Colonial Gazette

An Atlas of North America

Annotated Maps of the Thirteen Colonies in 1776

MOONEY
1| MESSIER ZIMMERMAN DEVORAK
North America Gazette
Colonial Gazette

Nations & Cannons™ is a trademark of Flagbearer Games, LLC.

 T able of C ontents

Atlas of North America ........................................................................ 4

Regions...........................................................................................................................................4
North America.............................................................................................................................8

Major Settlements ........................................................................................................25

Boston.............................................................................................................. 25
New York City.................................................................................................29
Philadelphia................................................................................................... 33
Quebec City..................................................................................................... 37
Atlas of North America
"A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges."
–Benjamin Franklin
I
n North America, the peoples inhabiting the
regions along the Atlantic coast—from the
northern expanses of Canada to the tropical
islands of the Caribbean—all played a role in the
American Revolution. This chapter describes
the rebellious Thirteen Colonies and some of the
surrounding territory that you can explore. It contains no
secrets; it’s suitable for both GMs and players.
C anada
Until recently, northern North America was claimed by
France. Britain gained the maritime region of Acadia in
1713 and inland Quebec in 1763. The Catholic, French-
speaking Québécois found themselves living under an
unfamiliar British system. The British granted religious
freedom to Catholics, expanded the province’s territory
west, and allowed for French civil law in private matters.
During the American Revolution, Congress attempts
to sway the Québécois to the Patriot cause, though the
majority of Québécois either side with the British or
remain neutral.
The Wyandot nation originally inhabited the lands
around Lake Ontario, and formed profitable trade
relations with French fur traders. Conflicts with the
Haudenosaunees and white settlers eventually pushed
the Wyandots south into the Ohio Country, where they
join forces with the British to wage war on Patriot settlers
in the west.
Since the early years of New France, European fur
traders entered into marriages with women of Canada’s
First Nations. Their children, the Métis, are generally
raised in their mothers’ culture with a strong Catholic
and European influence. The Métis form a vital bridge
between Europeans and the Native nations. Many find
work as trappers or interpreters.
During and after the Revolution, Canada is a refuge
for Loyalists, including Black Loyalists promised freedom
by the British.
N ew E ngland
Largely founded by British Puritans, religious extremists
who sought to build a theocratic utopia away from the
clutches of the Crown, this region contains some of the
oldest of the Thirteen Colonies. Though New England's
puritanical fervor has waned by the late 18th century, its
Colonial Gazette
self-sufficiency and resistance to British control remains
strong. The Revolution begins with protests in Boston
led by a clandestine group called the Sons of Liberty.
Tensions there ultimately lead to "the shot heard 'round
the world" at the battles of Lexington and Concord.
The Puritans were not the only religious group to
seek refuge in New England. The Sephardim are Jewish
immigrants who settled along the coast in the mid-17th
century, establishing communities in Rhode Island and
elsewhere. Many came from Portugal or Brazil following
the expulsion of the Jewish population from the Iberian
Peninsula.
The Wabanaki Confederacy, formed from five major
Algonquin-speaking nations—the Mi’kmaq, Maliseets,
Passamoquoddies, Abenakis, and Penobscots—inhabit
the Province of Maine into Canada. Former French allies,
the Wabanaki Confederacy has a long history of conflict
with British colonists in New England. Even so, the
Mi'kmaq, Passamoquoddies, and Maliseets are the first
nations to enter into an alliance with the newly formed
United States, agreeing to send troops to support the
Continental Army.
New England also hosts several Praying Towns,
where Native converts to Christianity maintain their own
communities and form new nations. The Stockbridge
nation of Stockbridge, Massachusetts (and later
Stockbridge, New York) is particularly prominent. The
people of the Praying Towns come from a variety of nations,
some of which now only exist in the Praying Towns.
Ohio Country
West of the Appalachian Mountains lies the highly
contested Ohio Country, a vast region stretching north
to Lake Erie and south to Virginia. The Ohio Country
was originally under French rule. The oldest European
settlements there remain culturally French.
The Ohio Country came under British jurisdiction
after the French and Indian War, though the Crown
decided to set aside that land as an “Indian Reservation”.
Settlement over the Appalachian Mountains is forbidden
by the Proclamation of 1763, but the British never enforce
the decree. Thus, white colonists continue to settle the
Ohio Country, provoking numerous wars with the Native
people who live there.
The Ohio Country is home to a great number
of Native nations. The Council of Three Fires is an
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Anishinaabe alliance of the Ojibwes, Odawas, and
Potawatomis. The Shawnees are a semi-migratory
nation at odds with both European colonists and the
Haudenosaunee Confederation. Other Haudenosaunees,
forced west out of New York, have recently formed a new
nation: the Mingos. The Lenapes are also displaced; they
used to live along the eastern seacoast.
The Miamis, Sauks, and Foxes live in the western parts
of the Ohio Country, farther from the flash points with
settlers and the British, but they’re still involved in the
region’s politics. The Native people of the Ohio Country
largely side with the British during the Revolution in an
attempt to push white settlers from Native lands, though a
minority faction lobbies for neutrality.
M id -A tlantic
The Dutch established the New Netherland colony,
including New Amsterdam—later New York City—in the
early 17th century. The commercial nature of the Dutch
colony allowed for the immigration of different
ethnic and religious groups. Descendants of the
original Dutch settlers remain in the colony,
and are some of the wealthiest and most
influential families in the region.
Germans immigrated to the
colonies en masse, primarily
settling in Pennsylvania.
The Pennsylvania Dutch are
especially valuable during
the Revolutionary War, as
many of these ethnic Germans
are recruited to counter the
Hessians employed by the
British Army.
In upstate New York, the Six Nations of the
Haudenosaunee Confederation attempt to assert their
sovereignty while dealing with a changing colonial
landscape and influx of white settlers. While the tribes
initially strive for neutrality in the war between the
colonies and Great Britain, the Confederation is soon
divided, with many Mohawks, Onondagas, Senecas,
and Cayugas joining forces with the British while many
Oneidas and Tuscaroras ally with the Patriots.
T idewater
The middle southern colonies of Virginia, Delaware,
Maryland, and North Carolina enjoy a milder climate than
the north, and are better suited for agriculture. Tobacco
is a major export of the Tidewater region, and wealthy
planters develop plantation complexes styled after the
estates of British landed gentry—though built as labor
camps to better control their enslaved farmhands. Much of
the planter class is classically educated. Many of its scions
become leaders at the forefront of the Revolution.
Many of the tidewater’s free laborers came to the colony
as indentured servants, accepting a few years of unpaid
labor in exchange for their boss paying for their passage
across the Atlantic. Others are sentenced to a few years
of indentured servitude as part of a criminal conviction.
This practice wanes as planters shift to larger operations
crewed by enslaved Africans, whom the planters never
have to free and whose children suffer the same fate.
By the Revolution, most enslaved Black people in the
Thirteen Colonies were born enslaved, though many
recent arrivals in Virginia are Angolan. Slavery is most
prominent in the Mid-Atlantic and Southern colonies,
though slavery is also practiced in New England, the Gulf
Coast, and Quebec. This system is part of the Triangle

Trade, in which abducted Africans are sent to the Americas,
plantation goods are shipped to the northern colonies
and Europe, and European goods are brought to Africa.
Scottish and particularly Scots-Irish migration to the
colonies boomed in the mid-18th century. Many have
gravitated towards rural Appalachia where they act as
a buffer between the British colonies and the Native
nations of the west. Loyalties in the Scottish population
vary, with Highlanders largely siding with the British and
Lowlanders and Scots-Irish favoring the Patriots.
D eep S outh
Many of the wealthy members of Southern society are the
children of Caribbean plantation owners, who settled in
the Carolinas and Georgia to seek more land and financial
opportunities. The Southern Colonies were therefore
slave societies almost from inception, and closely follow
the plantation system of the Caribbean. South Carolina is
unique in the Thirteen Colonies in that a majority of its
population is enslaved, and it also has more Native people
living in slavery than any other colony.
In many parts of the Deep South, enslaved Black
laborers greatly outnumber the white population, but
harsh laws prevent large-scale uprisings. The colonial
governments enact laws which prohibit the enslaved
from traveling, assembling, or learning to read. Those
who attempt escape are viciously punished with beatings,
dismemberment, or death.
In the Sea Islands of South Carolina, relative isolation
from the white population for extended periods results
in the creation of Gullah, a distinct culture which fuses
West African traditions and language with Colonial and
Indigenous influences.
During the Revolutionary War, the British attempt to
gain the support of the enslaved population by promising
freedom to anyone who escapes and joins the British cause.
Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens pushes for a similar
Patriot program to boost enlistment in the Continental
Army. Both sides are reluctant to arm and later free Black
men in large numbers. Training them to fight and showing
them that violence is the path to freedom sets a dangerous
example in a society that depends on the subjugation of
Black laborers.
In the west, the Cherokee nation struggles to maintain
its autonomy as Colonials increasingly push past the
Appalachian Mountains. Cherokees inhabit towns across
the frontiers of the Carolinas and Georgia, as well as present-
day Tennessee and Alabama. During the Revolution, they
themselves frequently at war with the Patriots.
G ulf C oast
The vast territories of New Spain stretch from the Gulf
Coast to the Pacific and into Central and South America,
reflecting a centuries-old legacy of exploitation, trade, and
conquest. In much of Nueva España, marriage between
European, Black, and Indigenous peoples is common.
Their descendants are subjected to a segregated society,
controlled by the Criollo children of white Spanish colonists.
Colonial Gazette
the coo les t re fl ect ion s on the matter, this must be
After
d, th at B rita in w as too jealous of America, to
allowe
it ju st ly ; too ig nor an t of it, to govern it well; and
govern
it at all.
too distant from it to govern
—Thomas Paine, 1777
The Spanish took control of France’s Louisiana colony
after the French and Indian War. The port city of New
Orleans is home to a large population of former Acadian
colonists who were expelled from New France due to their
resistance to British occupiers. New Orleans has a large
and diverse community, bolstered by its access to the
Mississippi and the interior waterways of the continent.
The British control the sparsely populated colonies of
East and West Florida, which changed hands several times
in early colonial wars. Florida remains a Loyalist haven
during the Revolution and does not join the Thirteen
Colonies. Though the British have reintroduced slavery to
the region, its remote forests and prairies remain a haven
for those escaping slavery, most notably the Seminole
Freedmen. The Seminoles themselves are a new group
breaking away from the Creeks living near the Georgia
border. By 1778, many Creeks and Seminoles join the
British side to curb Patriot incursions.
T he C aribbean
With their warm climates suited for large-scale
cultivation of sugarcane, the Caribbean islands are
the world’s most profitable colonies. But processing
sugarcane requires enormous labor under conditions free
people will not tolerate. So the planters turn to slavery.
Conditions on sugarcane plantations are so brutal and
deadly that the planters must continuously import people
just to keep up with production; enslaved populations in
the Caribbean have only recently become self-sustaining.
People die too quickly to start families.
Enslaved Coromantees are common on many
plantations, as are people from North America’s
Native nations, who are kidnapped and dragged to
the Caribbean. In the French sugar colony of Saint-
Domingue, a new Haitian identity is forming. The British
colony of Jamaica sees repeated uprisings by its enslaved
population, most notably in Tacky’s War (1760–1761).
Jamaica’s mountains are home to many people who have
escaped slavery and founded new, free communities in
the forested highlands. These people, called maroons,
sometimes raid the lowlands, and are a thorn in the side
of the British occupiers.
Sugar wealth makes the Caribbean colonies strategic
assets threatened not only by buccaneer plundering and
maroon raids, but also by full-scale military invasions.
After France enters the Revolutionary War, the French
and British send great fleets to try to seize one another’s
sugar islands. This reduces the number of British troops
available to fight in the Thirteen Colonies, swinging the
war in the Patriots’ favor. It also means fewer redcoats
stationed in Britain to defend against French invasion, a
significant threat, but one that never quite materializes.
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 51
28

