical disabilities in the line of duty.
- Service pensions - stayed in for a time - like a retirement
- Widows pension - for wives who's husbands were killed or he got it for a certain period of time and she was entitled to it for the rest of his life.
From 1776-1878 this law was changed on the widows 14 times. Widows were offered a pension if he was alive and in the service when married. Examples of changes in the laws:
1838 - she received a pension if married before January of 1794
1848 - pensions were given if married before 2 January of 1800
1853 - all restrictions relative to date of widows marriage were eliminated (married in time? She gets the money)
A fire in 1800 - destroyed almost all the pension records in the war department. Other records available however as talked about above.
New England Historical Genealogical Register: Contains all the records from the time the pilgrims landed at Plymouth until the Revolution.
General Military Terms
1. Volunteer - "Take me I want to go!"2. Conscription - "I'm not going" "Oh yes you are!"
3. Draft - got a lot of volunteers by those who were trying to avoid certain duties imposed by the draft - i.e. if you don't want to serve in the Army in Vietnam you can volunteer for the Air National Guard Reserve as a secretary in a military library in Oklahoma, one weekend a month, two weeks a year.
For more military entries click on the tag "Military" on the right under "Tags n' Topics"
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