Fort Ontario in the American Revolution

Fort Ontario in the American Revolution. . , Igniting the Powder Keg, 1765 - 1775 , By 1770, the financially strapped British government had abandoned Fort Ontario and most other Great Lakes frontier army posts. Unlike after earlier colonial wars, the regular troops did not all return to Europe. Instead, they were shifted - mainly to seacoast towns. After Parliament passed the Quartering Act of 1765, which made colonial legislatures responsible for providing barracks or paying for other accommodations to house British regulars, tensions between soldiers and resentful civilians rose., In 1774, following the infamous Boston Tea Party, Parliament passed four acts known as the Coersive Acts, which took away Massachusetts' ability to self-govern. The last of these was another Quartering Act, which affected all American colonies; it allowed Royal Governors, rather than colonial legislatures, to use unoccupied houses, outhouses, barns, or other buildings to quarter British soldiers. Collectively nicknamed the "Intolerable Acts" by enraged American colonists, they sparked the opening hostilities of the Revolutionary War at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts on April 19, 1775., In Defense of King and Parliament, 1775 , Shortly after the outbreak of the American Revolution, Fort Ontario became a place of temporary shelter for refugees who remained loyal to the crown, as their rebel neighbors in the Mohawk Valley forced them to flee. The exodus of Loyalists through Fort Ontario during the war led to many new settlements along the north shore of Lake Ontario and the Niagara frontier., In June 1775, British Indian Superintendent Colonel Guy Johnson called a conference of Haudenosaunee leaders at Fort Ontario. Over 1300 Haudenosaunee listened to Johnson's plea for help against the rebels, but they failed to give him their united support. Some Mohawks, led by Joseph Brant, followed Johnson to Canada when the conference closed on July 8, 1775. The Haudenosaunee were divided in their support of Crown and rebel adherents. Both sides made it difficult for the Haudenosaunee to remain neutral without consequence, and yet neither side's success seemed promise victory for the Haudenosaunee., All the King's Men, 1777 , British campaign in 1777 planned to exploit the waterways of New York and seemed to promise the opportunity for British victory. Brigadier General Barry St. Leger was to move from Fort Ontario along the Oswego-Oneida-Mohawk river-route toward Albany. There he was to meet the larger British force under Lt. General John Burgoyne that was coming south through the Lake Champlain gateway and down the Hudson Valley, and other forces moving up the Hudson River from New York City., St. Leger's mixed force of British regulars, Loyalist and Canadian auxiliaries, Hessian Jäger Corps, and allied Haudenosaunee forces left Fort Ontario on July 26, but encountered unexpectedly stiff resistance at rebel-held Fort Schuyler. After a hard-fought battle near Oriskany on August 6 and after failing to compel the surrender of Fort Schuyler with days of bombardment, St. Leger quit his siege and returned to Fort Ontario on August 26. He gathered the Fort's garrison and artillery and retreated to Canada. Continental troops from Fort Schuyler returned to Fort Ontario's abandoned buildings in July of 1778., Rebuilding and the Last Campaign, 1782 - 1783 , Governor-general of Canada Major General Frederick Haldimand was aware of Oswego's strategic importance and, under pressure from the Haudenosaunee, ordered Major John Ross to rebuild and garrison Fort Ontario in April 1782. Lt. General George Washington, concerned that reconstruction of Fort Ontario might be a prelude to another invasion of the Mohawk Valley, instructed Colonel Marinus Willet to undertake a surprise winter attack against the post., Under the severe conditions of driving snow, wind, extreme cold, and darkness, Willet's Oneida guide became lost. At sunrise on February 12th, 1783, the attacking party of New York Levies and the Rhode Island Regiment - made up of mostly Black soldiers - emerged from the woods at a significant distance, but visible from the fort. Having lost the essential element of surprise, Willet and his frozen troops returned to the Mohawk Valley. It was the last Continental Army campaign of the Revolutionary War., American Sovereignty at Last, 1783 - 1796 , On September 3, 1783, Congress signed the Treaty of Paris, ending the American Revolution. Great Britain formally recognized the United States as an independent nation, but they still held Fort Ontario and six other "Northwest Posts" from Lake Champlain to the Straits of Mackinac 13 years after the war ended. Britain hoped that American independence would collapse. They used the posts as bargaining chips during negotiations for compensation of seized loyalist property. , While they held Fort Ontario, British troops did not allow Americans to settle near the mouth of the Oswego River. British customs officers imposed stiff duties on American cargoes of salt from Salina shipped down the river. A Continental Army veteran living at Oswego Falls (now Fulton) was a paid informer and alerted Fort Ontario's commandant to settler's activities and the approach of shipments., It was not until the 1794 Jay Treaty that United States troops under Captain James Bruff replaced Fort Ontario's last British garrison on July 14, 1796. An observer wrote, "I have the pleasure of informing you that the American flag, under a Federal salute, was for the first time displayed from the citadel of this fort, at the hour of ten this morning."