44 54

31 33 25
53
42 47

23

61 21
18 27
39
12 29 32
43 1 4
7
64 58

38 34
19 63
66

37

50 48

62 6 2

8
30
35 52

11
14 22
49

55
13 46 10

45
65
40

60
3
9
Key
57
41 56 Water Settlement Region Mountain Outpost

1. Albany 23. Green Mountains 45. Outer Banks

26 2. Baltimore 24. Gulf of Mexico 46. Overhill Towns
3. Bermuda 25. Halifax 47. Penobscot
4. Boston 26. The Horse Latitudes 48. Philadelphia
20 5. Bryan's Station 27. Iceberg Alley 49. The Piedmont
6. Cacapon Mountain 28. Keweenaw 50. Point Pleasant
59 7. Cape Cod 29. Lake Erie Islands 51. Quebec City
8. Cave-in-Rock 30. Mammoth Cave 52. Richmond
15 9. Charles-Town 31. Michilimackinac 53. Saginaw Bay
10. Charlotte 32. Mohawk Valley 54. Saint John
11. Chesapeake Bay 33. Montreal 55. Sargasso Sea
12. Chicago Portage 34. Nantucket 56. Savannah
13. Chickamauga Towns 35. Natural Bridge 57. The Sea Islands
14. Cumberland Gap 36. New Providence 58. Squagonna Marsh
15. Cuscowilla 37. New York City 59. St. Augustine
24 16. The Everglades 38. Newport 60. Standing Peachtree
17. Florida Straits 39. Niagara Falls 61. Ticonderoga
18. Fort Detroit 40. Ninety-Six 62. Vincennes
19. Fort Pitt 41. Okefenokee Swamp 63. West Point
16 20. Fort St. Marks 42. Old Man of the Mountain 64. The Western Reserve
0 mi 50 mi 100 mi 21. Grand Banks 43. Onondaga 65. Wilmington
22. Great Dismal Swamp 44. Ottawa Valley 66. Wyoming Valley
17 36
 North America
A nnotated A tlas
Here are 66 places east of the Mississippi that you might
visit in a Nations & Cannons campaign.
1. Albany
Dutch traders established a village in what came to be
known as Albany in 1614, building a wooden fort on
the Hudson River. A fur-trade post, Fort Nassau (later
rebuilt nearby as Fort Orange) was located in Mohawk
territory and was the seed around which a mixed Native
and settler village grew. The British gained the village in
1664 and renamed it Albany.
During the French and Indian War, ten thousand
British soldiers and Colonial militia drilled at Albany to
protect the Hudson River, a vital highway connecting the
rich Haudenosaunee trading country to New York City,
as well as a route for raids and campaigns against French
Canada. In 1754, Albany hosted the Albany Congress,
where Benjamin Franklin proposed the Albany Plan, a
strategy for the war against France that included the first
proposal for the political union of all American colonies.
In the Revolutionary War, Albany serves as a prison.
Fort Albany, a stronghold in the French and Indian War
outside the town, has fallen into disrepair and is no
longer defensible. Instead, authorities use its buildings as
holding cells for Loyalists and prisoners of war. Visitors
passing through the town in 1779 and 1780 see hundreds
of Haudenosaunee men, prisoners of the Sullivan
Expedition.
2. Baltimore
Founded in 1729, this once-unassuming settlement on the
Patapsco River has transformed into a bustling commercial
town. In the early 1750s, it was a struggling community
of about two hundred. In 1774, the town’s population is
over six thousand. By 1790, it will boast nearly fourteen
thousand residents, attracting immigrants from Germany
and Scotland, as well as French Canadian refugees from
In its soul, its climate, its
equality, liberty, laws, pe
and manners. My God! ople,
how little do my countrym
what precious blessings th en know
ey are in possession of, and
which
no other people on earth enjoy
!
—Thomas Jefferson, 1785
The Princess Fraud
Sarah Wilson, born in London in 1745, is a fraudster
and fugitive. She was transported to the Thirteen
Colonies for theft at age 23. Wilson arrived in Baltimore
as a criminal indenture, sentenced to unpaid labor for
the person who bought her contract. She escaped
and began her impersonation of a fictional princess:
Sophia Carolina Augusta, the supposed sister of
George III’s wife, Queen Charlotte.
Wilson becomes a sought-after guest at upper-
class social events throughout the Thirteen Colonies.
Her stories appear in newspapers and circulate in her
hosts’ letters. Her notoriety attracts the attention of
the keeper she’d fled, who prints a runaway notice
in 1771 promising gold for her recapture. She likely
purchases her freedom from him with the money
she made selling gifts she’d received during her
imposture. Sarah Wilson remains at large, though she
is spotted in the crowd at the Boston Tea Party.
Acadia. Wheat grown on surrounding plantations is milled
in Baltimore, then distributed across the Eastern Seaboard.
The war brings opportunities to expand Baltimore’s
economy. Shipbuilding and domestic shipping become
valuable industries. Moreover, when Congress authorizes
privateers to attack British ships, enterprising sailors
from Baltimore seize the opportunity.
3. Bermuda
Bermuda is an English colony spanning an archipelago
of 181 islands in the Atlantic Ocean, 650 miles east of
North Carolina. English colonization of Bermuda began
with the establishment of the first English settlement, St.
George, there in 1612. Attempts to establish plantations
on Bermuda failed, and instead the economy became
maritime. Bermuda serves as a base for merchants,
privateers and the Royal Navy, becoming the most
important British military base in the western hemisphere.
In the summer of 1775, the Continental Army finds itself
desperately short of gunpowder. Henry Tucker, a prominent
businessman from Bermuda, informs Benjamin Franklin
of one hundred barrels of lightly-guarded gunpowder in
Bermuda’s military stores. Three American vessels sail
to Bermuda on August 14th. While the colony’s governor
sleeps, Tucker and his accomplices take the hundred
barrels of gunpowder from the Bermudian magazine.
makes its way to Washington at Boston and the Patriots in
Charleston. In June 1776 it is used to defend Charleston
from British invasion during the Battle of Sullivan’s Island..
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4. Boston
Boston, the largest and most successful city in Massachusetts,
lies at the easternmost edge of the colony, overlooking
the Atlantic Ocean. Boston is one of the oldest cities in
the Thirteen Colonies, established in 1630 as a theocratic
utopia for the colony’s Puritan founders. It has since
become an important trading port as well as a hotbed of
Revolutionary activity. Boston is further described on
pages 25-28.
5. Bryan's Station
After the French and Indian War, land speculators sponsored
expeditions by frontiersmen to explore the territory
west of the Appalachian Mountains newly ceded to the
British (an area called called Kentake by some, though its
etymology remains unclear). In 1775, the four Bryan brothers
establish the settlement of Bryan’s Station just north of the
Transylvania Colony, a short-lived, illegal colony founded
by North Carolina land speculator Richard Henderson.
Bryan’s Station contains about forty log cabins surrounded
by a defensible palisade. Its inhabitants withstand a siege
by a combined Native American, Tory, and Canadian
Ranger attack in 1782 during the Revolutionary War.
Despite receiving warning of the impending attack, the
women of the settlement bravely concoct a ruse. They gather
outside the palisade walls and go about their normal morning
routine of gathering spring water and other resources; as if
Bryan's Station was oblivious to the approaching danger. As
the attackers rush the fort, they are met by withering fire from
the Station’s defenders. This maneuver allows the residents of
Bryan’s Station to hold out until reinforcements arrive.
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6. Cacapon Mountain
Cacapon Mountain is an Appalachian peak in western
Virginia’s Berkeley county. The highest point in the
region, warm springs flow down this mountain which are
believed by many to possess healing properties. They
were frequented by the indigenous peoples of the region
for hundreds of years. George Washington himself even
has ties to the area, dating back to a surveying expedition
he took part in in the 1740s.
The town of Bath is incorporated around the springs
in 1776. It becomes a popular destination for visitors
seeking to take the waters—particularly wounded
veterans of the Revolution. With the visitors comes a
population boom and a reputation for decadence and
debauchery. In Bath one may find dancing, gambling, and
drinking in abundance.
7. Cape Cod
Jutting like a curled finger into the Atlantic Ocean,
Cape Cod is a bastion of fierce Patriot sentiment. In
1774, 1,500 citizens hold one of the first armed protests
before the Revolutionary War when they blockade the
Barnstable courthouse. Patriots in Cape Cod are among
the first to establish a rebel government. Cape Cod towns
provide hidden bays for an active smuggling trade,
circumventing the British blockade. Cape Codders fight
on land and sea for the duration of the war.
Even before the arrival of the first Puritan colonists,
Cape Cod was already a center of the Atlantic fishing
trade. Cod is easy to preserve and keeps exceptionally
well, making it a lucrative commodity.
Colonial Gazette
8. Cave-in-Rock
On the banks of the Ohio River lies Cave-in-Rock, an
impressive riverside cave over 50 feet wide. Travelers
take warning, for the Cave provides cover for the worst
criminals in the region. The size of the cave, paired
with its proximity to the river, makes it an ideal hideout
and base of operations for river pirates known to board
unsuspecting vessels, strip them of their goods, and
murder the overwhelmed crews.
The most infamous of these pirates are the Mason
Gang, a band of counterfeiters, thieves, and murderers led
by former Virginia military captain, Samuel Mason. Cave-
in-Rock becomes the base of operations for the Mason
Gang through the late 1790s. Travelers of a more lawless
persuasion may find entertainment in the depths of the
rock—the gang transforms the cave into a combination
tavern, brothel, and gambling pit, both for their own
enjoyment and as a lure for more gullible travelers.
9. Charles Town
Charles Town, South Carolina, is the largest and
wealthiest North American city south of Philadelphia.
Established in 1670 by British colonists from the West
Indies, it was the first comprehensively planned city in
the Thirteen Colonies. In 1780, Charles Town is captured
by the British. The Continental Army does not regain
control until 1782.
The slave trade is Charles Town’s lifeblood, and South
Carolina is the only North American colony where the
majority of the population is enslaved. Africans dragged to
the Thirteen Colonies during the Revolution most often land
in Charles Town. The city is also by far the colonies’ biggest
market for enslaved Native prisoners. Native slaving parties
bring their prisoners to sell in Charles Town. Most are loaded
onto ships and sent to the Caribbean. A few, especially those
believed to be less prone to escape, remain near Charles
Town, where they and their Black counterparts are made
to work raising cash crops of rice, indigo, and cotton.
10. Charlotte
Charlotte is a small, scrappy town on the border between
North and South Carolina. The settlement was built on
Catawba land, though by the Revolution the Catawbas—
staunch Patriot allies—have been reduced to a reservation
twenty miles south of Charlotte.
Charlotte is a notable hotbed of rebel sentiment in the
southern colonies. The city’s Committee of Safety rejects
the crown’s right to govern North Carolina in 1775, over
a year before the Continental Congress announces the
same in the Declaration of Independence.
In 1780, Charlotte’s Patriot allegiance is put on display
when the redcoats make a play for the city. Lord Cornwallis
spearheads a British attempt to pacify the Carolinas. Hot
off his capture of Charles Town, he mauls the Continental
Army at the Battle of Camden, then marches on Charlotte.
But Cornwallis’s lead elements meet ferocious Patriot fire
from the Charlotte courthouse. After forcing the British to
withdraw, the Patriot defenders make a fighting retreat from
the town, pursued by British light infantry and cavalry. Short
on supplies, Cornwallis is forced to linger near Charlotte,
where his army is continually harassed by militia and
Colonial Gazette
suffers a surprising setback at Kings Mountain. Cornwallis
withdraws to Virginia, remarking of North Carolina that
“this place is a damned hornet's nest.” Honored by the
epithet, Charlotte has kept the moniker as a badge of pride.
11. Chesapeake Bay
Chesapeake Bay is a key waterway for the establishment of
European colonies. Its deep waters allow oceangoing vessels
to sail into the continent and find rivers leading even farther
inland. The bay’s importance made British settlements there
targets for Spanish, French, and Dutch raids throughout the
colonial wars. By the time of the Revolutionary War, the bay
is a focus for the British blockade. Thanks to the alliance
with France and the influence of the French navy, the British
blockade of Yorktown breaks in 1781 at the Battle of the
Capes. This allows George Washington and the Continental
Army to successfully conclude the Siege of Yorktown and
end the rebellion’s major hostilities.
12. Chicago Portage
At the time of the Revolution, the Mississippi River does
not connect to the Great Lakes, but it gets pretty close. A
six-mile stretch of swampland called Mud Lake links the
Chicago River (originally Checagou), which flows into
Lake Michigan, with the Des Plaines River, a tributary
of the Mississippi. The portage at Mud Lake is thus a
highway connecting the peoples of the Great Lakes with
lands along the Mississippi as far south as New Orleans.
The first non-indigenous settler in the Chicago River
region is an African-French trader named Jean Baptiste
Point du Sable. He and his Potawatomi wife Kitihawa
build a settlement at the mouth of the Chicago River in
the 1780s—though not before being arrested in 1779 by
the British and imprisoned in Fort Michilimackinac on
the suspicion that Point du Sable is a Patriot sympathizer.
Seventy-five miles east, across Lake Michigan, lies
the former French outpost of Fort St. Joseph. The British
use it during the war to resupply their Native allies.
Spanish forces raid the fort in 1781, and Spain attempts
(unsuccessfully) to claim it at the end of the war.
The Battle of Five Armies
St. Louis is a new settlement founded in 1764 at the
confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers for its
lucrative access to the Osage fur trade. The free people
living at St. Louis are culturally French, but governed
by Spain. The lieutenant-governor of Spanish Louisiana
manages the deep backcountry from the settlement
while the governor rules from New Orleans.
The westernmost battle of the Revolutionary War
occurs at St. Louis in 1780, when a combined force
of Dakota warriors and Loyalist fur traders assails
the small town. The Spanish officer throws together
a hasty defense, digging trenches around a single
unfinished stone tower, and reactivating the former
French militia in the area (many of them elderly). The
timely arrival of Patriot soldiers under George Rogers
Clark turns the tide for the defenders.
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 w lin g wo lve s di ve rt ed m y nocturnal hours with
The pro ou s species of animals in this
lin gs ; and the va ri
perpetual how con tin ua lly in my view.
im e, we re
13. Chickamauga Towns
vast forest, in the da yt
wi th pl enty in the midst
As the Revolution enters open conflict in the South,
most Cherokee leaders try to remain neutral. But a war
Thus I w as su rr ou nd ed
ha pp y in the midst of dangers and
leader named Dragging Canoe sees the opportunity to
of want . I w as
ity it was impossible I
make up for previous Cherokee losses. In 1776, Dragging

settlements, regardless of their allegiance. This provokes inconveniences. In such a divers

Canoe and his followers launch raids against Colonial

m elan ch ol y. N o pop ul ou s city, with all

should be disposed to structures, could afford
a devastating Patriot military response. When the senior

com m erc e and st at ely

Cherokee leadership sues for peace, Dragging Canoe’s
the varieties of
the beauties of nature I
faction leaves the Cherokee nation to start a new one:

h pl ea su re to m y m in d, as
so muc
the Chickamaugas. The people of this nation are mostly
of fighting age and remain on a permanent war footing

found here.
until 1782, when their continued battlefield losses against

olonel Daniel Boon,

the Patriots force them to resettle among the Creeks.

—The Adventures of C
Chickamauga resistance continues until the 1790s.

