https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI7OmpdGJ24
Wobomagonda, “White Devil”, was the term that the Abenakis applied to Robert Rogers, the founder and leader of Rogers Rangers.
The massacre of English and colonial troops and civilians after the surrender of Fort William Henry in 1757 inflamed American public opinion against both the French and their Indian auxiliaries. Cries for vengeance rang out, and in 1759 Robert Rogers answered those cries.
For almost a century, the Abenakis, usually with the assistance of the French, and the English settlers on the frontiers of New England and New York had waged a merciless war against each other of raid and counter-raid. On September 13, 1759, Rogers was ordered by General Jeffery Amherst, British commander-in-chief in North America, to conduct a raid on their main base camp of Saint Francis along the banks of the Saint Lawrence in Canada.
Rogers left on the mission with 220 men the evening of September 1 from Crown Point. He paddled up Lake Champlain and the Saint Lawrence and made landfall at Missisquoi Bay on September 23 and began to march on Saint Francis. A French scouting party came upon the boats that Rogers men had concealed for their return trip and destroyed them. Learning that a large force of raiding English were near, the alarm went out to all neighboring French and Indians.
Rogers and a force of 142 men attacked Saint Francis at 3:00 AM on October 4. Many of the Abenakis warriors were away with a French raiding party and so the village was quickly subdued in frenzied fighting, with some women and children slain in the confused struggle in early morning darkness.
After burning the village, Rogers and his men fled south down the Connecticut River to Fort Number 4, where Rogers had made arrangements for supplies to be awaiting them. The journey was a nightmare with 3 officers and 46 men killed or captured by the Indians and the French, and with the remainder subject to starvation when rations gave out which led to cannibalism among some of the troops. Rogers and his men reached the rendezvous point north of Fort Number 4 on October 20. To their despair they found no supplies. The relief force after waiting several days for Rogers had left prior to October 20. Traveling down the Connecticut by raft, Rogers reached Fort Number 4 on October 31, and immediately had food dispatched up river to his starving men.
Rogers and his men were hailed as heroes throughout the colonies. The Abenakis regarded them as devils and Rogers as the chief devil. The raid had a large psychological impact on the Indian allies of the French. No longer could the French provide them with secure sanctuaries, in that Rogers and his men demonstrated that there was no place that their English adversaries could not go to attack them. Rogers initiated the American military tradition of long distance raids behind enemy lines. Although Rogers would ultimately side with the British in the coming War for Independence, most of his Ranger veterans supported the American cause, and constituted a badly needed cadre of battle hardened officers and sergeants for the Patriots.
By far the best account of the raid is White Devil. Author Stephen Brumwell gives us an unflinching warts and all portrayal of the French, the English, the colonials and the Abenakis, and gives us the history straight, and not as an opportunity for mounting a 21rst Century soap box.
