Pennamite–Yankee War

Colonel John Franklin, a leader of the Yankees

A map showing Connecticut's western land claims.

Claims on the Wyoming Valley were disputed from the start. The Dutch regarded the Susquehanna River as the border between New Netherland and the English colony of Virginia. King Charles II of England rejected all Dutch claims on North America and he granted the land to Connecticut in 1662, two years before his country's conquest of New Netherland and its subsequent conversion into the Province of New York. In 1681, Charles II also included the same land in the grant to William Penn.

The charter of each colony assigned the territory to the colony so that overlapping land claims existed. In the 17th century, fierce resistance by the Susquehannock rendered the debate academic, but by the mid-18th century, the double grant became problematic. Thomas Paine mentioned the conflict in his pro-independence pamphlet Common Sense as evidence that "Continental matters" could be sensibly regulated only by a Continental government.[2]

Both colonies purchased the same land by treaties with the Indians. Connecticut sent settlers to the area in 1754, but the work of colonization was delayed for a time by the Seven Years' War. In 1768 the Iroquois Confederacy repudiated their sale to Connecticut's Susquehanna Company and sold the land to the Penns;[3] however Yankee settlers from Connecticut founded the town of Wilkes-Barre in 1769. Armed bands of Pennsylvanian Pennamites tried to expel them without success from 1769–70, starting the First Pennamite War. This was followed by the Second Pennamite War in 1775, and by the Third Pennamite War in 1784. The "wars" were not particularly bloody; in the First Pennamite war, two men from Connecticut and one man from Pennsylvania were killed in the course of two years.

Connecticut's claim was confirmed by King George III in 1771. In 1773, more settlers from Connecticut erected a new town which they named Westmoreland. In December 1775, the Pennsylvanians refused to leave, and the militia of Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, forced them at gunpoint to leave.

Conflicts continued between the two claimants at the end of the American Revolution, and the Continental Congress overturned the king's ruling in 1782 and upheld Pennsylvania's claim to the area. As such, it remains the only interstate dispute settled by Congress under the Articles of Confederation. But the state of Pennsylvania sought to force the Yankees from the land in 1784, which began the Third Pennamite War, with Connecticut and Vermont sending men to help the settlers. During the conflict, the Pennsylvania general John Armstrong, assisting the Pennsylvania representative Alexander Patterson, brought about a truce by promising impartial justice and protection, but as soon as the Yankees were defenceless he took them prisoner. This treatment swayed public sentiment in favor of the Yankees, and Patterson was withdrawn.[3] Umbrage remained and disputes broke out until the Pennsylvania Legislature confirmed the various land titles in 1788. The controversy ended in 1799, with the Wyoming Valley becoming part of Pennsylvania and the Yankee settlers becoming Pennsylvanians with legal claims to their land.

• On July 3, 1778, the infamous Battle of Wyoming occurred, which was an episodic event within the Pennamite–Yankee War period, but actually was part of the American Revolution.

• Ousterhout, Anne M. "Frontier Vengeance: Connecticut Yankees vs. Pennamites in the Wyoming Valley," Pennsylvania History, Summer 1995, Vol. 62 Issue 3, pp 330–363
• Smith, Story of Wyoming Valley, (Kingston, Pa., 1906)

• Connecticut's "Susquehannah Settlers"
• Story of the wars between Connecticut and Pennsylvania