g a Narrat ive of the Wars of Kentucke

14. Cumberland Gap
The Appalachian Mountains form a natural barrier to east–
west travel. From New York to Georgia, the Cumberland Gap
is one of just three natural breaks in the rugged mountain
range. The gap first became known to Europeans in 1750,
when an English naturalist followed Native directions to a
route through, rather than over, the mountains. Frontiersman
Daniel Boone began exploring the area west of the mountains
in 1769, and he along with others came to understand the
potential value of the rich lands west of the mountains to
which the Cumberland Gap provided access.
In 1775, Boone and land speculator Richard Henderson
negotiate the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals, in which
Contain in
Henderson's Transylvania Company purchases a large
part of modern Kentucky and part of Tennessee from the
Cherokees. As soon as the agreement is struck, Henderson
sends Boone ahead with a party of thirty to cut a rough
trail through the Cumberland Gap. The trail—Boone
Trace—is about as wide as a footpath. With the road
opened, settlers flood into the Ohio Valley. So many pass
through the Cumberland Gap that in less than a decade
after the end of the Revolutionary War, Kentucky becomes
the new nation’s fifteenth state.
15. Cuscowilla
Cuscowilla, in north-central Florida, is the largest of
the Seminole villages. The town lies on the edge of a
savanna on which Seminole cowboys raise cattle. By
1774, Cuscowilla has about thirty wood-frame houses
arranged around a council house and town square. The
houses are noted for their airy, second-story porches on
which residents can lounge in the summer heat, trying to
catch a breeze. More people live in outlying settlements,
including Seminole Freedmen.
16. The Everglades
The Everglades—called the River Glades until the 1820s—
covers 3,000 square miles of southern Florida, stretching
from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay. It’s not a swamp;
it’s a river of grass. The whole area, 60 miles wide and 100
miles long, is a single river ranging from a few inches to
a few feet deep, flowing very, very slowly to the sea. Most
of the river is filled with sawgrass–tall as a person, tough,
and sharp. Standing in the bow of a boat pushing its way
through the grass is miserable and, given the risks of
infection, dangerous. Here and there the grass is broken by
lakes, channels, forested swamps, and dry hummocks.
At the time of the Revolution, no one lives in the
Everglades. The marsh’s famous Seminole defenders
won’t be forced to build settlements on islands and stilts
until driven to it by American incursions decades later.
17. Florida Straits
From the beginning of the Spanish colonial period,
ships heading back to Europe sailed through the Straits
of Florida on the Gulf Stream current. Since that time,
the water surrounding Florida has become a graveyard
for thousands of ships. Some are driven aground by
unfavorable winds. Others have their hulls ripped open
by the reefs south of the Florida Keys. Still others vanish
in hurricanes, never to be seen again.
Salvage operations on these wrecks are increasingly
commercialized. Professional wreckers sponsored by
Britain and Spain compete with locals trying to augment
their income by recovering and selling wrecked cargo.
Those working the reef under the British flag bring their
salvage to Nassau, in the Bahamas, while those working
under the Spanish flag operate out of Havana, Cuba.
18. Fort Detroit
The fortified settlement and fur-trading post of Detroit
dominates the Detroit River, a short waterway connecting
Lake Erie and Lake Huron. Established by France in
1701, it became one of the most populous settlements
in French North America, and it continues developing
under British rule after the French and Indian War.
In 1763, Detroit was one of the targets of Pontiac’s War,
a conflict precipitated by new British authorities dismissive
of Native concerns and interests. Led by the ambitious
Odawa Pontiac and emboldened by the charisma of Neolin,
a Lenape prophet, a coalition of Native forces from several
nations captured eight Great Lakes forts. Detroit was not
one of them, withstanding a six-month siege.
Detroit remains the most important Great Lakes
fur trade post under British control, even if most of its
Colonial Gazette
citizens remain French-speaking until well into the 19th
century. In the Revolutionary War, the British distribute
annuities and gifts from Detroit to the Great Lakes
nations, many of which prefer an unreliable alliance with
Britain over land-hungry Patriot rebels. Though far from
the center of the action, Fort Detroit is a gathering place
for British and Native expeditions. The Patriots consider
it a strategic target, though they never make a direct
attack upon it.
19. Fort Pitt
Fort Pitt sits where the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers
join to form the Ohio River, at what is today Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. Built during the French and Indian War,
Fort Pitt is one of the most important posts along the
Thirteen Colonies’ western frontier. The Lenapes and
Shawnees besieged the fort in 1763 during Pontiac’s War.
During negotiations, the fort’s defenders gave the Lenape
diplomats blankets that had been exposed to smallpox.
Fort Pitt serves as the Continental headquarters for
the Ohio theater of the Revolution. This theater is not
fought over conceptions of liberty or property rights, but
is a continuation of earlier wars between encroaching
settlers and the Native Lenape, Shawnee, Mingo, and
Miami nations. It’s a blood feud, with the Native nations
trying to force the settlers back east over the Appalachian
Mountains, and the settlers trying to exterminate the Native
nations—or, if that can’t be accomplished, to at least drive
them west out of the Ohio Country. Atrocities are common,
and to be taken prisoner by either side is usually a death
sentence. The British supply the Native nations with arms
and equipment. The Continentals send troops to back the
settlers, coordinating their activities out of Fort Pitt.
20. Fort St. Marks
Built by the Spanish in 1679 on the point of land formed
by the confluence of the St. Marks and Wakulla Rivers,
the Castillo de San Marcos de Apalache ("Castle of St.
Marks of Apalache") provides protection for the port
province of Apalachee. The risk of attack by pirates
operating in the Gulf of Mexico motivated the King of
Spain to build the fort to defend Apalachee, then noted
for its farms, ranches, and prosperous settlements.
Spain sided with the French in the French and Indian
War, and paid the price by losing its colony. After ninety-
four years under the Spanish flag, San Marcos became
the British post of Fort St. Marks. The Spanish return in
1783 after the British defeat in the American Revolution.
Tensions will remain high, however, as American settlers
continue to penetrate the Southeast in areas that Spain
considers its sovereign territory.
21. Grand Banks
In south-eastern Newfoundland are the Grand Banks, some
of the richest fishing grounds in the world. The Banks are
situated at the confluence of the cold Labrador current
and the warm Gulf Stream current. This mix of currents in
shallow waters provides an ideal habitat for many species
of fish, and teems with life. A lucky fisher might find cod,
swordfish, haddock, and more. The region is also abundant
with lobsters, seals, whales, and dolphins.
| 12
 While Portugal and Spain attempted to monopolize
the fishing industry along the Grand Banks in the 16th
century, they were ultimately forced out by the British
and French. It’s possible that European involvement
goes back even further; circumstantial evidence suggests
that Basque fishers may have sailed across the Atlantic
as early as the late 15th century. The 1783 treaty ending
the Revolutionary War will permit both Canadians and
Americans to fish the Grand Banks.
22. Great Dismal Swamp
The Great Dismal Swamp covers 2,000 square miles of
southeast Virginia and northeast North Carolina. It’s a
maze of creeks, marshes, hummocks, flooded forests, a
single big lake, and a sea of reeds. When the Tuscarora
nation leaves the Carolinas, some resettle in the Great
Dismal Swamp. They are soon joined by ever-increasing
numbers of Black escapees fleeing slavery. Safe in the
swamp, they form a new, free culture: the Dismal Swamp
maroons.
In 1763, George Washington helped found the Great
Dismal Swamp Land Company, a real estate speculation
venture whose aim was to drain the Dismal Swamp and sell
the dried land to farmers. The swamp proves much harder
to tame than expected, and the venture fails dismally.
In 1775, Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia,
attempts to recruit Dismal Swamp maroons to fight for
Britain in exchange for a guarantee of freedom. Some
take him up on his offer. Most do not. The swamp remains
full of people, and the Dismal Swamp maroon culture will
persist through the American Civil War.
23. Green Mountains
Part of the northern Appalachians, this New England
mountain range is the symbol and namesake of the
Vermont Republic, after its French name: Verts Monts. The
range stretches the length of the Vermont Republic, from
the border of Massachusetts to the province of Quebec.
These mountains also give their name to the Green
Mountain Boys, a militia led by Ethan Allen to resist
New York’s authority in the region. The Green Mountain
Boys go on to serve in the Revolutionary War, famously
leading the capture of Fort Ticonderoga in 1775.
The “Republic of Vermont” springs from contested
land between New York and New Hampshire, which both
claimed grants in the area. The settlers of the grants,
resisting the authority of both colonies, ultimately form
the Republic of Vermont in 1777. Though it operates as an
independent state, it is not recognized by the Continental
Congress or the British government. The Republic mints
its own currency, the Vermont copper, in the 1780s.
Therefore, it is absolutely
necessary, for the welfare
of the inhabitants of this S and safety
tate, that it should be, henc
a free and independent State; eforth,
and that a just, permanent,
proper form of government, and
should exist in it, derived
founded on, the authority from, and
of the people only, agreeabl
direction of the honorable A e to the
merican Congress.
—Vermont Constitution
The leaders of Vermont, including Ethan Allan,
consider a pact with the British to join the Province of
Quebec in the 1780s. Following the British surrender at
Yorktown, however, the deal is abandoned, and Vermont
officially becomes a state in 1791.
24. Gulf of Mexico
Covering an area of some 450,000 nautical miles, the
Gulf of Mexico encompasses much of the coastline of
Spanish colonies from the Yucatán Peninsula to the
sparsely populated region of Tejas. The territory of
Anáhuac is the center of power for the viceroyalty of
New Spain, a kingdom of immense wealth. After the fall
of the Tenochtitlan in 1521, the Spanish conquistadores
built Mexico City atop the old Aztec capital. It remains
the largest city in the New World, with an estimated
population of over 100,000. Spain's coffers still rely
on the silver extracted (at great human cost) from its
American possessions—and the treasure fleets carrying
this precious cargo remain tempting targets for thieves
and privateers, as they have been for centuries.
Since the end of the French and Indian War, Spain
has also governed the colony of Louisiana. New Orleans
is the main port of entry for Spanish supplies sent to
American forces during the American Revolution. The
city has long been a port of call for wayward souls and
ne'er-do-wells, and until Spain formally declares war on
Britain in 1779, New Orleans remains a hotbed of intrigue
and competing Patriot and Loyalist factions.
The British colonies on the Gulf, East and West Florida,
are largely Loyalist strongholds. Both were invited to
send delegates to the First Continental Congress, but
declined to do so. Of the two, East Florida has a much
larger Colonial population, with several settlements such
as St. Augustine along the coast. The vast majority of West
Florida settlers live near Pensacola; a region previously
called Alibamu by French inhabitants, after the tribes of
Muskogean peoples who live in the area.
Pensacola is besieged and captured when the
ambitious governor of Spanish Louisiana, Bernardo de
Gálvez, launches his aggressive Gulf Coast campaign.
25. Halifax
Once part of the French colony of Acadia, Halifax is
now the capital of British Nova Scotia. This port city sits
on the southern coast of Nova Scotia. Since 1759, the
Halifax Naval Yard has served as the North American
headquarters for the British Navy. It is here that General
William Howe lands with Loyalist refugees following the
end of the Boston siege. Tens of thousands of Loyalists
flee to Nova Scotia throughout the Revolution, many by
way of Halifax’s harbor.
The economy of Halifax, already struggling at the
start of the Revolution, is devastated during the war as
Continental privateers relentlessly attack its shores.
Commercial ships must set sail with great caution, lest
they fall prey to an opportunistic Continental crew. In
retaliation, Loyalist privateers are outfitted to conduct
raids along the coast of New England.
In 1783, at the end of the war, Britain resettles
Loyalists who would rather move to Canada than live
Colonial Gazette
in an independent United States. Many pass through
Halifax as part of their journey, including thousands of
Black soldiers who fled slavery to fight for Britain. Many
Black Loyalists eventually leave Halifax to help found the
British colony of Sierra Leone.
26. The Horse Latitudes
At about thirty degrees north latitude—a horizontal line
around the globe extending roughly from the border
between Florida and Georgia—the ocean winds die
away. This latitude is the boundary between two great
atmospheric currents; the air simply doesn’t move much
here. Ships can lie becalmed for weeks at a time. A
popular folk etymology holds that the horse latitudes are
named for when ships become unexpectedly becalmed,
and sailors must throw the passengers’ horses overboard
when the drinking water runs low. The same atmospheric
phenomenon exists in the southern hemisphere at thirty
degrees south latitude. The doldrums along the equator
can also leave ships becalmed, but there the weather
is more variable—sometimes weeks without wind,
sometimes severe storms.
27. Iceberg Alley
Sailing through the northern waters of Canada can bring
wondrous sights and incredible perils.
The Bay of Fundy, which stretches from the
province of Nova Scotia to the northernmost part
of Massachusetts, is famous for its extreme tides. It
experiences two high and low tides per day, which have
a range of about fifty-two feet. The funneled shape of the
bay, paired with its wide tidal range, creates strong tides
and interesting phenomena throughout the surrounding
area. These include the Reversing Falls on the Saint John
River and the Old Sow whirlpool in Passamaquoddy Bay.
From spring to early summer, icebergs broken off
from Arctic glaciers flow south along the eastern coast of
Newfoundland, giving the region the name Iceberg Alley.
These huge floating chunks of ice are magnificent to
behold, but they can prove treacherous for even the most
seasoned sailor.
28. Keweenaw
This forested region makes up the northernmost tip of what
is now the upper peninsula of Michigan, jutting into Lake
Superior. A waterway cuts through the south, creating a
shortcut between the peninsula’s eastern and western sides.
Keweena is rich with copper ore, which has been mined by
the Ojibwe and their ancestors for millennia. The resulting
copper tools and jewelry can be found throughout North
America, spread via extensive trade routes.
The area is sparsely populated by European
colonists, though more have moved out to the frontier in
recent years. Even so, few white settlers have seriously
considered mining the area given its remoteness. A
recent attempt was made in 1771 by Alexander Henry,
whose efforts proved vain when his mine collapsed within
a year with little yield. He abandoned the venture, bitterly
speculating that “the copper ores of Lake Superior can
never be profitably sought for but for local consumption.
The country must be cultivated and peopled before they
can deserve notice.”
29. Lake Erie Islands
The Lake Erie Islands are an archipelago at the west end
of the lake, in Council of Three Fires territory. Each island
has a somewhat different character. The largest, Pelee
Island, is thick with birds. Rattlesnake Island has less-
inviting residents. The vegetation on West Sister Island
is so dense it’s almost like a jungle, and Isle de Fleurs
(Middle Bass Island) has an abundance of wildflowers.
Hen Island is accompanied by three prominent shoals,
called its chicks. Kelleys Island has multiple large stones
covered in Native petroglyphs depicting animals and birds,
as well as humans with smoking pipes and headdresses.
While the islands are beautiful, the lake surrounding
them is treacherous. Sudden storms and strong gales can
quickly capsize even the most seasoned crews. Ships in
peril may find refuge in Put-in-Bay to the south.
30. Mammoth Cave
Mammoth Cave is the longest cave system in the
world. The network of tunnels and caverns was used by
prehistoric Indigenous peoples, who left petroglyphs and
mummified human remains as signs of their reverence.
After white settlers discover the cave, it becomes a source
for mining saltpeter, one of the key ingredients in black
powder. The mine helps establish domestic production of
gunpowder in the United States before the War of 1812.
31. Michilimackinac
Named from the Odawa term meaning “Big Turtle,”
Michilimackinac refers both to an island and to the series of
waterways that connect the Upper and Lower peninsulas of
modern-day Michigan, as well as Lakes Michigan and Huron.
The region was originally occupied by the Anishinaabe
nations, and holds particular significance as the meeting
place of the Council of Three Fires, which solidified the
alliance between the Ojibwa, Odawa, and Potawatomi.
Michilimackinac saw French trading posts and
Jesuit missions established in the early 17th century.
The region was hotly contested during the Beaver Wars:
a series of conflicts between the Haudenosaunees, the
Wyandots and various other Algonquin peoples over
control of the fur trade with the Europeans. The Wars led
to greater Haudenosaunee control of hunting grounds
in New England and the Ohio river valley, the disruption
of many long-standing tribal confederacies, and the
devastation of the local beaver population.
Fort Michilimackinac is the primary symbol of
European presence in the area. It was first built south of
the straits by the French as a wooden fort and trading
post in the early 18th century. Though the British took
over the fort in 1761, its population remained largely
French and Métis. In 1781, the British build a new Fort
Michilimackinac of limestone on an island in the straits.
32. Mohawk Valley
Surrounding the Mohawk River is a rich valley nestled
between the Catskill and Adirondack Mountains of
upstate New York. The river and valley are named for the
Mohawk nation, members of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois)
Confederation who have inhabited the area for centuries.
The Mohawks live in the eastern part of the valley, the
15 |
Lake Weather
The weather on the Great Lakes is famously
changeable. What follows is a modification of the
Inclement Weather rules presented in the Appendix
of the Nations & Cannons Core Rulebook.
On the Great Lakes, instead of rolling once a day
for the daily forecast, first determine how often the
weather will change that day. Roll 1d8. On a result of
1-4, there will be one kind of weather that day. On
a result of 5 or 6, there will be two. On a result of 7,
there will be three. On a result of 8, there will be four.
Roll for weather that many times, evenly spaced
throughout the day. To determine the severity of the
weather you’re rolling for, roll 1d10. On a result of 1-7,
the weather is fair. On a result of 8 or 9, the weather is
poor. On a result of 10, the weather is severe.
Oneidas and Tuscaroras live in the western part, and the
Onondagas and Cayugas control the valley’s western
approaches. By the time of the Revolution, white settlement
of the valley is quite far along, and the Haudenosaunees are
often a minority in their own homelands.
The Mohawk River forms a highway between the
Great Lakes and the Atlantic coast. The river begins
near Lake Ontario and joins the Hudson River at Albany.
Goods from the Great Lakes can be carried to the
Mohawk River, then floated the rest of the way to New
York City. The primary connection between Lake Ontario
and the Mohawk River is called Wood Creek; the Great
Carrying Place between Wood Creek and the Mohawk
River is the site of Fort Stanwix, a former French fort now
occupied by Patriots defending the approach to Albany.
A British invasion along this route triggers a civil war
within the Haudenosaunee Confederation. For much of
the rest of the Revolutionary War, the Mohawk Valley
suffers continuing frontier violence as British-backed and
Patriot-backed Haudenosaunee and settler groups raid
back and forth. The most destructive of these offensives
is the genocidal Sullivan Expedition of 1779.
The Confederation never fully recovers from this
attack. Later travelers through the Valley can still find
the ruins of many destroyed settlements. Following the
expedition’s path, one may also encounter a trail lined
with horse skulls. This aptly named “Valley of the Horse
Skulls” is where Sullivan was forced to euthanize his
exhausted team of pack horses.
33. Montreal
At the confluence of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers
in Quebec lies the island of Montreal and the trade
settlement of the same name. Before it was Montreal, it
was the large Native village of Hochelaga, but the site
was abandoned by the time the French established a
missionary settlement. Rapids just upstream of Montreal
mean the settlement is the farthest a ship from the
Atlantic Ocean can travel up the St. Lawrence River. This
makes it a key distribution point for trade in Quebec.
The British gained Montreal with the rest of Quebec
at the end of the French and Indian War. The Continental
Colonial Gazette
 Army briefly occupies the town between 1775 and
1776, but retreats after the failed Siege of Quebec farther
downstream. Montreal becomes a destination for Loyalists
fleeing to British-controlled territory.
The settlement becomes the center of an intense rivalry
between two large trading companies: the North West
Company and the Hudson Bay Company. The local North
West Company struggles to gain traction in the fur trade
due to the Hudson Bay Company’s virtual monopoly over
the best fur trapping regions. Tensions between the two
companies will boil over into armed conflict in the 1810s.
This “Pemmican War” will last nearly a decade, ending only
when the government forces the two companies to merge.
34. Nantucket
Thirty miles off Cape Cod lies the isle of Nantucket, a
whaling community. Colonials and Wampanoags—the
latter descendants of the few hundred survivors of King
Metacom’s War—go out in boats to hunt whales and drag
their carcasses back to the island. As whales grow scarcer in
The Continent of America
, take it all in all, is undou
one of the finest countries btedly
in the World. It plentifull
abounds with every necessa y
ry of life, and almost eve
that the most voluptuous ry luxury
epicure could desire.
—Nicholas Cresswell,
1777
Nantucket waters, whalers are transitioning to larger ships
that cruise the broad North Atlantic. Whale fat is boiled and
rendered into a bright- and clean-burning lamp oil.
Nantucket remains neutral during the Revolution. The
island relies on the oil trade with Britain, has a substantial
pacifist Quaker population, and is isolated from mainland
Massachusetts and its Patriot politics. There consequently
exists considerable enmity between the people of Nantucket
and the government of Massachusetts.
Southeast of Nantucket are the Nantucket Shoals, a
region of shifting sandbars and shallows larger than the
island itself. Currents shift the sand about unpredictably,
limiting the utility of charts. Ships traversing the area are
in constant danger of running aground.
35. Natural Bridge
The Natural Bridge, in the southern end of Virginia’s
Shenandoah Valley, is a natural wonder. A 215-foot-high arch
with a span of ninety feet, it vaults a limestone gorge carved
by the creek at its bottom. Thomas Jefferson purchases the
Natural Bridge in 1774 as part of a parcel of 157 acres he buys
from the Crown for twenty shillings. Jefferson calls the bridge
“the most sublime of nature's works.”
The bridge is used as a natural shot tower; usually the
manufacture of musket balls requires a specialized tower
with a basin at its base, but the Natural Bridge performs
the same function. When molten lead is showered from
the bridge, it forms nearly perfect spheres and hardens
enough to keep its shape when it hits the creek below.
| 16
 in the W es t I nd ies is quite useless unless at least
The fleet en se nt out Sufficient to
re lie ved and M
Seven Ships are Islands must be defended
36. New Providence
th os e th at re m ai n; ou r
compleat of th is I sland, if we lose
an in va si on
The outpost of New Providence in the Bahamas, 180

even at the risk of

possible to raise Money to
miles east of Florida, is a struggling smuggling port.

ar I sl an ds it wi ll be im
our Sug
As recently as the early 18th century, it was a pirate

no Peace can be obtained.

