Great Britain Iroquois Confederacy The Big Runaway was a mass evacuation in June and July 1778 of white settlers from the frontier regions of North Central Pennsylvania during the American Revolutionary War.

It was precipitated by a series of raids against local settlements on the northern and western branches of the Susquehanna River by Loyalist troops and British-allied Indians, which prompted Patriot militia commanderes to order the evacuation.

Most of the settlers relocated to Fort Augusta near modern-day Sunbury, Pennsylvania at the confluence of the northern and western branches of the Susquehanna River, while their abandoned houses and farms were all burnt as part of a scorched earth policy.

These attacks on the Pennsylvania frontier led to retaliatory raids by the Continental Army against the Native Americans, including Sullivan's Expedition, which destroyed more than 40 Iroquois villages and killed thousands of non-combatants.

Settlers soon began arriving in the area (known as the "New Purchase") and increased settlements along the West Branch of the Susquehanna helped lead to the formation of Northumberland County in 1772.

[2] When the American Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, most of the settlers in that area favored independence from Great Britain and supported the Patriot cause.

[5] These allies could not immediately agree on actions to take, but in a December 1777 meeting the Iroquois expressed a desire to launch "a very formidable irruption with their whole collected force" against the frontier.

[7] After first campaigning further south (in what is now West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania),[8] parties of Seneca, Cayuga, and Lenape warriors began moving into the upper Susquehanna valley.

Later in May, three settler families on Loyalsock Creek were wiped out: their cabins were burnt, two were killed, and fourteen disappeared, presumed captured by Native Americans.

In separate incidents in late May, three settlers (a man, woman and boy) were taken prisoner near modern Linden in Woodward Township, and three Fair Play men were killed (while one escaped) as they tried to get a boat to evacuate their families to Fort Horn at the mouth of Pine Creek.

The Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania was focused on supplying the army and levied taxes, which were in some cases more than the net worth of the individual settlers.

Despite pleas from the settlers for more assistance, the colonial government did not send help initially, but as the West Branch Susquehanna valley became a new theater of the war, the council reconsidered the matter.

In the first incident a party of twelve, including a friendly Native American and a black man, set out from the fortified Wallis house near modern Muncy to look for stolen horses.

In the early summer of 1778 news came of a group of Native American warriors, perhaps accompanied by Loyalist and British soldiers, heading for the West Branch Susquehanna River valley to destroy all the settlements there.

This news was provided by a friendly Native American named Job Chiiloway at Fort Reed (modern Lock Haven), who was then murdered as he slept, by a drunk settler engaged in target shooting.

[10] Robert Covenhoven, who had served under George Washington in the Continental Army and survived the attacks of June 10, rode west along the ridge of Bald Eagle Mountain to warn settlers at Fort Antes (opposite what is now Jersey Shore) and the western part of the valley.

In the New Purchase, only Fort Antes (made of hard-to-burn peeled oak logs) and the stone Wallis House survived the flames.

On September 24, 1778, he led a force of about 200 men up the Sheshequin Path on Lycoming Creek to the North Branch of the Susquehanna to strike back against the Iroquois.

[1] In the summer of 1779, General John Sullivan led an expedition that went up the North Branch of the Susquehanna and destroyed at least forty Native American villages in New York and Pennsylvania in a scorched earth campaign.