The "Boston Tea Party" of December 16, 1773, annoyed the British
king and parliament and led to the formulation and passage of
- the Coercive Acts -- These closed the port of Boston,
revoked the Massachusetts colony's charter, and placed that
colony's administrative officers under royal control.
- the Quebec Act -- This extended the borders of Quebec southward
to the Ohio River and west to the Mississippi (the area that is now
Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio) and extinguished
the claims that a half-dozen American colonies had on that land
based on their previous royal charters.
The Quebec Act emboldened Indian tribes along the Ohio River
to attack the European settlements on the frontier (which was part
of Virginia at the time). John Murray (Lord Dunmore), the royal
governor of Virginia, sent two military columns to the frontier.
Colonel Andrew Lewis -- with 1,122 Virginia militiamen from
Augusta, Botetourt, and Fincastle counties -- marched overland
and on October 6 arrived at Point Pleasant (40 miles northeast
of what is now Huntington WV). Murray's army went by way
of Pittsburgh and was to join Lewis's militia at Point Pleasant,
but Murray delayed his troops, hoping that Chief Cornstalk
would annihilate Lewis's militia units. A Shawnee chief,
Blue Jacket, visited Murray's camp on Oct. 9th.
The next day, October 10, 1774, Chief Cornstalk, with an Indian
force of over a thousand Shawnees and Mingos, launched a surprise
attack on the colonial militia at Point Pleasant.
The battle was fierce, but the attack was repulsed.
If Colonel Lewis's men had not defeated the Indian force,
the outcome of the Revolution might have been different,
since Virginia would have been too busy protecting the frontier
to participate in the Revolution. Because of this
the U.S. Congress in 1908 recognized the Battle of Point Pleasant
as the first battle of the American Revolution.
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American Revolution