haven. When the British cracked down on piracy, sailors
switched to smuggling. Then the British cracked down
on smuggling. Further catastrophe followed when
customers in the Thirteen Colonies boycotted imported
goods like salt and molasses to protest British taxation.
Now New Providence’s warehouses are full of goods their
merchants cannot move.
In March 1776, New Providence is the target of
the Continentals’ first-ever amphibious assault. Seven
warships land 250 marines and sailors and overwhelm
Fort Montague. British forces retreat across the island to
Fort Nassau before surrendering. The Continentals seize
88 British cannons and 15 mortars, though the island’s
gunpowder reserve evades capture.
St. Eustatius
Originally named by its Arawak inhabitants as
“Cashew Island” (Aloi), St. Eustatius has a long and
complex history with European colonists. One of the
first islands to be seen by European explorers, it was
destined to change hands between French, Dutch,
and English 21 times. Like most other Caribbean
Islands, it was developed to grow sugar and tobacco,
and was protected by a fort overlooking the harbor
that was built, destroyed, and rebuilt by subsequent
waves of settlement.
The island is a critical lifeline to Patriot forces
in the Revolutionary War. In the hands of its Dutch
government, almost half of the supplies imported
from Europe to North America and nearly all official
diplomatic communication between the Patriot
government and Europe passes first through St.
Eustatius. Captured in 1781 by a task force under
Admiral George Rodney, the British will occupy the
island for several months before its recapture by the
French in November of the same year.
con tin ue the W ar and th en
—King George
37. New York City
New York City, hub of culture and commerce, is located
on Manhattan Island at the mouth of the Hudson River.
For most of the Revolutionary War, the city is occupied
by the British Army. It’s a haven for Loyalist refugees,
including a large population of Black Loyalists. New York
City is further detailed on pages 29-32.
38. Newport
One of two settlements established on Aquidneck
Island in the 1630s, Newport became a bustling port
city specializing in whaling, the importation of enslaved
Africans, and distilling rum from Caribbean sugarcane.
By the mid 18th century it was the most important port in
the colony of Rhode Island. In 1780 freemen established
the Free African Union Society, the first black mutual-aid
society in North America, an irony in a town of more than
700 slavetraders.
A population of Sephardic Jewish refugees fleeing
the Inquisition settled in Newport in 1658, and in 1763
built the Touro Synagogue, which remains the oldest
synagogue in North America. Newport’s Sephardim
community contributed greatly to the city's wealth and
economic power, cultivating Newport’s near-monopoly
on sperm oil and candles.
 The Revolutionary War turns Newport into a nest of
privateers, and in 1776, Henry Clinton captures the port
without resistance, holding it against a joint French-American
attack in 1778 only to abandon it the following year. The
French make Newport their center of operations in North
America. The long years of military occupation and the
forced flight of loyalists massively depopulate Newport, and
will bring its period of economic domination to an end.
39. Niagara Falls
The roar of water is overpowering as one travels through
the mists to behold Niagara Falls, a series of three waterfalls
along the border of New York to the east and the Quebec
province to the west. The main waterfall bends like a
horseshoe on the Canadian side of the gorge, while the other
two falls are separated by small islands at the peak of the cliff.
The powerful flow rate of the falls makes the
surrounding river treacherous to traverse, with strong
rapids that will easily overwhelm anything from
an unlucky swimmer to the most seasoned vessel.
Other rapids and whirlpools lie downstream. In 1801,
newlyweds Theodosia Burr and Joseph Alston will be the
first prominent couple to honeymoon at the falls. Their
example will launch the falls as a tourist destination.
British Fort Niagara guards the mouth of the river
at Lake Ontario. The fort serves as the headquarters of
the Loyalist Colonel John Butler and his rangers. Under
Butler, Fort Niagara becomes notorious for brothels,
brawling, and booze. Fort Niagara will be further detailed
in an update to this document.
40. Ninety-Six
The oddly-named fortified village of Ninety-Six, in inland
South Carolina, is a trading outpost and important link
Colonial Gazette
between Charles Town and Cherokee towns like Keowee.
It is the largest town in upstate South Carolina and, as
the war develops, Ninety-Six takes on additional strategic
importance as a backcountry Loyalist stronghold.
The Revolution’s first land battle south of New England
is fought at Ninety-Six in November 1775. Patriot and
Loyalist militias fight for three days outside the village. The
battle is a low-intensity affair that ends in a stalemate. In
1780, the British fortify the town with a star fort. There, 550
Loyalists endure a twenty-eight-day siege by Nathanael
Greene and a thousand Continental soldiers. Greene is
forced to lift the siege when confronted by a British relief
column. Ninety-Six remains an important resupply point for
Loyalist partisans through the end of the war.
41. Okefenokee Swamp
The Okefenokee Swamp is a shallow, 700-square-mile,
forested wetland along the Florida-Georgia border. It
contains islands, lakes, flooded cypress forests, and open
grassy marshes. The water is black, the ground is peaty,
and alligators are everywhere. Some of the swamp’s
most remarkable features are floating islands of mossy
vegetation. The larger ones are strong enough to walk
upon, but every step undulates the island, sending ripples
out through the vegetation for yards in every direction.
In 1778 the Georgia militia, with reinforcements from
the Continental Army, attempts an invasion of British
East Florida, passing east of the Okefenokee Swamp. The
invasion force skirmishes inconclusively with British
defenders at the Battle of Alligator Creek Bridge. Then
the Continentals, out of food and suffering from disease
and desertion, retreat back north to Georgia. The British
decline to pursue them, and the Continentals abandon
the invasion plan.
| 18
42. Old Man of the Mountain
This unique stone outcrop juts from the side of Cannon
Mountain in a pass in the White Mountains of New
Hampshire. It’s called “Stone Face” by local Abenakis due
to its resemblance to the profile of a man’s head.
Abenakis say the face is that of Nis Kizos, an Abenaki
leader and trader. He fell in love with a Haudenosaunee
woman named Tarlo. When Tarlo’s birth village was struck
with illness, she left to help her people. Nis Kizos camped
atop the mountain to watch for her. But the illness took
Tarlo. When Nis Kizos’s relatives went looking for him,
he was gone. As they left, they turned around and saw
that Nis Kizos had become part of the mountain, his stone
face looking over the land, searching for his lost love.
In 2003, the face will fall off the mountain. Abenakis
will celebrate, for Nis Kizos and Tarlo are finally reunited.

43. Onondaga
Onondaga is the primary settlement of the Native nation
of the same name. The Onondagas are one of the six
nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederation. Onondaga
is also where the Haudenosaunee Grand Council
meets, allowing representatives of the Confederation’s
constituent nations to discuss affairs relevant to all of
them and make decisions. The firekeepers at Onondaga
maintain the ever-burning council fire, even when the
council is not in session.
When the Confederation descends into civil war, eight
Onondaga chiefs extinguish the council fire. Neutrality
is no longer possible. Three months later, a Continental
expedition burns the town of Onondaga. After the
Revolutionary War, many Onondagas flee north into
Canada. The Grand Council still meets to this day on
Onondaga land in New York State.

Rupert's Land
The frigid fur-trading region accessible from Hudson
Bay is known as Rupert’s Land. The Beaver Wars of
the 1640s motivated Britain to look north beyond
the Great Lakes for furs. In 1670, King Charles II of
England granted a trade monopoly in the territory
around Hudson Bay to his cousin, Prince Rupert of
the Rhine, for whom the region is now named.
Rupert’s Land is supposedly home to the fabled
Northwest Passage to Asia, a navigable waterway
believed to cut through North America. A speculated
location of the passage has crept north into Rupert’s
Land as the middle latitudes of North America grow
better-mapped. There is no evidence the passage
exists, but European powers send ship after ship to
look for it, just in case it’s there—sometimes leading
to the deaths of everyone aboard. The savings in time
and money if such a passage were found are too
lucrative not to risk a few hundred sailors.

44. Ottawa Valley

The Ottawa River and the valley it flows through are
among the primary routes used by the voyageurs:
workers who transport literal tons of furs by canoe

Colonial Gazette
through the Canadian interior. Native and settler fur
trappers sell their furs at small trading depots deep in
the forests north and west of the Great Lakes. Then the
voyageurs come in their huge canoes to carry the furs to
the Ottawa River’s mouth at Montreal.
It’s a hard life; voyageurs must carry a minimum of
two 90-pound bundles of fur at a time when portaging
between lakes and around rapids. The money is
good enough to attract people to a lifestyle that, while
celebrated, is mostly boring and grueling. But the money
is not good enough to let voyageurs retire early; they
either return to the farm or stick with it until they die, often
of a hernia. Though the areas the voyageurs traverse are
occupied by a diversity of Native nations and ostensibly
ruled by the British, most voyageurs are Québécois.
45. Outer Banks
Known as the “graveyard of the Atlantic,” the Outer Banks
are a chain of low, sandy barrier islands off North Carolina
and southeast Virginia. The region of ever-shifting sandbars
and shoals extends from the islands out into the ocean.
Particularly on overcast or moonless nights, the sandbars
and low islands without tall trees aren’t always visible from
the deck of a ship. Regular depth soundings and the noise
of crashing waves can warn an alert skipper the ship is in
danger, but often too late. As storms regularly pick up the
sand and rearrange it, even navigators experienced with
these waters need to be cautious.
46. Overhill Towns
The Overhill Towns are a group of Cherokee villages located
along the upper Tennessee and lower Little Tennessee
Rivers (so named for Tanasi, one of the towns). Each town
features a population in the low hundreds, an octagonal
townhouse up to sixty feet in diameter, and a rectangular
summer council house at one end of a plaza. These people
are called Overhill Cherokees, because they live over the
mountains from the rest of the Cherokee nation to the east.
Many Overhill Cherokees are refugees from wars
with the British. The Cherokee and British nations were
allies at the start of the French and Indian War, but the
relationship deteriorated into open warfare. In 1761, an
army of 2,600 redcoats marched through the Lower
Towns and Middle Towns, burning as they went. Many
survivors resettled in the Overhill Towns.
Overhill Cherokee leaders try unsuccessfully to
remain neutral in the Revolutionary War. A breakaway
Cherokee faction, calling themselves Chickamaugas,
raids Colonial settlements; provoking a Cherokee civil
war and a decisive Patriot response. In 1780, when the
Revolutionary War shifts southwards, Virginia governor
Thomas Jefferson grows concerned that the Overhill
Cherokees will ally with Britain. He launches a bloody
and preemptive war over the Appalachians against the
Overhill Towns, then imposes even more land cessions.
47. Penobscot
The Penobscot River flows through the district of Maine, at
this time a part of the colony of Massachusetts. The region’s
Wabanaki Confederacy is sympathetic to the Patriots.
Some bands of the Confederacy’s Mi’kmaw nation sign
Colonial Gazette
the Treaty of Watertown with Massachusetts and the new
United States. This military alliance is the new nation’s first
international agreement, making the Mi’kmaw nation the
first foreign power to recognize the United States.
Penobscot Bay, at the mouth of the Penobscot River, is
the site of a disastrous defeat for the Continental Navy. In
1779, the Penobscot Expedition, totaling over forty vessels,
is dispatched to retake the British-occupied Penobscot
mid-coast. Due to disagreements between the navy’s
commanders, the expedition stalls long enough to come
under British attack. In the resulting battle, the entire
Continental fleet is lost.
48. Philadelphia
Philadelphia is the capital of Pennsylvania, the largest
city in the Thirteen Colonies, and the de facto capital
of the new United States. It is the meeting place of the
First and Second Continental Congresses and the home
of Benjamin Franklin. Philadelphia is further detailed on
pages 33-36.
Valley Forge, the Continental Army’s winter quarters
for the winter of 1777–1778, is twenty miles west of the city.
10 Crucial Days
In the closing days of 1776, George Washington and
the Continental Army flee south through New Jersey,
running like whipped dogs from their inexorable
British pursuers. The Continentals haven’t won a
battle worth mentioning in nine months. Desertion is
high and defeat seems inevitable. Then everything
changes over ten crucial days.
From December 25th 1776 to January 3rd 1777,
the Continentals wheel about and win a series of
surprise victories starting with the Battle of Trenton.
The Patriots then repulse a British counterattack
at Trenton, quietly abandon the spot they were
defending while the redcoats are sure the Continentals
are boxed in, and launch another surprise attack on
British and Hessian troops at Princeton. The rebels
then retire to winter quarters in Morristown having
reaffirmed that they can defeat the British and that
the outcome of the war is far from decided.
49. The Piedmont
The Piedmont is a geographic region of rolling
hills between the coastal plain and the Appalachian
mountains. It technically extends from Alabama to
New York, but is largest and most culturally significant
in the southern colonies. In the southern colonies, the
Piedmont is the Colonial backcountry. Its eastern edge is
the fall line: the place where a ship sailing up a navigable
river first encounters a waterfall or impassable rapids.
Settlements at the fall line—like Richmond, Fayetteville,
Columbia, Augusta, and Macon—tend to be where the
southern Colonial frontier begins.
The settlers establishing homesteads in the Piedmont
in the southern colonies tend to be Scots-Irish immigrants
and the descendents of established families in other
| 20
colonies, looking for cheaper land to start their own farms.
The settlers of the Piedmont have a historically fraught
relationship with centralized authority, most notably
expressed by the Regulator Movement in North Carolina
from 1766 to 1771, which fights back against corruption,
unclear land laws, and an often arbitrary court system.
50. Point Pleasant
Point Pleasant sits at the confluence of the Ohio and
Kanawha Rivers in the western half of Virginia. The rich
land of the Ohio Country was coveted by white settlers,
who moved into the frontier despite limits placed by the
Proclamation of 1763. The expansion barrier was shifted
west by the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, to the ire of the
Shawnee and Mingo peoples who were not consulted
when the British and Iroquois negotiated the treaty.
Hostility between white settlers and the Indigenous
inhabitants of the Ohio Country erupted into open conflict
during Lord Dunmore’s War in 1774. The only major battle
of this war took place at Point Pleasant, where a militia
force of one thousand Virginians defeated a contingent of
Shawnee and Mingo warriors led by Chief Cornstalk. The
victorious Virginians built a fort there, Camp Point Pleasant,
soon renamed Fort Randolph.
Fort Randolph is intended to deter Native attacks on
settlers, but has little success. Initially, Cornstalk becomes
an ally of the Patriots, arguing that Native attacks will
yield the same results he already experienced. In 1777,
Cornstalk visits Fort Randolph on a diplomatic mission. He
is mistakenly arrested and, a few days later, murdered by
Virginian militiamen. Though Virginia governor Patrick
Henry brings the killers to trial, they are acquitted. Thus
provoked, the Shawnees enter the Revolution on the British
side. Virginia abandons Fort Randolph in 1779. It will be
rebuilt in 1785 in the leadup to the Northwest Indian War.
51. Quebec City
Quebec City, officially just “Québec,” is one of the oldest
European settlements in North America and the largest
in Canada. It is a walled city populated primarily by
French-speaking Catholics, but ceded to British control
after the French and Indian War. Though the Patriots
hope to induce the Québécois to rebel against Britain,
and even put the city to siege in 1775, the expected swell
of support never comes. The Patriots never take the city,
and the Québécois sit out the Revolutionary War. Québec
is further described on pages 37-40.
52. Richmond
Richmond is a young city. Founded in 1737, it quickly filled
with the luxurious homes and mansions of Virginia’s old-
money families. Plantations sprawled around the city and
along the river. In 1775, Patrick Henry delivers a speech
in Richmond during the second Virginia Convention,
summing up Patriot feeling with the slogan “Give me
liberty or give me death!” Within days of the speech, the
Virginia militia is on its way to join the Siege of Boston.
In 1780, Richmond is selected as Virginia’s new capital.
The previous capital, coastal Williamsburg, is vulnerable
to British attack and far from Virginia’s western planters.
But Richmond’s inland location fails to protect it. In
21 |
1781, the traitor general Benedict Arnold leads a British
raid on Richmond. He burns the city and many of the
surrounding plantations, and he tries to apprehend
Thomas Jefferson, Virginia’s wartime governor. Jefferson
and other prominent citizens are saved by the 40-mile ride
of Captain Jack Jouett, “the Paul Revere of the South.”
53. Saginaw Bay
Saginaw Bay is part of Lake Huron. It is located on the
eastern side of what is now Michigan, on the territory of
the Ojibwe nation of the Council of Three Fires. The bay is
fed by waterways and marshes that breed disease and limit
permanent settlement. French missionaries, mostly Jesuits,
began pushing into the region in the 1600s. Hunters and
fur traders soon followed. Saginaw Bay and its waterways
were ceded to Britain following the French and Indian War,
and they are treated as part of the Province of Quebec. The
Bay’s warm, shallow water makes it a prime spot for fishing.
Walleye and yellow perch are plentiful here.
54. Saint John
This once-small fur trading post grew to become
a prominent harbor and a wealthy town in French
Acadia. After the region falls to Britain, it endures
the Acadian Exodus, but Saint John is recovering. In
the Revolutionary War, the town is a target for Patriot
privateers and raiders. Saint John is briefly captured
in 1777 during an attempt to expand the rebellion. The
local populace does not rise up against the British, and
the Patriot force has to withdraw after a hasty British
counterattack. Saint John is a destination for many
Loyalists fleeing Patriot violence.
55. Sargasso Sea
The Sargasso Sea is a region of the Atlantic Ocean bounded
by four currents: the Gulf Stream on the west, the North
Atlantic Current on the north, the Canary Current on the
east, and the North Atlantic Equatorial Current on the
south. Together, these currents form a great clockwise-
rotating ocean gyre. Because of this phenomenon, debris
tends to float into the Sargasso Sea, but not out.
The Sargasso Sea is distinguished from other parts of
the Atlantic Ocean by its characteristic seaweed. Small
patches and lines of brown Sargassum seaweed can
often be seen floating on the surface, supporting micro-
habitats of tiny fish and crabs.
Christopher Columbus was the first to document this
stretch of ocean. His sailors feared the seaweed indicated
there might be shallow water nearby. Part of the Sargasso
Sea lies in the Horse Latitudes, where there is often no
wind, giving rise to legends of ships trapped in immense
mats of seaweed. In truth, the mats are seldom large
enough to interfere with navigation.
56. Savannah
Savannah is the oldest city in Georgia, the colony’s
capital, and an important port. The city draws immigrants
from across Europe, including a significant Sephardic
Jewish population dating back to the 1730s. Of the
Thirteen Colonies, Georgia is the most lukewarm about
independence. The colony does not send representatives
Colonial Gazette
to the First Continental Congress, and it sends only a few
to the Second. The British take Savannah in 1778 and will
hold it until the end of the war, repulsing a 1779 French
and Continental siege that includes Haitian troops.
57. The Sea Islands
The Sea Islands are a low-lying chain of more than a
hundred tidal and barrier islands that stretch for over
three hundred miles along the coasts of South Carolina,
Georgia, and Florida.
The islands are well-suited for growing rice, but rice
requires specialized knowledge to grow at scale. People
from the “rice coast” in West Africa have been kidnapped,
enslaved, and sold to labor camps in the Sea Islands. However,
the same marshy conditions that encourage rice cultivation
also promote disease. Thus, the owners of the labor camps
spend as little time on the Sea Islands as possible, preferring
to leave the camps in the hands of Black overseers.
Enslaved rice farmers have little contact with
whites, and the culture and language developing on
the Sea Islands is more African and less English than
many mainland cultures. The population of the islands
develops a new Black culture and language called Gullah.
In June of 1776, the Sea Island known as Sullivan’s
Island is the location of the first decisive patriot victory
over the British Royal Navy. To defend Charles Town
against a British attack, South Carolinians and enslaved
Africans quickly build a palmetto-log fort on Sullivan's
Island. The palmetto trunks embedded in deep sand
prove pliable and sturdy enough, absorbing iron balls
like a sponge; despite heavy bombardment by the British,
the fort is only lightly damaged.
58. Squagonna Marsh
At the northern end of Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lakes
region lies a marsh that the Indigenous population calls
Squagonna, or “Paradise of Mosquitoes.” The name is
not hyperbolic, and it should be regarded with extreme
caution. Mosquitoes are vectors of fiendish illnesses such
as malaria and yellow fever, and are among the most
Colonial Gazette
dangerous creatures in the wilds of North America.
Most people, including Cayugas, avoid the marsh as
much as possible. When the mosquitoes go dormant in
winter, hunters venture into the marsh in pursuit of birds.
Eyewitness report “a sky black with ducks.” That is not
to say that mosquitoes are the only hazard. The wetlands
are also uneven and difficult to traverse, and will continue
to obstruct travel in the region until the Erie Canal is
completed in 1825.
59. St. Augustine
Located on the northeastern coast of Florida, St. Augustine
is the oldest continuously-inhabited settlement established
by Europeans in the United States. Spain founded St.
Augustine in 1565 as a military outpost. The settlement’s
star fort, the Castillo de San Marcos, was completed in
1695. The Castillo is built not of stone, but of seashells
naturally compacted and cemented together beneath
St. Augustine’s sandy beaches, then quarried and dried.
This material, called coquina, does not shatter like stone
does when struck by cannonballs, but absorbs, slows, and
gradually stops each shot harmlessly.
Spain cedes Florida to Britain after the French and
Indian War, and the British make St. Augustine the
capital of East Florida. The settlement doubles in size
under British rule. East and West Florida do not join the
Thirteen Colonies in their rebellion, and St. Augustine
becomes a refuge for Loyalists fleeing south from
Georgia and the Carolinas.
60. Standing Peachtree
At the modern site of Atlanta, Georgia, along the
Chattahoochee River, a network of Indigenous trails
cross at the Muscogee Creek village of Standing
Peachtree. The powerful but politically disunited Creek
Confederacy is the most populous successor to a vast
Medieval civilization, the Mississippian Culture, that
once dominated southeastern North America.
In the years before the Revolutionary War, the British
encouraged war between the Creeks and their Choctaw
| 22
neighbors in what is today Mississippi. Both sides were
encouraged to raid and kidnap citizens of the other
nation, then paid well to bring the prisoners to Charles
The War on the Lake
After the disastrous invasion of Quebec, Benedict
Town and sell them into slavery. These wars kept both
Arnold has to retreat in 1776 in the face of
powerful polities occupied and weakened them, as
overwhelming British reinforcements. As he moves
Creeks and Choctaws died on raids or were shipped to
south along the Lake Champlain corridor, Arnold
the Caribbean to labor on sugar plantations.
captures or burns ships, sawmills, and shipbuilding
When the Revolutionary War begins, the Creeks are
equipment that the British can use to take and
sympathetic to their British trading partners, but most
hold the lake. Arnold’s force is the sole Patriot
are unwilling to get involved lest the Patriots retaliate
corps on Lake Champlain and the only hope for
against them. By 1778, Patriot atrocities, miscalculations,
stopping the British from pushing south from the
and unprofitable trading drive many Creek towns and
lake onto the Hudson River.
clans to join the war on the British side. In 1782, as the
Outnumbered and poorly supplied, the Patriots
war dries up, the British abandon their Creek allies to the
build a swarm of small boats. Arnold engages a
Patriots, and the Creeks leave the war.
larger British fleet at the Battle of Valcour Island.
61. Ticonderoga He is defeated, but his strategy of delay works and
the British are not able to advance south that year.
Built by French military engineers as Fort Carillon,
Fort Ticonderoga is an imposing, modern structure
that controls an important portage site between Lake
Champlain and Lake George. In 1758, three hastily- 62. Vincennes
organized French brigades defeated a British assault force This frontier outpost in what is now western Indiana
nearly five times larger. A British attack the following year was established by the French as a fur-trading post in
with odds even more lopsided finally managed to take the early 18th century, and a village quickly sprung
the fort. In peacetime, Fort Ticonderoga was permitted to up around it. After the French and Indian War, Britain
deteriorate, and by 1773, it was in a ruinous condition. gained the territory and established a fort around the
Yet the fort commands a vital strategic location, so trading post and village, renaming it Fort Sackville. Still,
in 1775, it is bristling with cannons and powder, despite most of the settler population is French-speaking and
its ramshackle state and understaffed garrison. A quick refers to the area by its old name.
raid by the Patriot-aligned Vermont militia the Green When word reaches the people of Vincennes that
Mountain Boys captures the fort at the beginning of the France has allied with the Patriots, the residents begin to
war. The seized British cannons are brought to the siege drum up support for the Revolution. In 1778, Lieutenant
of Boston in 1776 and used to take the city. Colonel George Rogers Clark of Virginia sets out on an
In 1777, as part of the Saratoga campaign, the British expedition to capture British-occupied, culturally French
take Fort Ticonderoga without a long siege. The fort has a forts on the western frontier. Clark receives support from the
vulnerability that has gone long unappreciated: cannons local villagers, the Piankeshaw people, Italian merchant and
placed on a certain hilltop are able—just barely—to range Patriot agent Francis Vigo, and French missionary Pierre
the fort and fire down into it. The British haul cannons Gibault. Clark captures Vincennes in February 1779.
onto that hilltop and the Continental garrison retreats.
Later that same year, after the Saratoga campaign’s
defeat, the British destroy Fort Ticonderoga as best they
can and retreat north. The fort’s ruins play no further role
in the war.
 Inspired by Clark’s success at Vincennes, the rogue
French cavalry officer Augustin de La Balme attempts
a similar expedition against Fort Detroit in 1780. He
rallies support in Vincennes, leaning on his prestige
as a representative of France. Before La Balme and his
ill-prepared troops reach Detroit, they attack Kekionga,
the capital of the Miami nation. Miami chief Little Turtle
retaliates, and La Balme and his expedition are wiped out
almost to a man.
63. West Point
The Hudson River acts as a highway connecting the
British stronghold of New York City to the rest of New
York. If the river remains open to the British, they can
try to take Albany and the rich Hudson Valley at any
time. Fortress West Point is intended to stop them.
Construction is completed in 1780, though the fortress is
operational earlier. West Point overlooks a tight bend in
the Hudson River. Sailing ships have to tack around the
bend, which severely restricts their ability to maneuver
and fire at defenders. The fortress contains multiple walls
and sub-forts, some intended to fire down on ships in the
river, others to defend against land attack.
West Point’s most important feature, though, is the
Great Chain, completed in 1778. This immense chain
stretches from West Point on the river’s west bank to the
much smaller Fort Constitution near the east bank. The
chain is not taut, but curves like a necklace. Anchored log
rafts fifty feet long and twelve feet wide support the chain
along the surface of the river, physically stopping ships
from sailing past it. A great capstan in Fortress West
Point can lower the chain to admit ships. Every winter,
the chain is brought in so ice doesn’t damage it, and
engineers reinstall it during the spring thaw.
In 1780, West Point’s commander, Benedict Arnold,
turns traitor and tries to hand over the fortress to the
British, but he is discovered and flees. After the war,
the chain is left to rust on the riverbank. In 1802, West
Point will become the home of the United States Military
Academy.
64. The Western Reserve
The Western Reserve, also called New Connecticut and
the Connecticut Western Reserve, is a 5,000-square-mile
portion of the Ohio Country on the southern shores of
Lake Erie. For complicated reasons involving geopolitics,
bad maps, and shortsightedness, the colony of Connecticut
maintains a claim to this region. Nevermind that the
colonies of New York and Pennsylvania lie between
Connecticut and the Western Reserve. Connecticut’s royal
charter can be read as granting the colony the Western
Reserve, and Connecticut solidly insists upon that claim.
During the war, raiders from British-occupied New
York City terrorize Long Island Sound, plundering
food and supplies and burning villages sympathetic to
I have the pleasure
the Patriot cause. Many displaced citizens, including
Continental Army veterans, petition Connecticut for aid.
is in
A portion of the Western Reserve will be designated “the
Firelands,” and land grants are promised as restitution
after the war ends. It’s a promise worth even less than a
shippin g.
Continental Dollar.
Colonial Gazette
After the War’s end, most states cede their unresolved
land claims to Congress. Connecticut does not. The state
sells part of the Reserve to a land speculation company—
which promises to offer government services to settlers,
and never does so—while transfer of the Firelands is
held up by further delays in 1792. By the time people are
able to move to the Western Reserve, most are too old
to do so. In 1800 the federal government takes over the
Western Reserve and adds it to the Northwest Territory,
ending Connecticut’s farce.
65. Wilmington
First settled in the 1720s, Wilmington grew rapidly and
soon established itself as a major commercial port for the
southern colonies. Wilmington was particularly attractive
to former indentured servants, but critical labor shortages
and the unreliable nature of the indenture system lead to
widespread use of enslaved laborers.
Radicals in Wilmington rallied around Cornelius
Harnett to protest the Intolerable Acts. To celebrate his
receipt of his official royal commission as governor of
North Carolina, William Tryon brought an ox cart full of
punch to celebrate with the Wilmington townsfolk. The
timing was poor and Tryon was unpopular, and instead
of celebrating, the radicals stove in the punch barrels and
slaughtered the ox, sending its head to the stocks and
giving the meat to Wilmington’s enslaved workers.
This area is particularly radical in its opposition to British
tyranny, with many veterans of the short-lived Regulator
movement once again taking up arms against the crown.
66. Wyoming Valley
The Susquehanna River flows through this crescent-
shaped valley within Appalachia. This region has been
hotly contested for nearly a century, with Pennsylvania
and Connecticut both laying claim to the valley. Both
held royal charters granting them the land, due to poor
planning on the part of King Charles II.
For decades, homesteaders from Pennsylvania
and Connecticut have flooded into the valley. Armed
gangs from both sides patrolled the Wyoming Valley,
intimidating people from the other side into changing
their opinions or leaving. The so-called Pennamite–
Yankee Wars result in few deaths, but are still ongoing at
the time of the Revolution.
In 1778 the valley sees the Battle of Wyoming,
where a Loyalist and Haudenosaunee force obliterates
a Continental one. The lopsided outcome is the result
of greater skill on the part of the Haudenosaunees.
The Continentals break at the first sign of trouble,
making them easy pickings for their more-disciplined
adversaries. For propaganda purposes, the Patriots
reframe their military defeat as a massacre of innocent
non-combatants by a cruel and villainous enemy.
th is rebel town . . .
to ass ure you th at
and
see the blaze of the town
as he s. It is gl or iou s to
ca rn ag e of these rebels.
I ex ul t in the
burning of Norfolk
— B ri tis h off ice r at the
 3

