Provincial troops in the French and Indian Wars

Provincial troops were military units raised by colonial governors and legislatures in British North America for extended operations during the French and Indian Wars.

During the eighteenth century militia service was increasingly seen as a prerogative of the social and economic well-established, while provincial troops came to be recruited from different and less deep-rooted members of the community.

[2][3] The distinction between the militia and the provincial troops was not always understood in contemporary Britain, and Benjamin Franklin tried to explain the differences in a 1756 letter to his English friend Peter Collinson.

The men serving on the frontier, Franklin clarified, were not militia but full-time soldiers enlisted to fight for a specific period of time, and paid by the colonial governments.

[4] During the eighteenth century militia service was increasingly seen as a prerogative of the social and economic well-established, while provincial troops came to be recruited from different and less deep-rooted members of the community.

Legislation often excluded several categories of men from the militia that the colonial governments were perfectly willing to enlist as provincial troops, such as settled Indians, free persons of color, servants, and vagrants.

In Massachusetts, however, the provincial soldiers came from segments of the population more reflective of the society at large, although research done only covers the first year of the French and Indian War and it's possible that the social composition changed over time.

[5][6][7] Source:[1][2][3][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] The first provincial forces in British North America were organized in the 1670s, when several colonial governments raised ranger companies for one year's paid service to protect their borders.

James Oglethorpe therefore created a small paid provincial force of "soldiers recruited for combat," containing a Highland company and some 130 rangers, as well as boatmen manning scout boats and some smaller ships.

For the ultimately aborted intercolonial operation against Canada in 1746, Massachusetts would mobilize 3,500 provincial troops, New York 1,600, Connecticut 1,000, New Hampshire 500, New Jersey 500, Pennsylvania 400, Rhode Island 300, Maryland 300, and Virginia 100.

The main task[39] of the provincials, with the exception of multiple ranger companies, during this campaign in the war was largely as pioneers, fort garrisons and transportation troops.

Around the end of August, the General Assembly authorized the raising and payment of two additional regiments to be mobilized in September, each to consist of 750 men divided into nine companies.

After the alarm created by the fall of Fort William Henry the province mobilized five thousand men of the organized militia and sent them north as a temporary reinforcement against a feared French invasion:[49][50] As a response to Prime Minister Pitt's call for troops, the General Court of Connecticut voted to raise five thousand provincial troops in four regiments, for the campaign season of 1758.

In the spring of 1756 the General Assembly appropriated moneys for erecting Fort Frederick and several frontier blockhouses, and to raise a provincial force of 200 men to garrison these fortifications.

To replace them the militia of the western counties were mobilized, and marched under Governor Sharpe to take control of Fort Cumberland, when the Virginia Regiment under George Washington left it.

[72][73] In 1755, the province first voted 1,200 provincial soldiers for William Johnson's Crown Point expedition against Fort Saint-Frédéric, who participated in the Battle of Lake George.

In 1756 the General Court voted 3,000 men to dislodge the French from Crown Point, and the commander-in-chief, governor William Shirley appointed John Winslow to command the force.

[75] The capture of Fort Oswego, and the bad feelings between the new British commander-in-chief, Lord Loudon, and the provincial officers, led to the ultimate failure of this expedition without any serious fighting.

[78][79] When William Pitt became prime minister in 1757, the attitudes toward the war made a remarkable change in the colonies, and in 1758, the Massachusetts General Court voted to raise 7,000 provincial soldiers to serve until November unless released earlier.

[58][84] As a response to the attack and abduction of a family of settlers by hostile Indians in 1754, the province of New Hampshire hastily raised a company of provincial soldiers pursuing the perpetrators, but to no avail.

After Braddock's defeat, the citizens of the province raised, on their own initiative and cost, a frontier force of 400 men, and it was not until December that the Assembly put it on the provincial establishment, at the same time withdrawing its battalion from the northern operations.

At the fall of Fort Oswego Colonel Schuyler and half the New Jersey Regiment were taken prisoners-of-war and taken to Canada; they were released at the end of the campaign, but under parole not to serve for 18 months.

The governor proposed to call out the militia if the Assembly did not give a final affirmative; eventually it did, and also voted an additional 550 soldiers, on the condition that 400 of these would be used against the Indians on the western frontier of the province.

[109] In a much different spirit than earlier in the war, the Assembly voted to raise 2,680 men for the campaign of 1758, with ten pounds bounty for every volunteer, and twenty shilling to the officer for every recruit; furthermore to maintain every poor soldier's family during his absence.

The North Carolina Provincial Regiment was disbanded by December, 1761:[131] [failed verification] At the outbreak of hostilities, the province of Pennsylvania lacked proper militia laws, as the General Assembly long had been dominated by pacifist Quakers.

After the fall of Fort William Henry, the Assembly also authorized the Deputy Governor to raise 1,000 soldiers, or draw them from the frontier garrisons, for the impending operations against the French in the Lake Champlain area.

Encouraged by the new prime minister, William Pitt, the Assembly resolved to put 2,700 men under British command for the Forbes Expedition of 1758, including the 1,000 provincial soldiers already serving.

Encouraged by the British victories in Canada the Assembly in 1760 at first reduced the number of provincial soldiers to 150, but when the Crown insisted that the province should do its part, it agreed on raising 2,700 men again.

A detachment from the regiment took part in the capture of Fort Frontenac:[152][153] In December 1758, upon the request of General Amherst, the Assembly decided to retain the troops over winter 1758/59, to be ready early in the spring.

South Carolina now raised a provincial regiment for a renewed offensive with the Royal Scots that reached the heart of the Cherokee homeland, and resulted in a peace treaty in 1761.