Black Boys The Black Boys , also known as the Brave Fellows and the Loyal Volunteers , were members of a white settler movement in the Conococheague Valley of colonial Pennsylvania sometimes known as the Black Boys Rebellion . The Black Boys , so - called because they sometimes blackened their faces during their actions , were upset with British policy regarding American Indians following Pontiac ' s Rebellion . When that war came to an end in 1765 , the Pennsylvania government began to reopen trade with the Native Americans who had taken part in the uprising . Many settlers of the Conococheague Valley were outraged , having suffered greatly from Indian raids during the war . The 1764 Enoch Brown School Massacre , in which ten school children had been killed and scalped , was the most notorious example of these raids . Led by James " Black Boy Jimmy " Smith , the Black Boys — faces blackened and dressed as Indians — confiscated and destroyed a number of supply wagons that were headed to Fort Pitt on March 6 , 1765 . Some of the items in the supply wagons were official diplomatic presents , necessary for making peace with Native Americans at Fort Pitt . Other items , however , were trade goods sent by Indian trader George Croghan , who was seeking to recoup his losses from the French and Indian War . Croghan had secretly ( and illegally ) included rum and gunpowder in the shipments in order to make a profit once trade with the Indians was legally resumed . Despite the fact that the shipment contained illegal trade goods , British army officers at nearby Fort Loudoun sided with Croghan and the traders . Using American Indian raiding tactics , the Black Boys continued to prevent shipments from moving through the valley , and Fort Loudoun was surrounded and fired upon on several occasions . Tensions dissipated after formal peace in Pontiac ' s War had been established , but in 1769 , when another war with Native Americans seemed imminent , Black Boys again stopped another wagon train . After British troops arrested several of the Black Boys and imprisoned them in Fort Bedford , James Smith and the Black Boys surprised and captured the fort on September 12 , 1769 . No one was harmed , and the prisoners were set free . ( This capture of Fort Bedford is documented only in Smith ' s autobiography , so it may be a tall tale , although historian Gregory Evans Dowd notes that there is some corroborating evidence , and some other historians believe the tale to be true . ) Troops were sent to arrest Smith , and in a struggle a friend of Smith was shot and killed . Smith was arrested and charged with manslaughter , but was acquitted , as there were doubts that it was his weapon that had killed the man . The Black Boys were similar to the earlier Paxton Boys in their hostility to the British Crown and the colonial government , but the Black Boys did not target Native Americans in their actions . According to historian Gregory Evans Dowd , a number of historians have confused the two movements . The Black Boys Rebellion has generally been forgotten , overshadowed in American historiography by the 1765 Stamp Act crisis . Nevertheless , some historians see the Black Boys Rebellion as a precursor to the American Revolution . A fictionalized version of the Black Boys Rebellion was depicted in the 1939 Hollywood film " Allegheny Uprising " , starring John Wayne as James Smith . The film was based on the 1937 boys ' history " The First Rebel : Being a lost chapter of our history and a true narrative of America ' s first uprising against English military authority " , by Neil H . Swanson .