11 2

6 10

9
12
13 8

0 mi 1/2 mi 1 mi

B oston
Boston, the largest and most successful city in Massachusetts,
lies on the Shawmut Peninsula, overlooking the Atlantic
Ocean. The city is at the edge of Suffolk County, and the
peninsula is surrounded by largely rural and suburban
communities including Roxbury, Cambridge, Charles
Town, and Dorchester. The farming families of the
countryside engage in trade with the city but are more
inclined to keep to themselves.
T he C ity U pon a H ill
The Shawmut Peninsula was originally settled by the
Massachusett tribe, an Algonquin-speaking people
whose population was devastated by diseases brought by
early British explorers.
Boston, first established by Europeans in 1630 is one of
the oldest cities in the British colonies. The Massachusetts
Bay Colony was envisioned as a theocratic utopia, a
shining “City Upon a Hill," by its Puritan settlers. The
Puritans, Congregationalist Protestant nonconformists
who sought to “purify” the Anglican Church, immigrated
to North America in droves to escape persecution in
England. This religious haven, however, was intended for
Puritans only, with other religious practitioners subject to
beatings, banishment, and execution. Massachusetts has
become much more secular in the past hundred years, and
the City Upon a Hill is now a hub of commerce.
Massachusetts has always had an independent spirit.
The Puritans defied the Crown a century ago by minting
their own currency, expanding their trade routes, and
establishing their own laws. As part of the Glorious
Revolution of 1688, a crowd of Bostonians revolted
against the royal governor, placing him under arrest and
forcing him to flee to New York.
Boston was a hotbed of Revolutionary activity following
the Stamp Act of 1765. The Sons of Liberty were founded
by Samuel Adams in Boston that year, and the city streets
were often flooded with protesters. During some of these
protests, mobs of Bostonians destroyed British property
and beat and harassed customs officials and tax collectors.
Revolutionary writers wrote and distributed pamphlets
critical of the British government, and many businesses
boycotted British goods. In response to the escalating
protests, Britain deployed soldiers to Boston in 1768.
On March 5, 1770, British troops opened fire on a
group of protestors. This “Boston Massacre” resulted
in the deaths of five civilians, one of whom, a Black and
Indigenous sailor named Crispus Attucks, is hailed as
the first martyr of the Revolution. On December 16,
1773, the Sons of Liberty held a protest that resulted in
the destruction of a shipment of tea from the East India
Company. The British responded to the Boston Tea Party
by passing a series of "Intolerable" Acts in 1774, which
demanded recompense for the damage and placed more
restrictions on the colonists. Boston is under British
control from the beginning of the war until March
1776, when the long siege of the city is ended by the
Continental Army’s fortification of Dorchester Heights.
Colonial Gazette
The Emerald with a vivid
verdure glows
Among the gems which re
gal crowns compose;
Boston’s a town, polite and
debonair,
To which the beaux and bea
uteous nymphs repair
—Phillis Wheatley, 1773
P opulation
Between fifteen and sixteen thousand people call
Boston home.
The boom in trade has brought more diversity to
Boston in terms of immigration and religious sects,
though newcomers are overwhelmingly white and
Protestant. More recent European immigrants include
the Irish, Scottish, French, and German. Some arrived in
Boston as indentured servants.
By the 1750s, there are estimated to be around 4,500
people of African descent enslaved in Massachusetts.
In Boston, many wealthy households rely on enslaved
people for domestic labor. However, a small, burgeoning
Abolitionist movement has been emerging in the city
in the past few decades. The mid-1760s and 70s saw a
wave of lawsuits brought to gain freedom and financial
compensation for the enslaved.
There is also a free Black population in the city. Many
free people of color find work at the docks or aboard
ships. Some have found social and financial success in
whaling or privateering.
A rts and E ducation
Boston is known for its educational institutions. The
Puritan founders of the colony placed great value on
literacy. The colony’s first public school, Boston Latin
School, was founded in 1635. Harvard College, located in
Cambridge, was established in 1636.
The Concert Hall, a performance venue, opened its
doors in Boston’s North End in 1752. Before the war,
the Hall hosted a variety of entertainment including
concerts, plays, operas, banquets, and readings.
Additionally, Boston is home to several periodicals,
including the Boston Gazette, Royal American Magazine,
and Massachusetts Spy.
S ights of the C ity
Boston is not a planned city but developed as it grew,
without thought for a cohesive layout. Many roads started
as cow paths, resulting in a winding, often confusing
system of streets and alleyways. Following the Great Fire
of 1760, most new buildings are made of brick or stone.
Fines are imposed on new wooden structures over seven
feet high.
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 The following are places of interest in and around
Boston that characters may explore:
1. Boston Harbor
Shipping is the lifeblood of Boston, and the harbor is
always teeming with activity. Ships are constantly coming
and going from the Old and Long Wharfs. Sailors and
dock workers rush about, loading and unloading cargo.
Well-guarded warehouses dot the landscape. A great
lighthouse sits on a small island about three miles from
the wharf. The smell of fish and salty sea air is ever present.
The Docks are a very social scene. Whalers and fishers
boast of their bounties or commiserate over light catches.
People of all classes come to gossip at the market.
Demagogues of all factions preach atop overturned
crates, attempting to draw crowds of dock workers and
teenagers whom they may be able to work up into a mob
with a powerful speech.
By speaking to the right person (or eavesdropping on
their conversations), you may learn some secrets of the city.
d8 Rumor
Young Jimmy Hawthorne, who usually hangs around
1 the Charles River, north of Boston. Most of the city is
the docks, has run away to join the army.
There is a meeting tonight between the captain of a mer-
2 in June of 1775. Though the Patriots gain control of the
chant ship and a smuggler who is hoping to make a deal.
A British merchant vessel, carrying cargo intended for
the redcoats, was due in port two weeks ago. There's
3
been no sign of it, and the local battallions are running
short of supplies.
Sherman, who guards one of the southernmost ware-
4 The Boston Common is a green space reserved for public
houses, will accept any bribe.
Two well-known rival demagogues, one Loyalist, one Patri-
5
ot, have been meeting in secret at a tavern across town.
One of the merchant ships in port was supposed to head
6 out today, but the captain has been passed out drunk in a
tavern since last night.
Some people around the docks believe that the fire that
7
broke out at a warehouse last month was no accident.
There's an old cellar door on the Governor's property.
8 One of the servants in the household has confided to
his sister that it doesn't lock properly anymore.
2. Bunker Hill
The famous Bunker Hill of the early war overlooks
Boston from across the Charles River in Charles Town.
Those wishing to visit the site will first pass Breed’s Hill,
where much of the famed 1775 Battle was actually fought.
Both hills are strategically valuable due to their height
and proximity to Boston. The rebouts built on the hills
remain and may be utilized in case of a skirmish.
3. Cambridge
When the Siege of Boston begins, George Washington takes
command of the soldiers camped on Cambridge Commons
on July 3, 1775. Cambridge remains the most important part
27 |
of the Patriot camp for the duration of the siege. Much
of the land around Cambridge is part of the estates of
Loyalist landowners and is confiscated after the war.
4. Castle Island
So called for its large stone fort, “Castle William," Castle
Island defends Boston Harbor and the main approach to
the city by sea. The island was first fortified in 1634, and
many improvements have been made on the fort in the
century since. Castle William has served as a prison as
well as a military base. In 1775, Prince Hall and about a
dozen others were initiated on the island as the first Black
Freemasons in the colonies. The British use it as a base of
operations during their occupation of Boston. When the
Siege ends in 1776, they destroy Castle William before
evacuating the island. The Continental Army rebuilds the
fort soon after. The island is about two and a half miles off
Boston’s waterfront. It can be reached by boat, though any
who approach too closely must signal the fort or risk being
fired upon.
5. Charles Town
The ruins of Charles Town lie on a peninsula across
destroyed by the British during the Battle of Bunker Hill
area in 1776, efforts to rebuild Charles Town are slow. The
burnt shells of abandoned homes and crumbling stone
walls serve as a striking reminder of the war that rages on
beyond Boston.
6. The Common
use in the heart of downtown. Bostonians gather there for
celebrations and protests, the militia trains at its center,
and livestock can be found grazing at all times of the day.
A wooden gallows stands at the edge of the Common for
public executions. Criminals, pirates, accused witches,
and Quakers were all counted among the gallows’ past
victims. The British Army sets up camp on the Common
during the unrest of the 1760s, and are only driven out
with the end of the British occupation in 1776. The old
Granary Burying Ground is located on the Tremont
Street side of the park. Many prominent Bostonians
are interred there, including the martyrs of the Boston
Massacre. The Hancock mansion prominently overlooks
the Common. The family regularly contributes to park
activities, even building a bandstand there in 1771.
7. Dorchester Heights
Dorchester Heights is a largely rural area on the mainland,
south of Boston. As one of the highest points in the Boston
area, it provides breathtaking views of downtown and
the Harbor, and is highly coveted as a strategic vantage
point. It is here that the Ticonderoga artillery is placed
in the dead of night, ending the long Siege of Boston.
Some artifacts of that fateful night can still be found as
one ascends the Heights, including the remains of hastily-
constructed fortifications of earth and wood.
Colonial Gazette

