page_title: United States Army Rangers
section_title: Colonial period
hierarchical_section_title: United States Army Rangers / History / Colonial period
caption_attribution_description: English: Captain Benjamin Church (c. 1675)
context_page_description: The United States Army Rangers, according to the U.S. military, are limited to those who served in designated U.S. Army Ranger units, past or present. However, the term is often used to include those who are graduates of the U.S. Army Ranger School, even though they did not serve in a Ranger unit.
  The term ranger has been in use unofficially in a military context since the early 17th century. The first military company officially commissioned as rangers were New England soldiers fighting in King Philip's War and from there the term came into common official use in the French and Indian Wars. There have been American military companies officially called Rangers since the American Revolution.
  The 75th Ranger Regiment is an elite airborne light infantry combat formation within the United States Army Special Operations Command. The six battalions of the modern Rangers have been deployed in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and saw action in several conflicts, such as those in Panama and Grenada.
context_section_description: Rangers served in the 17th and 18th-century wars between colonists and Native American tribes. The British regulars were not accustomed to frontier warfare and so Ranger companies were developed. Rangers were full-time soldiers employed by colonial governments to patrol between fixed frontier fortifications in reconnaissance providing early warning of raids. In offensive operations, they were scouts and guides, locating villages and other targets for taskforces drawn from the militia or other colonial troops.
  In Colonial America, "The earliest mention of Ranger operations comes from Capt. John "Samuel" Smith," who wrote in 1622, "When I had ten men able to go abroad, our common wealth was very strong: with such a number I ranged that unknown country 14 weeks." Robert Black also stated that,
  In 1622, after the Berkeley Plantation Massacre ... grim-faced men went forth to search out the Indian enemy. They were militia—citizen soldiers—but they were learning to blend the methods of Indian and European warfare ... As they went in search of the enemy, the words range, ranging and Ranger were frequently used ... The American Ranger had been born.
  The father of American ranging is Colonel Benjamin Church (c. 1639–1718). He was the captain of the first Ranger force in America (1676). Church was commissioned by the Governor of the Plymouth Colony Josiah Winslow to form the first ranger company for King Philip's War. He later employed the company to raid Acadia during King William's War and Queen Anne's War.
  Benjamin Church designed his force primarily to emulate Native American patterns of war. Toward this end, Church endeavored to learn to fight like Native Americans from Native Americans. Americans became rangers exclusively under the tutelage of the Native American allies. (Until the end of the colonial period, rangers depended on Native Americans as both allies and teachers.)
  Church developed a special full-time unit mixing white colonists selected for frontier skills with friendly Native Americans to carry out offensive strikes against hostile Native Americans in terrain where normal militia units were ineffective. His memoirs Entertaining Passages relating to Philip's War is considered the first American military manual (published 1716).
  Under Church served the father and grandfather of two famous rangers of the eighteenth century: John Lovewell and John Gorham respectively. John Lovewell served during Dummer's War (also known as Lovewell's War). He lived in present-day Nashua, New Hampshire. He fought in Dummer's War as a militia captain, leading three expeditions against the Abenaki tribe. John Lovewell became the most famous Ranger of the eighteenth century.
  During King George's War, John Gorham established "Gorham's Rangers". Gorham's company fought on the frontier at Acadia and Nova Scotia. Gorham was commissioned a captain in the regular British Army in recognition of his outstanding service. He was the first of three prominent American rangers–himself, his younger brother Joseph Gorham and Robert Rogers—to earn such commissions in the British Army. (Many others, such as George Washington, were unsuccessful in their attempts to achieve a British rank.)
  Rogers' Rangers was established in 1751 by Major Robert Rogers, who organized nine Ranger companies in the American colonies. Roger's Island, in Modern Day Fort Edward, NY,  is considered the "spiritual home" of the United States Special Operations Forces, particularly the United States Army Rangers. These early American light infantry units, organized during the French and Indian War, bore the name "Rangers" and were the forerunners of the modern Army Rangers. Major Rogers drafted the first currently-known set of standard orders for rangers. These rules, Robert Rogers' 28 "Rules of Ranging", are still provided to all new Army Rangers upon graduation from training, and served as one of the first modern manuals for asymmetric warfare.
caption: Colonel Benjamin Church (1639-1718) from the Plymouth Colony, father of American Ranging
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