| Conflict: | Pennamite–Yankee War |
| Partof: | American Revolutionary War |
| Date: | 1769–1799 |
| Place: | Susquehanna River |
| Result: | Land titles preserved and transferred to Pennsylvania as part of larger legal settlement |
| Combatant1: | Pennsylvania Pennamites |
| Combatant2: | Connecticut Yankees |
| Commander1: | Captain Christie |
| Commander2: | John Franklin |
| Strength1: | Unknown |
| Strength2: | Unknown |
| Casualties1: | 1 killed |
| Casualties2: | 2 killed |
The Pennamite–Yankee Wars or Yankee–Pennamite Wars were a series of conflicts consisting of the First Pennamite War (1769–1770), the Second Pennamite War (1774), and the Third Pennamite War (1784), in which settlers from Connecticut (Yankees) and Pennsylvania (Pennamites) disputed for control of the Wyoming Valley along the North Branch of the Susquehanna River. Both colonies and later states declared that their original land grants gave them control of this territory.[1]
Claims on the Wyoming Valley were disputed from the start. The Dutch regarded the Susquehanna River as the border between New Netherland and the British-controlled Colony of Virginia. King Charles II rejected all Dutch claims in North America, and he granted the land to colonial-era Connecticut Colony in 1662. This was two years before his country's conquest of New Netherland and its subsequent conversion into the Province of New York. In 1681, Charles II included the territory in his grant of the Province of Pennsylvania 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 people repelled Anglo settlement and rendered the debate academic. But by the mid-18th century, the double grant became problematic for settlers from each colony seeking to acquire new lands. 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 independent treaties with the Indians who occupied this territory, primarily those of the Iroquoian-speaking nations. Connecticut sent settlers to the area in 1754, but the work of colonization was delayed for a time by the Seven Years' War. France and Britain fought for control in North America as well, in what was called the French and Indian War by British colonists. When Britain defeated France, the latter nation ceded its territory east of the Mississippi River to Great Britain. In 1768 the Iroquois Confederacy repudiated their sale to Connecticut's Susquehanna Company and sold the land to the Penns.[3] But in 1769 Yankee settlers from Connecticut founded the town of Wilkes-Barre. Armed bands of Pennsylvanian Pennamites tried to expel them without success from 1769 to 1770, starting the First Pennamite War. This was followed by the Second Pennamite War in 1775. Following the American Revolutionary War, by which the colonists gained independence, settlers erupted in the Third Pennamite War in 1784.
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; the militia of Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, forced them out of the territory at gunpoint.
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 defenseless, 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. Yankee settlers already occupying land became Pennsylvanians with legal claims to their land.
, the following printed resources are in the collection of the Connecticut State Library (CSL):