Tide Mills
Tide mills, water mills powered by the influx of
seawater at high tide, proved advantageous
for the early industrialists of Boston. The salty
seawater did not freeze during the winter, allowing
the mills to operate all year. The reliable flow of
water meant that mill operators were not left high
and dry in times of drought, and high and low
tides could be charted so owners could know
exactly when their mills would be functioning.
Mill Pond has also become a dumping ground
for the surrounding neighborhood. Those who have
built their homes on the Pond’s edge have built out
their land with dirt and household trash. You never
know what you may dredge up from the depths.
8. Faneuil Hall
The brick facade of the waterfront marketplace and
meeting house is unmistakable.
Originally built in 1742, it was rebuilt following a
fire in 1762. The ground level has an open floorplan to
accommodate the flow of customers passing through the
market stalls and tables heaped with goods waiting to
be sold. Vendors call out to hawk their wares. Servants
catch up on local gossip, while merchants exchange the
latest business news and tips. Anything you wish to buy
can likely be found here. The second floor serves as an
assembly room where the city’s leaders meet to discuss
and debate politics and recent events. In the years
leading up to the Revolution, Faneuil Hall served as the
backdrop for impassioned speeches from provocateurs,
such as Samuel Adams and James Otis Jr., urging
American independence.
9. King’s Chapel
King’s Chapel and Old Burying Ground are located at the
intersection of Tremont and School Streets. While the
cemetery has been in use since Boston’s founding, the
first chapel was not built until 1688, when the Anglican
congregation was established by the much-hated royal
governor, Sir Edmund Andros. The old wooden church
was replaced by a stone chapel in 1754. The interior boasts
an impressive organ, as well as box pews that are rented
and decorated by congregation members.
The Chapel’s bell, cast in England, has been largely
silent in recent years. The Patriots, loath to acknowledge
the King’s authority, refer to the church as simply the
“Stone Chapel." It becomes vacant after most of its Loyalist
congregants flee the city. The grounds are a peaceful spot,
and one may find some respite from the city’s hustle and
bustle in the Chapel’s sanctuary or walking among the
gravemarkers and tombs of the colony’s Puritan founders.
10. Mill Pond
A large, human-made pond lies at the west side of
the peninsula, along which Boston’s proto-industrial
Colonial Gazette
hub is located. Mill Pond was constructed in the mid
17th century to power corn and grist mills. Mill Creek
connects the Pond to the Harbor, and also acts as a
border between the north and south sections of the city.
Two bridges cross Mill Creek, on Middle Street and
Ann Street. At high tide, water from the Harbor rushes
through the creek into the pond, providing reliable, year-
round power to the mills. Over the years, wharves, homes,
and businesses have popped up around Mill Pond. The
water of the Pond is deep enough to accommodate small
vessels and can be a shortcut to some points in Boston.
d8 Junk Dredged from Mill Pond
A disgusting ball of mud and trash. At the center is a
1
counterfeit coin.
2 A set of thieves' tools.
3 A long hunting knife with a distinctive ivory handle.
4 A single cart wheel.
5
A bundle of what appear to be love letters, so water
damaged as to be almost completely illegible.
A ratty overcoat with a few coins in the pockets and "J
6
Hawthorne" stitched into the collar.
7 A pair of once-fine pants.
8
A small leather pouch, inside of which is a pocket watch
engraved with the initials S.A.
11. Mount Whoredom
The backslope of Beacon Hill has been known for decades
as “Mount Whoredom” for the less-conventional activities
one can find there. This red light district is a favorite haunt
of soldiers and sailors. Besides the abundance of wine,
women, and song at Mount Whoredom, one can also find
gambling, boxing, and ninepins.
12. The Neck
The Boston Neck is a strip of land connecting the
peninsular Boston to mainland Roxbury. The road
narrows and widens with the tides. The British fortify it
heavily, and the Patriots maintain this security when they
retake the city. Anyone entering or exiting the city via the
Neck must pass through a checkpoint and is subject to
being searched.
13. Old South Meeting House
The Old South Meeting House, built in 1729, is a
Congregationalist church located in downtown Boston.
Its most distinguishing feature is its steeple, which
stands almost 185 feet tall. The Meeting House has been
a center of revolutionary activity since the 1760s. After
the Boston Massacre in 1770, annual meetings were held
there featuring such famous speakers as Samuel Adams
and John Hancock. It was the meeting point for the
Boston Tea Party in 1773.
When the British occupy the city, the Meeting House
is gutted, filled with dirt, and used as an indoor horse-
riding ring. After the Patriots retake Boston, they make
efforts to restore the interior to its former glory.
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N ew Y ork C ity
New York City is a hub of culture and commerce. It is
located on Manhattan Island, with the Hudson River
to the west and the East River to the east. The narrow
Harlem River to the north separates the island from the
mainland. New York Harbor opens south to the Atlantic
Ocean. North of the city, British control gradually fades
into the anarchic and contested "neutral ground" of
Westchester County.
H istory
Manhattan Island and the surrounding region are
part of the homeland of the Lenapes, who first made
contact with Europeans in 1524. The Dutch began to
settle on Manhattan Island in 1614. In 1624, the Dutch
East India Company officially established a city on
the island and named it New Amsterdam. The oldest
Jewish congregation in the colonies, Shearith Israel, was
established in 1654 by Sephardic Jewish immigrants to
New Amsterdam. Though the city was surrendered to the
English in 1664, the influence of the Dutch can still be
felt in place names and the names of the older, wealthier
families. The English renamed the city New York in
honor of James, the Duke of York.
Under English rule, immigration to New York
increased. Its port makes the city a center of trade
and commerce. A post road was built in 1673 between
New York and Boston. New York was an early center of
anti-British sentiment. The city hosted the Stamp Act
Congress of 1765, which aimed to organize a unified
protest among the colonies against British taxation. The
New York branch of the Sons of Liberty was established
the same year.
After the end of the Siege of Boston in 1776, the
Continental Army moves to New York City in an attempt
to save it from British capture. They do not succeed. The
redcoats take the city and keep it until the end of the war.
P opulation
British-occupied New York City has become a haven for
Loyalists refugees. By the end of the occupation in 1783,
the city’s population will reach over thirty thousand.
Some Patriots have remained in the city to prevent the
seizure or destruction of their homes and businesses.
During the occupation, around ten thousand Black
Loyalists move into the city following a British promise
of freedom. The chaos and confusion of the war provides
an opportunity for enslaved people in the surrounding
areas to escape to the city. Nevertheless, slavery is still
practiced in New York by both Loyalists and Patriots.
Checkpoints spring up around New York; the streets
The City
are patrolled by redcoats, Hessians, and a volunteer
situated on
militia of Loyalist refugees. When possible, the city's
residents try to maintain a semblance of normal life.
shipping
strangers, and fare well in
Colonial Gazette
Coffeehouse / Pub Culture
New York City is known for its hospitality, and also
its abundance of alcohol. Meeting over a drink,
be it beer or coffee, is an essential part of the
New York social scene. Taverns and coffeehouses
were instrumental in uniting and mobilizing
revolutionaries throughout New York City. These
establishments provide a space for people from
all walks of life to mingle and discuss politics,
philosophy, and recent events. Once news breaks,
the patrons of any given bar or coffeehouse are
the first to know.
B ritish O ccupation
The British Occupation has precipitated a housing crisis
made worse by fire. The Great Fire of 1776 breaks out five
days after the British land in Manhattan, and it destroys
nearly a quarter of the homes in the city. The housing
shortage worsens as Loyalist refugees stream in. All
habitable abandoned buildings have been seized for use by
the army. Unhappy troops squat in hastily-built barracks or
tents, or else are quartered in private homes. Soldiers take
precedence over civilians, leaving many families in dire
straits. Such close quarters breed stress and resentment
between residents.
As the occupation drags on and New York City
swells with Loyalists, the mood of the city grows
paranoid. Loyalists are first convinced that the war will
be over any moment; how could these rag-tag rebels
stand against the might of the British Army? But years
pass and the war doesn't end. The only explanation
many Loyalist residents can fathom is treachery. Some
supposed Loyalists must not be giving the British cause
their all. Some might even be secretly working for the
Continentals! Neighbors report neighbors for perceived
disloyalty and seek to outdo one another in public
displays of fealty. The Loyalist paranoia isn't misplaced;
the city leaks information like a sieve. The Continentals
always know what the British are up to in New York.
Keeping an occupied city supplied is another
challenge for the British Army. Across the colonies,
the British struggle to establish and protect reliable
supply chains. While New York’s port makes shipping
more accessible, there is no guarantee of when goods
will arrive, or how much will be intact. Shipments from
Britain often fall prey to bad weather, poor quality
control, and Continental privateers.
e,
easant, well-compacted plac
N ew Y or k is a pl
of
ich is a fine harbor for
a com m odiou s ri ve r wh
one another, courteous to
. . . T he y are soc ia bl e to
their houses.
1705
—Sarah Kemble Knight,
 The British have turned to raiding the countryside
to supply the overcrowded city. It is time-consuming
and often demoralizing work that many troops feel is
beneath them. Raiding can also be dangerous, as soldiers
open themselves to attack from Continental troops or
marauders. The land between the Continental and British
lines outside the city devolves into bloody anarchy as
roving gangs loyal to neither side raid and counter-raid
across the neutral ground.
Where there are Loyalists and British officers, there
are secrets to be discovered. If characters eavesdrop, they
might learn something juicy.
d8 British Secret
The redcoats are planning a raid on Patriot militia
1 ships and coastal farms throughout Long Island Sound.
supply stores beyond the neutral ground.
The Loyalist militia in the city is hunting a Patriot spy
2 named Coombe who is said to be passing informa-
tion somewhere in Ranelagh Garden.
Several younger British officers are gambling large
3
sums in the Holy Ground district.
A sailor named Drebber was seen speaking to a
4 British officer. The next day, his ship's first mate
disappeared.
There is a small gap in the stone wall surrounding an
5 old mansion that was recently turned into officer's
quarters.
A Loyalist militiaman was tasked with informing Brit-
6 ish officials about new supply caches. He is meeting
with officers in the Battery tomorrow.
A prominent Loyalist merchant is deeply in debt and
7
needs his ship to make port soon to avoid defaulting.
British officers will meet in their quarters tonight to
8
discuss future troop movements.
S ights of the C ity
Since the Great Fire, the British have not had much time
or many supplies to devote to rebuilding. Below are some
surviving locations characters may explore in New York:
1. The Battery
In the 1620s, the Dutch built a fort on southern
Manhattan. The British expanded and renamed it multiple
times before settling on "Fort George." The first artillery
battery on Manhattan's southern tip was constructed in
the 1680s to defend the city during King William’s War.
It gave the name "the Battery" to the whole southern tip of
the city. The Patriots briefly controlled the Battery in 1776
before abandoning New York. During the occupation, the
Battery is the strongest area of British presence.
2. Bowery Lane
Used for centuries as a trail by Lenapes and Wappingers,
the route known as Bowery Lane stretches from the city
center to the far north of Manhattan. Cattlemen from
Westchester County have long used Bowery Lane to
bring livestock to market, though that trade has dried
31 |
up following the county's descent into anarchy. Some
farmers sell their goods from wagons along Bowery Lane
outside the city to avoid city taxes.
3. Brook Land Ferry
This ferry runs between Maiden Lane in New York City
and Ferry Road on Long Island to the east. As the boat
crosses the East River, passengers can see the British
warships moored offshore. Long Island is the site of a
great many Loyalist refugee camps. These camps can
be dangerous. Because the British offer little help, many
refugees are forced to turn bandit or pirate to survive.
The camp surrounding the military headquarters at
Lloyd's Neck, in northern Long Island, is particularly
notorious. Starving Loyalists there use longboats to raid
4. Fresh Water Pond
Fresh Water Pond, also known as Collect Pond, covers
forty-eight acres just north of the city. The pond, fed by
an underground spring, is the city’s main source of fresh
water. A small stream runs from the pond to the Hudson
River. Some parts of the pond are sixty feet deep, and a
few locals claim it's bottomless. It is a popular fishing
spot, though the use of nets was banned in 1734 to
prevent overfishing. New Yorkers picnic along the shore
in the summer and ice skate on the frozen pond in the
winter. In recent decades, runoff from a nearby tannery
and slaughterhouse have impacted the water quality.
Some neighbors dump their trash in it.
5. King’s College
Since the British occupation, King’s College has become
nearly unrecognizable as an institution of higher learning.
Classes were suspended at the start of the war and will not
resume until the British abandon the city. The main hall of
King’s College has been repurposed as a military hospital
and barracks for British and Hessian troops. The college,
established in 1754 under a charter granted by King
George II, remains loyal to the Crown, even if its students
were seized by the revolutionary spirit.
At the start of the war, several King’s College
students, including Alexander Hamilton and Robert
Troup, join a local militia called the Hearts of Oak
(originally the Corsicans). This unit becomes famous for
its successful raid on the Battery in 1775. The library at
King’s College is now largely empty, having been looted
by soldiers and opportunistic New Yorkers. The school’s
medical college has also been ransacked, its contents
distributed to British doctors or sold by profiteers.
6. Monument to General Wolfe
Major-General James Wolfe was the British commander
at the Siege of Quebec in the French and Indian War
and died at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. An
obelisk was erected soon after Wolfe's death by Robert
Monckton, who was Wolfe's second-in-command at
Quebec and a royal governor shortly thereafter. The
monument still stands, though its out-of-the-way location
in the rural village of Greenwich makes it a prime target
for Patriot vandals.
Colonial Gazette
7. Holy Ground
This ironically-named red light district occupies a stretch
of land between Trinity Church (lost in the Great Fire) and
King’s College. Trinity Church owns it and leases plots to
working-class tenants and transient businesses. The area
was once infamous as a place of pleasure and debauchery,
boasting brothels, bars, and bull-baiting. Much of the
Holy Ground area is destroyed in the Great Fire. Though
some residents and business owners have tried to resume
business as usual, the area will remain in ruins for the rest
of the British occupation.
d8 Discoveries in the Holy Ground Ruins
1 A mugger is following the party.
An intact, watertight basement concealed under rubble,
2 Job posting: a tutor in Latin, Greek, and mathematics
not yet discovered by unhoused refugees.
A blackout drunk whose feet took him into his old
3 A notice by a prominent Loyalist not to extend his
carousing grounds by reflex.
Personalized buttons beside a skeleton. They match
4 those described in a newspaper notice about a miss-
ing Patriot from the Hearts of Oak militia.
Two prostitutes are working out of a half-repaired
5 10
home. An Anglican priest is hassling them.
Stolen goods recently concealed by a Loyalist bandit
6
terrorizing Westchester County.
7 Secret meeting between a Patriot spy and her informant.
8 A charred watch inscribed "P. Stuyvesant."
8. Paulus Hook Ferry
The New Jersey ferry, established in 1764, runs across the
Hudson River between Courtland Street in New York and
Paulus Hook in mainland New Jersey. Paulus Hook also
hosts a British-occupied fort. Warships and prison ships
lie at anchor in easy range of the ferry's path.
9. Ranelagh Garden
Based on a London pleasure garden of the same name,
Ranelagh Garden hosts summertime concerts and
firework displays. It is also used as a performance space
for plays, magic shows, feats of strength, and other
exhibitions. A similar pleasure garden, the Vauxhall on
Greenwich Street, boasts a wax museum.
10. Rivington’s Print Shop
The infamous print shop of James Rivington (see page
XYZ) is located in Hanover Square. The shop is burned
and looted by the Sons of Liberty in 1775 but has been
rebuilt since Rivington’s return to the City after a stint
in London. It is here that he publishes his inflammatory
Rivington’s New York Loyal Gazette (changed to The Royal
Gazette in 1777). While his Loyalist readers and clientele
know Rivington as a staunch ally of the Crown, the
occasional rumor places him in unscrupulous locations
after curfew. What clandestine business Rivington is
conducting, and with whom, is anyone's guess.
Colonial Gazette
d10 Advertisements in Rivington's Gazette
1 Remarkable cures, secured by the king's patent.
2 A reward for the apprehension of the characters.
Offered for sale, a boathouse that is conveniently
3
placed for rendezvous with spies crossing the river.
A notice from someone the characters know as a
4 vanished Continental informant, telling her husband
to inquire with the printer for her whereabouts.
A scrivener offers competitive loans and to recover
5 other people's debts expeditiously without involving
the courts. He might be hiring legbreakers.
A reward for returning a stolen strawberry roan, and
6
another for capturing the horse thief.
7
for the child of a senior British officer.
8
wife credit, for he will not pay her debts.
Offered for sale, tracts of land that the characters know
9
to be unceded Native territory in active habitation.
A reward for the return of an enslaved child who has
fled slavery. The characters saw her yesterday. If they
recognize her description, others less ethical will too.
11. St. Paul’s Chapel
Located on Broadway near the harbor, St. Paul’s Chapel
and graveyard serves the city's Anglican community.
The chapel is the tallest building in New York, built in
1766 as an extension of Trinity Church to accommodate
the growing congregation. It has become the primary
Anglican place of worship since the loss of Trinity
Church in the Great Fire. Before the British occupation,
the chapel’s graveyard was used as a training ground by
the Hearts of Oak Patriot militia.
12. Stuyvesant Farms
Of the six initial estates of the Dutch West India
Company, the largest was the home of Peter Stuyvesant,
the last director-general of the Dutch colony. Today it
is the home of another Peter Stuyvesant, the former
director-general's great-grandson. The mansion on the
estate burns in 1778, an incident unrelated to the Great
Fire.
13. Wall Street
Wall Street is the city's financial hub. It is named for the
wooden wall that once ran 2,300 feet along the street,
built by the Dutch to protect New Amsterdam from the
British, pirates, and Lenapes. The wall fell into disrepair
in the late 17th century and was demolished in 1699. The
Dutch established an outdoor market along the street.
New York City’s slave market was located at Wall and
Pearl Streets and was active from 1711 to 1762. The city
greatly benefited from the taxes collected on the sale of
enslaved Africans, and the memory is still fresh for those
who benefited and suffered from the market.
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P hiladelphia
Philadelphia is the capital of Pennsylvania, and the de
facto capital of the new United States. The city is at the
confluence of two important waterways—the Delaware
River and the Schuylkill River—which gives Philadelphians
valuable access to the Atlantic Ocean and into mainland
Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York.
Philadelphia is the fastest-growing city in Pennsylvania,
and the largest city in the United States.
C ity of B rotherly L ove
The land on which Philadelphia was built was inhabited
by the Lenape people, also called the Delawares.
European colonization of the region began in the
early 17th century with Dutch and Swedish settlers
establishing communities in the Delaware River Valley.
The new Province of Pennsylvania was founded in
1681 by William Penn, a Quaker who sought to build
a society based on religious freedom. Penn purchased
the land from the Lenapes in an attempt to foster good
relations and established a treaty of friendship with the
Lenape chief Tammany. These good feelings did not last.
European expansion, disease, and intertribal conflicts
drove the Lenapes west into the Ohio Country.
Philadelphia, which translates as “the City of Brotherly
Love”, was established as the capital of Pennsylvania.
Though the city was economically depressed in its early
years, it experienced an upturn in the 1750s. Since then,
Philadelphia has grown rapidly and is now the largest
city in the Thirteen Colonies.
Philadelphia also serves as the de facto capital of the
new rebel country. The city hosted the First Continental
Congress in 1774, and now is the headquarters for the
provisional government, the Second Continental Congress.
P opulation
As immigration to Philadelphia increased, Quakers
became outnumbered by other religious groups,
including Catholics, Anglicans, Swedish and German
Lutherans, and Mennonites. The Jewish Congregation
Mikveh Israel was established in 1740.
Much of the city’s population is of English, Irish,
Scottish, Welsh, and German descent. Some Swedish,
Finnish, and Dutch families from the surrounding areas
have also settled in Philadelphia. There is a community
of people of African descent in the city, both free and
enslaved. By 1767, 15% of Philadelphia households
included enslaved workers. This number will gradually
decrease as the state’s Quakers grow more uneasy with
slavery and eventually make abolishing the institution an
article of faith.
Philadelphia is consequently the heart of the
burgeoning abolitionist movement in the Thirteen
Colonies. The 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against
Slavery, the first official petition against slavery made
by a white religious group in British North America, was
Colonial Gazette
British Occupation
If visiting Philadelphia between September 1777
and June 1778, characters will find the city under a
British occupation. Following the Battle of Brandywine,
the Continental Army is pushed north by British forces,
and the capital is deserted by Congress and thousands
of Philadelphians.
As in New York City, the British in Philadelphia
are plagued by supply chain issues, resulting in
near constant shortages of goods and reserves for
the army, and high prices on food and household
items for civilians. This, coupled with some unsavory
behavior on the part of British and Hessian soldiers
in the city and surrounding area, greatly strains the
relationship between the redcoats and Loyalist locals.
In April of 1778, to honor General William Howe, a
theatrical event called the Meschianza is organized in
the city. The main event features a joust between two
fictional houses: the Burning Mountain and Blended
Rose. The celebration is received well by some, but
is largely criticized as an unnecessary extravagance
and a waste of supplies for the sake of vanity.
drafted just north of the city. The petition was forwarded
up the local Quaker hierarchy but was ultimately neither
approved nor rejected. The Society for the Relief of Free
Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage was founded on
April 15, 1775 by Anthony Benezet. The Society has
suspended activities during the war, but many of its
members still promote their ideals in the city and abroad.
Free Black entrepreneurs and craftspeople also push for
the abolition of slavery and the expansion of their rights
in the state. The Pennsylvania General Assembly passes
an Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery in 1780,
before the Revolutionary War even ends. While the act
aims to phase out the institution of slavery in the state
via gradual manumission, it does not free anyone who
was enslaved before its passage.
C ity of I nvention
In the past quarter century the city has become a hub
of cultural and scientific development, in no small
part due to the efforts of Philadelphia's most famous
resident, Benjamin Franklin. Franklin founded the Library
Company of Philadelphia in 1731, and he aided in the
establishment of the Pennsylvania Hospital, the Union
Fire Company, and the American Philosophical Society.
The College of Philadelphia was chartered in 1755.
Philadelphia’s streets are largely paved, and the oil lamps
lighting them have been improved by Franklin to prevent
vandalism or fire.
Philadelphia is also home to some of the United
States’ most-read newspapers, including The Philadelphia
Gazette, The Pennsylvania Journal, The Pennsylvania
Chronicle, and The Pennsylvania Packet.
| 34

