The Pennamite Wars, fought between 1769 and 1799, were a series of minor military clashes for control of the Wyoming Valley in northeastern Pennsylvania. Because the combatants were from Connecticut and Pennsylvania, the wars are also known as the Yankee-Pennamite Wars.

The Pennamite Wars arose from conflicting claims to the Wyoming Valley along the Susquehanna River: King Charles II of England had granted the land to Connecticut in 1663, and also to William Penn in 1681. Yankee settlers from Connecticut arrived in the Wyoming Valley and founded the town of Wilkes-Barre in 1769. Armed bands of Pennsylvanians (Pennamites) tried without success to expel them in 1769-70, and again in 1775. The "wars" were not particularly bloody--in the First Pennamite war, two men from Connecticut were killed and one from Pennsyslvania in the course of two years.

At the end of the American Revolution a congressional commission declared that the Wyoming Valley belonged to Pennsylvania. But when the state sought to force the Yankees from the land, another Pennamite war ensued, with Connecticut and Vermont sending men to help the settlers. The controversy ended in 1799, with the Wyoming Valley becoming part of Pennsylvania, and the Yankee settlers becoming Pennsylvanians with legal claims to their land.

External links

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• Connecticut's "Susquehannah Settlers"

References

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The following printed resources are in the collection of the Connecticut State Library (CSL)

• Boyd, J. P. The Susquehannah Company, 1753-1803. call number: F157 .W9 B69 1931
• Henry, William (ed.). Documents Relating to the Connecticut Settlement in the Wyoming Valley. Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, Inc., 1990 call number: F157 .W9 D63 1990 v1, 2.
• Joyce, Mary Hinchcliffe. Pioneer Days in the Wyoming Valley. Philadelphia: 1928 call number: F157 .W9 J89.
• Smith, William. An Examination of the Connecticut Claim to Lands in Pennsylvania: With an Appendix, Containing Extracts and Copies Taken from Original Papers. Philadelphia: Joseph Crukshank, 1774 call number: Wells Collection F157 .W9 S55.
• Stark, S. Judson. The Wyoming Valley: Probate Records... Wilkes-Barre, PA: Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, 1923 call number: F157 .W9 S72.
• Warfle, Richard Thomas. Connecticut's Western Colony; the Susquehannah Affair. (Connecticut Bicentennial Series, #32). Hartford, CT: American Revolutionary Bicentennial Commission of Connecticut, 1979 call number: Conn Doc Am35 cb num 32.
• Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Wilkes-Barre (the "Diamond City"), Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Wilkes-Barre, PA: The Committee on Souvenir and Program, 1906 call number: F159 .W6 W65 1906.

American Revolutionary War | American colonial wars | History of Connecticut | History of Pennsylvania | Pre-revolutionary history of the United States