page_title: Lord Dunmore's War
section_title: "Cresap's War"
hierarchical_section_title: Lord Dunmore's War / Background / "Cresap's War"
caption_attribution_description: English: Clip from 1750 map, Remarques sur la carte de l'Amerique Septentrionale published in 1755
context_page_description: Lord Dunmore's War—or Dunmore's War—was a 1774 conflict between the Colony of Virginia and the Shawnee and Mingo American Indian nations.
  The Governor of Virginia during the conflict was John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore—Lord Dunmore. He asked the Virginia House of Burgesses to declare a state of war with the hostile Indian nations and order up an elite volunteer militia force for the campaign.
  The conflict resulted from escalating violence between British colonists, who, in accordance with previous treaties, were exploring and moving into land south of the Ohio River, and American Indians, who held treaty rights to hunt there. As a result of successive attacks by Indian hunting and war bands upon the settlers, war was declared "to pacify the hostile Indian war bands". The war ended soon after Virginia's victory in the Battle of Point Pleasant on October 10, 1774.
  As a result of this victory, the Indians lost the right to hunt in the area and agreed to recognize the Ohio River as the boundary between Indian lands and the British colonies.
  Although the Indian national chieftains signed the Treaty of Camp Charlotte, conflict within the Indian nations soon broke out.
context_section_description: Among the settlers was Captain Michael Cresap, the owner of a trading post at Redstone Old Fort (now Brownsville, Pennsylvania) on the Monongahela River. Under authority of the colonial government of Virginia, Cresap had taken control of extensive tracts of land at and below the mouth of Middle Island Creek (now St. Marys, West Virginia.)  He went there in the early spring of 1774 with a party of men to settle his holdings.
  Ebenezer Zane, afterwards a famed "Indian fighter" and guide, was engaged at the same time and in the same way with a small party of men on lands which he had taken up at or near the mouth of Sandy Creek (now Ravenswood, West Virginia).
  A third and larger group that included George Rogers Clark, who later became a general during the Revolutionary War, had gathered at the mouth of the Little Kanawha River (now Parkersburg, West Virginia.)  They were waiting there for the arrival of other Virginians expected to join them before they moved downriver to settle lands in Kentucky. Clark's group began to hear reports that hostile Indian nationals were robbing and occasionally killing traders, surveyors and others traveling down the Ohio. They concluded that hostile nations of the Shawnee-centered Ohio confederacy were bent on all-out war. The group decided to attack the Ohio Indian village called Horsehead Bottom, near the mouth of the Scioto River (now Portsmouth, Ohio) and on the route to their intended destination in Kentucky.
  Few in the group had experience in warfare. After some discussion, the group selected Cresap, whom they knew was about fifteen miles (24 km) upriver. They knew he was intending to follow them into Kentucky, and he had combat experience. They sent for Cresap, who quickly came to meet with the group. After some discussion, Cresap dissuaded them from attacking the Shawnee. He thought that while the actions of the Shawnee-Ohio confederates were hostile, he did not believe war was inevitable. He argued further that if the group carried out its plans, he did not doubt their initial success, but war would then surely come. They would be blamed for it.
  He suggested the group return upstream to Zane's small settlement at "Zanesburg" (the future Wheeling) for a few weeks to see what would develop. If the situation calmed, they could resume their journey to Kentucky. The group agreed. When they arrived, however, they found the whole area in an uproar. People were panicked by the stories of the survivors of the Indian attacks. They were upset by what they viewed as Indian savagery. Fearing for the lives of women and children, the British colonists from the frontier flocked to the tiny town for protection. Cresap's group was swelled with volunteers spoiling for a fight.
  Word of the group's arrival and plans had now reached Fort Pitt and Capt. John Connolly, the garrison commander, sent a message asking that the volunteers remain in Zanesburg a few days. He had sent messages to the local tribes to determine their intentions. A flurry of correspondence resulted, first, with the group saying they would wait for further word from Connolly. Before their message reached Fort Pitt, Cresap received a second message from Connolly that said the Shawnee-Ohio tribes had signaled they intended war.
  Cresap called a council on April 26. After he read Connolly's letter aloud, the assembly declared war against the Indians. After spotting some Indian canoes on the river the next day, settlers chased them fifteen miles (24 km) downriver to Pipe Creek. There settlers engaged them in battle, with a few casualties on each side. The following day, Clark's party abandoned the original idea of proceeding to Kentucky. Expecting retaliation, they broke camp and moved with Cresap's men to his headquarters at Redstone Old Fort.
caption: From the Great Kanawha River upstream, what is now the Ohio was called the Allegheny; map, 1755.
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