S ights of the C ity
In keeping with his utopian ideals, William Penn
designed Philadelphia along a grid plan with designated
public parks, a commercial center, and spread-out lots
buffered by gardens and orchards. The residents of
Philadelphia did not share Penn’s open-city vision. They
have since subdivided and sold their lots, leading to a
slightly more congested layout. Even so, the city is clean
and easy to navigate.
The following are some locations that characters may
wish to explore in Philadelphia:
1. British Fortifications
During the occupation of 1777-1778, the British build
a series of outposts and fortifications to stave off
Continental Army attacks. The Patriots who later re-take
Philadelphia maintain these fortifications to keep the
British at bay.
2. Carpenters’ Hall
This two-story brick meeting hall can be found on
Chestnut Street. It was built for the Carpenters’
Company of the City and County of Philadelphia, the
oldest craft guild in the country. The Carpenters still
own the Hall, but it has hosted several groups since its
opening, including the First Continental Congress and
the Pennsylvania Provincial Conference. Now, the first
and second floors of Carpenters’ Hall serve as a military
hospital. The cellar and first floor are also used by the
U.S. Barracks Master and the U.S. Commissary General as
an office and storehouse.
3. Fort Mifflin
To defend Philadelphia against incursions from the sea,
from 1626 onwards the Swedish, Dutch, and British all
fortified the Delaware River. One key defense point is
an island just downstream of the confluence with the
Schuylkill River. In 1771, the British started building Fort
Mifflin on the island, then stopped after they completed
one wall in 1773. When the British take Philadelphia, the
fort's Continental defenders stay put. The small garrison is
able to prevent British ships from sailing up the Delaware
to resupply and reinforce Philadelphia. The largest
obstacle is a system of chevaux de frise in the river: giant
underwater caltrops or stakes to catch ships. The British
cannot remove the chevaux de frise around Fort Mifflin
as long as the fort is occupied. This complication buys
Washington time to dig in at Valley Forge.
When the British move to take Fort Mifflin, it requires
the largest bombardment in the history of the North
Philadelphia is beyond my
Expectation; and when I
consider
that it contains near 20,0
00 Inhabitants of Many
Nations and Religions and
is in beauty, Trade, Rich
not inferior to many cities es,
in Europe.
—George Washington, 1760
American continent to dislodge the Continental garrison.
Two thousand British soldiers and 250 ships shoot
over 10,000 shells at the fort—which is little more than
a starving garrison huddled behind a single wall. The
Patriot defenders cannot even lie down to sleep without
fear of sinking into the mud and drowning. When the
Continentals finally retreat across the Delaware to safety,
they burn the fort behind them.
4. "Fort Wilson"
On October 4, 1779, a year after the British retreat from
Philadelphia, class tensions spill into violence. Rising
food prices, and the refusal of the city's merchant-
dominated government to accept price controls, drive
unrest. The city's wealthiest take refuge in the home
of lawyer and statesman James Wilson. A popular
mob—almost all of the members of which have militia
experience—unsuccessfully besiege Wilson's home.
Six people are killed and seventeen wounded before
order is restored. The Pennsylvania government
responds with limited reforms to lower food prices, and
no one is prosecuted. However, the mob's actions sour
Pennsylvania's political moderates on populism, and
further reforms stall.
5. The Franklin House
Through an alleyway off Market Street, one can pass
through a lush courtyard to the home of Benjamin
Franklin. The two-story brick house was built in 1763.
Though Franklin is in France acting as ambassador, the
house is occupied by Sally Bache, the daughter of his
late common-law wife Deborah Reed. Sally, her husband
Richard, and their children keep the home and garden neat
and tidy in Franklin’s absence, and they may be inclined
to show a curious visitor around his library and laboratory.
Of the inventions and improvements Franklin has tinkered
with, characters may find any of the following:
d8 Franklin's Devices
The Key. A bent and twisted piece of metal that has
1
been struck by lightning.
Swim Fins. Wide, flat paddles with straps for hands,
2
used to propel someone through the water.
Bifocals. A pair of spectacles with variances in the lenses
3
that allow for both near- and farsighted vision improvement.
An Odometer. A device used to track miles
4 traveled. While not a Franklin original, he seems to
be trying to improve on the design.
The Franklin Stove. An improved stove with a vent
5 system designed to provide more heat and less
smoke than a standard open fireplace.
Plans for a Three-Wheel Clock. A set of blueprints
6 for a clock showing hours, minutes, and seconds by
use of three wheels and two pinions.
The Glass Armonica. A huge rack of spinning glass
7
bowls. It produces beautiful music, but breaks easily.
The Long Arm. A long stick with a set of gripping
8 flaps at the end, which can be used to pick up
objects from afar.
Colonial Gazette
6. Shipyard
Philadelphia is the biggest shipbuilding center in the
Thirteen Colonies. The city has cheap labor, skilled
carpenters, iron forges, and easy access to lumber, all
helping Philadelphia edge out Boston by 1750. The need
for new merchant ships keeps the Delaware riverfront
and the city's shipwrights busy.
When the war begins, Congress raises money
for a Continental Navy. Philadelphia builds floating
batteries, and several galleys: rowed gunboats armed
with howitzers. The city also starts construction on four
Continental frigates, but not all are completed before the
British take the city and stop construction.
7. Kensington
Colloquially known as “Fishtown”, Kensington is a
riverfront borough to the northeast of Philadelphia.
It was established in the 1730s by Anthony Palmer, a
merchant from Barbados. Palmer sold plots along the
Delaware River to German shipbuilders and fishers. Shad
is the major catch in this region and is a popular food
staple throughout the states. If fish is your taste, then
Kensington is your place!
8. Moyamensing & Passyunk
Moyamensing and Passyunk Townships are quiet
settlements, mostly farmland, on the outskirts of
Philadelphia. The county militia pastures many of its
horses here.
9. Pennsylvania Hospital
Founded in 1751 by Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Thomas
Bond for the care of the poor and the sick, the impressive
Pennsylvania Hospital and grounds take up the entire
square between Spruce, Pine, 8th, and 9th Streets. The
main brick building is three stories high. The first floor is
the men's ward, the second is for women, and the third is
reserved for servants and isolation cases. The basement is a
facility for the mentally ill. The Hospital’s library has been
growing since 1765 and is a treasure trove of traditional
and cutting-edge medical texts. The hospital’s size and
wealth of knowledge and equipment make it invaluable
to the war effort. In keeping with its humanitarian
mission, Pennsylvania Hospital accepts the sick and
wounded from both sides of the conflict.
10. Pennsylvania State House
Located between Fifth and Sixth Streets on Chestnut, the
Pennsylvania State House is the principal meeting place
for the Second Continental Congress. The Declaration
of Independence is debated and ratified here. The grand
building was built between 1732 and 1754. A large clock
made of limestone and wood stands at the building’s west
end. The State House steeple has seen better days and
will be removed in the 1780s.
Depending on when characters are in the city, they
may hear the ringing of the State House’s infamously
cracked bell, later called the Liberty Bell. After the
Battle of Brandywine, the State House Bell is taken to
Northampton Town to prevent it being melted down
by the British and recast as a cannon. It is returned to
Colonial Gazette
Philadelphia once the British evacuate in 1778, but sits in
storage.
11. Province Island Ferry
This strategic crossing point into the greater
Philadelphia area has long been used to control access
during both war and peacetime. The city's first quarantine
station was erected just west of the confluence of the
Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers. Sick people arriving by
sea are kept here in a building called the Pest House.
12. Post Road
There is no central post office in Philadelphia;
postmasters run their operations out of print shops,
taverns, and private homes. That said, there are several
post routes in and out of Philadelphia. In his time as
Postmaster General, Benjamin Franklin helps establish
and improve postal routes throughout the colonies. The
major post roads out of Philadelphia go to New York
and Boston. Before the war, one could send a letter from
Philadelphia to New York and receive a reply in 24 hours.
While the post has slowed during the war, it still runs.
13. Road to Germantown
Germantown is an independent borough north of
Philadelphia. It was established in 1683 by German and
Dutch Quaker and Mennonite families. The first protest
by a white religious group against slavery was written
here in 1688. It is now largely a community of farmers
and craftspeople who produce goods to be sold in the
city. In 1777, the Battle of Germantown is fought here, the
trauma of which can still be felt while walking through
the small town.
14. Southwark Theater
Philadelphia’s first permanent theater stands just outside
the city border on South Street. Southwark Theater was
established in 1766 by famed theater troupe The Old
American Company, under the management of David
and Sarah Hallam Douglass. The two-story building
is brick on the first floor, while the wooden second
floor is adorned with a humble but distinctive cupola.
Performances here are long affairs, usually consisting
of a traditional play followed by music and lighter acts.
Due to the First Continental Congress’ ban on theatrical
performances, the building has been largely disused
since 1776. The Old American Company left for an
extended tour of Jamaica not long after the decree. The
British revive the theater during their brief occupation,
and some performances are allowed to go on under the
guise of “lectures.”
15. Windmill Island
This 25-acre island lies in the center of the Delaware
River between Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It is
named for its distinctive windmill and wharf, built in
1746 by miller John Harding. At low tide, a sandbar
forms between the island and the mainland, over which
farmers bring their grain to be processed. Executions are
sometimes carried out on the island as well, though this
practice has waned during the war.
| 36
 9

