Robert Rogers

Robert Rogers (1731-1795), American frontiersman, born in Methuen, Massachusetts, and reared on the New Hampshire frontier. A captain in the New Hampshire regiment in the 1755 colonial expedition against French-held Crown Point, Rogers became the army's foremost scout. In 1756 he became captain of a ranger company in the British regular army, becoming a major in 1758. During this time he served under various British generals and became noted for his superb leadership of small units in the enemy-held reaches of Lake Champlain. He led the force that took Detroit, Michigan, and other western French posts in 1760. In the following year he was commissioned captain of a regular company in South Carolina but arrived too late to assist in a campaign against the Cherokee. Returning north, he became a captain of New York regulars but was retired when his company was disbanded in 1763. He volunteered for an expedition to relieve Fort Detroit when it was besieged by the Native American chief Pontiac (1763) and fought gallantly in the Battle of Bloody Run.

Deeply in debt, Rogers sought government aid in London in 1765. With his status as a war hero, he was appointed commander of Fort Michilimackinac (Michigan), apparently to assist him in his proposed search by land for the Northwest Passage. Incurring the enmity of British colonial officials Sir William Johnson and General Thomas Gage, he was arrested for treason but was acquitted for lack of evidence. He attempted unsuccessfully to obtain redress in England and spent almost two years in debtors' prison.

Rogers returned to America in 1775 and belatedly offered his services to the patriots but met only suspicion and finally, arrest. He escaped, however, and raised the loyalist Queen's Rangers (1776) and King's Rangers (1779). He sailed back with the defeated British army and spent his remaining years in poverty and debt.

Rogers's Journals (1765) is a laconic account of his exploits in the French and Indian War (1754-1763); his Concise Account of North America (1765) was famous for its description of Native Americans and the country's interior.