11

2 10
7
1
5

0 mi ¼ mi 1/2 mi 4
Q uebec C ity
Quebec City, often just called Quebec, is the capital of
the Canadian province of the same name and one of the
oldest European settlements in North America. Its name
comes from the Algonquin name for the region, Kébec,
meaning “where the river narrows.” The city stands atop
Cap Diamant, a cape formed by the confluence of the
St. Lawrence River to the south and east, and the Saint-
Charles River to the north.
Due to its location and daunting fortifications, Quebec
City is one of the most secure places in the province. Upper
Town, the city’s military and administrative center, sits atop
Cap Diamant, protected to the east by a steep cliff. To the
west, a great wall has shielded the city since the 1600s.
The rest of the city lies along the shore of the St. Lawrence
River, which is infamously difficult to traverse. The river
is shallow and unpredictable, and it freezes during the
long and fierce winters. The British know that Quebec
City is not easily captured, and they have maintained its
fortifications to ensure a strong grip on Canada.
C onverging C urrents
The French explorer Samuel de Champlain first
reached the area in 1608, founding a settlement called
L’Habitation. The village quickly expanded, with Canada’s
natural resources—fish, fur, and forests—and trade with
the local Innus and Algonquins driving the economy.
The settlement was renamed Quebec and in 1663 it
became the capital of New France, cementing its role
as a hub of government and trade. Like the rest of New
France, Quebec City operates under a semi-feudalist
seigneurial system, which is still in place during the
Revolution. Landlords called seigneurs allocate plots
to habitants, who work the land and pay the seigneurs
annual tithes. Most land in Quebec City is still owned
either by seigneurs or by the Catholic Church, and is
rented by residents.
From the establishment of the first European colonies in
North America, the British and French clashed constantly
over territory. The British repeatedly tried and failed to
capture Quebec, once in King William’s War in 1690 and
again in Queen Anne’s War in 1711. It was not until the
French and Indian War that their luck changed. In 1759, on
the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec City, British forces
won a decisive victory. Quebec City succumbed to the
months-long British siege and surrendered. When the
French and Indian War ended in 1763, France ceded the
province and city of Quebec to British rule.
In an attempt to appease the people of its new colony,
Britain passes the 1774 Quebec Act. This act preserves
French civil law and allows the largely French residents
of Quebec to continue practicing their Catholic faith.
One significant aspect of French civil law is that a widow
gains her deceased husband’s full legal rights. This
allows widowed women to be men’s equals in Quebec
commerce, and indeed one-fourth of seigneuries have
been administered by women at some point. The Quebec
Act outrages Colonials in the Thirteen Colonies, who
include it among the so-called “Intolerable” Acts.
Colonial Gazette
P opulation
The majority of Quebec City’s inhabitants are French-
speaking Catholics. The Catholic Church shaped New
France from its very beginning. Its first missionaries, the
Recollects, arrived in 1615 and were soon followed by
Jesuit priests and Ursuline nuns. Though some orders,
like the Jesuits, are expelled by the British, Catholic
presence remains strong. Many schools and hospitals
were founded by Catholic orders, and these nuns, monks,
and priests still run essential public services. The Quebec
Act allows the Church to collect tithes and lets Catholics
hold government office, practices banned in mainland
Britain and the Thirteen Colonies.
As a provincial capital, Quebec City is home to many
government officials and merchants. But the new British
government is eager to exploit Quebec’s trade potential,
and soon after its cession Quebec City sees a surge of
English and Scottish merchants. These newcomers take up
political posts emptied before the Quebec Act reinstates
Catholics’ ability to hold office. They buy up seigneuries and
trading rights and enrich themselves, quickly rising into a
ruling class. Many, however, will fall just as quickly, losing
their new holdings to the ravages of the Revolutionary War.
The Haudenosaunees and other Native nations have
long-standing trade relationships with the French and
British. These economic bonds are sometimes reinforced
by marriages between Indigenous women and white fur
traders or merchants. Notwithstanding, French colonists
in Canada enslaved many Indigenous people. By the
1700s, two-thirds of enslaved people in New France are of
Indigenous descent. In port cities like Quebec, British rule
has also brought an increasing trade in enslaved Africans.
After the unsuccessful Continental campaign in
Quebec in 1775–76, Québécois grow increasingly wary
or outright unfriendly toward the Revolutionaries, whom
they call les Bastonnais (“the Bostonians”). Throughout
the late Revolution and post-war period, British Canada
is a refuge for Loyalists fleeing north from the Thirteen
Colonies. Many Black Loyalists among their number are
drawn to Canada by British promises of freedom.
The Invasion of Canada
The initial Patriot expedition and capture of Montreal,
which immediately precedes the doomed Siege
of Quebec, is detailed in the bonus adventure The
Invasion of Canada in the Nations & Cannons Core
Rulebook. This adventure takes place chronologically
between the Bunker Hill and Siege of Boston
adventures in The American Crisis: War in the North.
S iege of Q uebec
When the Revolution breaks out, Loyalists and Patriots
alike are unsure where British Canada’s loyalties will
fall. For Native and French Canadians, the choice
between two English-speaking Protestant powers is at
best uninspiring. Indigenous groups and the Québécois
| 38
find both British and Colonial leaders trying to court
their loyalty with promises, patriotism, and plunder.
Some Native nations, like the Western Abenakis, accept
mercenary work selectively, with an eye to their own
security and benefit. Most French Canadians, meanwhile,
are neither the obedient peasants the British expect, nor
the oppressed masses the Patriots hope to liberate. Like
many farmers in the Thirteen Colonies, they are largely
indifferent, stubborn, and loyal to their own interests.
In late fall 1775, after a series of early victories and
with their troops itching for more action, the Patriots look
north. British Canada could be a threat, with fortified cities
like Quebec providing the redcoats strongholds to strike
from. A plan is formed to march on Quebec now, while
reinforcements are blocked by the snow. It’s risky, but many
believe that seizing Quebec will bring a quick end to the war.
Thus, the Quebec Campaign begins. In November
1775, two battalions under Colonel Benedict Arnold trek
up the Kennebec River through what is today Maine.
Only 600 of the original 1,000 soldiers arrive, with the
rest lost to desertion, disease, and exposure in the brutal
northern winter. In December they are joined by another
600 troops under General Richard Montgomery, fresh
from the successful occupation of Montreal. The Patriots
face a roughly equal force of defenders from the British
and French colonial militias under General Guy Carleton.
He orders every resident who isn’t ready to take up arms
to leave the city, leaving a garrison of 1,200 soldiers. On
New Years’ Eve, during a snowstorm in the wee hours of
morning, the Patriots attack Quebec City. The Battle of
Quebec ends on New Year’s Day with a Patriot defeat.
The Patriots’ heavy losses include Gen. Montgomery.
The Patriots continue their siege of Quebec City and
blockade of the St. Lawrence River until May 1776. When
the HMS Surprise arrives with 200 marines to reinforce
the Quebec garrison, the Patriots retreat for good. The
Quebec Campaign is a demoralizing and disillusioning
failure for the Revolutionary cause. Colonials now face
the sobering reality that the struggle ahead will be long
and success uncertain.
S ights of the C ity
Quebec City is divided into two major sections: Upper
and Lower Town. Upper Town, the heart of the city,
overlooks the St. Lawrence and Saint-Charles Rivers
from the heights of Cap Diamant, on the original site of
L’Habitation. Lower Town, lying along the shore of the St.
Lawrence River, is a commercial and residential area.
The following are some of the locations that
characters may visit in Quebec City:
1. The Bishop’s Palace
This grand stone structure overlooks the water from atop
the cliffs of Upper Town. It was designed as the personal
residence for the Bishop of Quebec. Under French rule,
Quebec was the seat of the entire colony’s archdiocese.
The Bishop of Quebec, therefore, was one of the most
powerful figures in New France. No expense was spared
for the Bishop’s Palace, and the end result rivals the finest
governor’s mansion in a more secular city. Since 1777,
39 |
the palace has been leased to the British government to
house the Legislative Council of the Province of Quebec,
per the order of Gov. Carleton.
2. The Citadel
This half-star shaped wooden defense structure is
Quebec City’s oldest military base, dating to the
1690s. Both the French and the British have found its
vantage point at the edge of the Upper Town cliffs to
be strategically useful, but not enough to merit a more
permanent fort. The modest structure is maintained
under the British, with some buildings still used for
powder and supplies.
At the heart of the Citadel is the Château Saint-Louis,
official residence of the Royal Governor of Lower Canada.
The two-story, slate-roofed mansion is surrounded by
lush gardens and a terrace facing the river. It suffered
heavy damage during the French and Indian War when
British troops targeted the Citadel, and is under repair
from 1775–77. From 1768–78, it is home to Governor-
General Guy Carleton, a supporter of the Quebec Act and
advocate for preserving Catholic ways of life in the city.
3. Hôpital-Général de Québec
This medical compound is located just outside the
suburb of St. Roch. It is both a hospital and the residence
for the Canonesses of St. Augustine at the Mercy of
Jesus. The Canonesses run the hospital, as well as
the bakery, apothecary, and windmill on the Hôpital’s
campus. In keeping with its mission, the hospital offers
its services to anyone in need, regardless of what side of
the war they are on—including Benedict Arnold when he
is wounded early in the Siege of Quebec.
4. Île d'Orléans (Downriver)
The Île d'Orléans, three miles east of Quebec City in the St.
Lawrence River, was one of the earliest French settlements
in Canada. Before colonization, Wendats, Hurons, and
Algonquins valued its plentiful fishing and fruitful soil. The
Hurons called it Minigo (“enchanted island”). Colonists
added their own folklore interpretations. Likely frightened
by lamps carried in Native fishing boats, they wove tales
of ghosts and witchcraft. In 1763, witch hunts came to the
island. Marie-Josephte Corriveau, said to be a witch, was
hanged there for the murder of her abusive husband.
This was only the most recent in a string of violent
episodes in the beautiful island’s somber history. In
1656, Algonquins sheltering there were massacred by
Haudenosaunees as part of ongoing wars between the
nations. In 1759, Gen. Wolfe used Île d'Orléans as a
base camp, and he ordered its settlements burned after
his retreat from Montmorency. A strategically-situated,
fertile paradise, the Île d'Orléans is a coveted jewel that
has often been bought with blood.
5. Maison Blanche
The second-oldest house in Quebec City, the Maison
Blanche is a two-story manor on Rue du Sault-au-Matelot,
a busy street squeezed up against the cliffs of Cap
Diamant. In 1775 it belongs to William Grant, one of
the new wave of British merchants buying up Quebec
Colonial Gazette

Indeed, if a cou
Battle of Quebec, Col. Arnold attacks a British post at Rue and healthy clim
seigneuries. Grant doesn’t keep it for long. Early in the
liberty, can m
du Sault-au-Matelot and is wounded in the failed assault.
British defenders briefly occupy the Maison, burning it
than the Canadians.
down afterward so it can’t be used by the enemy.
6. Offices of the Quebec Gazette
The Quebec Gazette is the oldest continuously-operated
newspaper in North America. Founded in 1764 by
William Brown, the bilingual Gazette sets out with the
lofty goal of upholding “the noble cause of LIBERTY.”
But Brown proves more pragmatic than idealistic. He
collaborates with the British government to suppress
news of the Revolutionary War from the people of
Quebec. While war rages in the Colonies, the Quebec
Gazette reports only overseas news, padding the empty
space with funny stories and miscellaneous trivia.
Throughout the American Revolution it sticks to its role
as “The Most Innocent Gazette in the British Dominions.”
7. The Place Royale
The Place Royale is Quebec City’s traditional
marketplace. A key shipping point, it opens onto the
Cul de Sac, the city’s main landing place for shipping
on the St. Lawrence River. Many of the area’s buildings
were damaged during the 1759 Battle of Quebec. During
the 1776 Siege of Quebec, Patriots blockading the St.
Lawrence River even send fire ships in an attempt to
disable the Cul de Sac. Nevertheless, the Place Royale
is typically crowded with people shopping, attending
church, or exchanging the latest news and gossip.
d8 Place Royale Rumors
A trader is hiring agents to recover a valuable cache
1
from the old Intendant’s Palace. The palace burned
down in the siege, but trade goods—including
weapons—lie in its vaulted cellars beneath the ruins.
Radical newspaper editor Fleury Mesplet, a protégé of
2 Ben Franklin, has been arrested in Montreal. His
Montreal Gazette has stoked Revolutionary sympathy.
A mysterious woman lying in the Hôpital-Général is
3 suspected to be a Patriot spy. The Cannonesses refuse
to let officials question her until she has recovered.
British half-pay officer Moses Hazen defected to the
Revolutionaries during the siege. Now colonel of the
4
2nd Canadian (“Congress’s Own”) Regiment, he is loudly
advocating for another Patriot invasion of Canada.
Local militiamen have been refusing sentry duty on
5 Drummond’s Wharf. They’re said to believe the wharf
is haunted by the ghosts of those killed in the siege.
British merchants have been meeting at Prenties Tavern.
6 They propose petitioning the Crown to abolish the
Quebec Act and grant Quebec a legislative assembly.
Men in the mainly-Abenaki village of Odanak gather
7 late into the night, smoking and talking about the strife
between the British and Americans.
A deserter from the Continental Army plans to visit the
8
Citadel offering details about Patriot movements.
Colonial Gazette
nt ry as fr ui tf ul as it is picturesque, a genial
of civil and religious
at e, and a to lera bl e sh are
ak e pe op le ha pp y, non e ou ght to appear more so
—Isaac Weld, 1797
8. Plains of Abraham
This plateau sprawls to the west beyond Quebec’s
walls. The 1759 Battle of the Plains of Abraham rocked
Europe and the Colonies with the dramatic deaths of two
celebrated generals, the French Montcalm and the British
Wolfe. The battle was a decisive victory for the British,
leading to the fall of Quebec.
During the unsuccessful Siege of Quebec, Arnold and
Montgomery camp their troops on the Plains. From their
campsite, one can see the imposing ramparts of Quebec’s
Upper Town.
9. Road to Odanak
Between Quebec City and Montreal lies the village of
Odanak, which settlers call St. Francis after the French
mission built there. Odanak’s residents are mostly
Abenakis, but the village is a melting pot of Native
cultures. For half a century it has welcomed refugees and
migrant families from nations including Wampanoags,
Narragansets, Mohegans, and Pequots. Some people in
Odanak worship at the Catholic church, while others
practice their traditional religions. Life in Odanak blends
French and Indigenous ways of living, including mixed
types of housing and agriculture.
10. Séminaire de Québec
This large stone institution has served as a training
ground for the province’s Catholic clergy for over a
century. The campus, modeled after French universities,
includes: a seminary; a dormitory; a library; a boy’s
school, the Petit Séminaire; and a flour mill, the Moulin
du Petit-Pré. The Séminaire traditionally boarded
students from the nearby Jesuit College. Since the British
expulsion of the Jesuit order from Quebec, the Séminaire
de Québec is the city’s primary institution for higher
education.
11. St. Roch
St. Roch is Quebec City’s oldest faubourg, or district
outside of the city walls. It is a largely working-class
neighborhood. Due to its proximity to the water, fishing
and shipbuilding are the suburb’s major industries. It
also houses the old Intendant’s Palace. This two-story
building with its distinctive clocktower now houses
British government storage and a prison. During their
siege of Quebec, Patriot forces take St. Roch and set up
a battery there. After the British victory at the Battle of
Quebec, British defenders burn the neighborhood to
flush out retreating Patriots.
| 40
 L ist of I llustrations
Boilly, Louis-Léopold, The Geography Lesson (1812)....... cover
Jones, B., Broadside soliciting recruits (c. 1798)............... title
The Thirteen Colonies
Church, Frederic Edwin, New England Lanscape (c. 1849)........ 6
Andrews, John and Dury, Andrew, A new map of the British
colonies in North America (1777)......................................... 8
Van Powell, Nowland, Continental Ship Alfred (1974),
courtesy the U.S. Navy Art Collection, Naval History and
Heritage Command..............................................................10
Bingham, George Caleb, Daniel Boone Escorting Settlers
Through the Cumberland Gap (c. 1851-1852).................12
Moran, Thomas, Spectres from the North (1890)..................15
Church, Frederic Edwin, The Natural Bridge, Virginia (1852).....17
Waterhouse, Charles H., Flag Raising at New Providence
(1975), courtesy the National Museum of the Marine Corps,
Triangle, Virginia...................................................................18
Church, Frederic Edwin, Niagara Falls, from the American Side
(1867)......................................................................................19
Johnson, David, Old Man of the Mountain (1875).....................20
Van Powell, Nowland, USS Lexington Defeats HMS Edward
(1972), courtesy the U.S. Navy Art Collection, Naval History
pg Heritage Command..............................................................23
Unknown Artist, Fort Ticonderoga (early 20th century).......24
Major Settlements pg
Pelham, Henry and Jukes, Francis, A plan of Boston in New
England with its environs (1776)........................................25
Ratzer, Bernard, PLAN of the CITY of NEW YORK, in North
America (1766-1767)............................................................29
Nicole, Pierre, A survey of the city of Philadelphia and its
environs (1777)......................................................................33
Faden, William, Plan of the city and environs of Quebec, with
its siege and blockade by the Americans (1776).............37
Appendix pg
Thomson, Charles, Great Seal of the United States (1782)........41

Character sheets, play aids, and other materials can be found at www.nationsandcannons.com

Copyright © 2024 by Flagbearer Games, LLC. All rights reserved.

To learn more, email us at contact@flagbearergames.com

Team:
Design Lead: Pat Luke Mooney
Rules Development: Collyn Messier
Content Lead: Tristan Zimmerman
Art Direction: Adrienne R. Cohen
Writing and Editing: Chantelle Messier
Additional Writing: Adam Franti
Graphic Design: Willow Quillen
Graphic Design: Samantha Zak
Cartography: Tristan Zimmerman
Research: Kate Devorak
Research: Phillip Messier
Research: Michael Stiles
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