Robert Rogers – Frontier Hero – White Devil

Legends & Lore: Robert Rogers – Frontier Hero – White Devil

Robert Rogers, or Rodgers (7 November 1731 – 18 May 1795), was a New Hampshire resident and colonial frontiersman. Born in November of 1781 in Methuen, Mass, his family soon moved north to what is now New Hampshire settling in a town Roger's refers to in his writing as Mountalona and today encompassing the towns of Dunbarton and Bow.

His service to the people of New England, particularly in the war known in the colonies as the French & Indian War (in Europe the Seven Years War) is well documented and a study in the fame and controversy that surrounded this remarkable man. Many military historians attribute the seeds of the American Revolution to the ideology, tactics and strategies of the famed Roger's Rangers, started under his leadership. Indeed, one of his favored rangers was John Stark who would later set aside his "Ranger temperament" to become a General in the Colonial Army and utter the famed phrase "Live Free or Die". 

Legend has it - though no documented evidence exists - that, after a brief stint in England where he was feted as a British hero of the frontier, Rogers returned to America and offered his services to George Washington who turned him down for fear that he was a loyalist spy. Rogers in spite joined the British and fought as a loyalist.

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We will, likely, never know if Washington was right about Rogers and the legend may, in fact, be nothing more than revisionist history fostered by the likes of the peripatetic historian Francis Parkman  who  nearly one hundred years after Rogers day, set his sights on rehabilitating Rogers in the eyes of a public that remembered only his final betrayal in his service to the army of King George.

Yet, the legend of Washington's actions - true or not - and certainly the work of Parkman, may contain the seeds of Roger's historic rehabilitation. After all, today Rogers is revered as the father of the Rangers and the Green Berets, while his fellow loyalist Benedict Arnold's name has become synonymous with treachery and betrayal.

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Lest we fall into the Parkman trap of romanticizing the frontiersman, it should be pointed out that Native American’s of the time – with the exception of a few sub-groupings of Algonquin and Iroquois who sometimes fought beside him or served as scouts – referred to him as Wobomagonda, translated to “White Devil” because Rogers and his Rangers could be every bit as treacherous and vicious as any of their rivals - Native or European.

The truth about Rogers probably lays somewhere in between. The Rangers may have been pitted by history against the native indigenous people – but they drew much of their strategies, dress and temperament from the very same people and many historic documents evidence their admiration of their foes.

After the Revolution Rogers returned to England where he died unappreciated and impoverished in London - far from his family and the woods and mountains of his native New England that he loved so much.

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Links
Roberts Rules for Ranging

White Devil - Robert Rogers and Roger's Rangers

Few New Hampshire citizen’s played a more unique and controversial role in the pre-revolutionary period of America than Robert Rogers.

Robert Rogers, or Rodgers (7 November 1731 – 18 May 1795), was a New Hampshire resident and colonial frontiersman. Born in November of 1781 in Methuen, Mass, his family soon moved north to what is now New Hampshire settling in a town Roger's refers to in his writing as Mountalona and today encompassing what is likely portions of the towns of Dunbarton and Bow.
His service to the people of New England, particularly in the war known in the colonies as the French & Indian War, (in Europe the Seven Years War) is well documented and a study in the waxing and waning fame and controversy that surrounded this remarkable man.

Many military historians attribute the seeds of the American Revolution to the ideology, tactics and strategies of the famed Roger's Rangers, started under his leadership. Indeed, one of his favored rangers was John Stark who would later set aside his "Ranger temperament" to become a General in the Colonial Army and utter the famed phrase "Live Free or Die".


White Devil is a book that provides a balanced and thoughtful look at this fascinating historic figure from the perspective of the lead-up to, and aftermath of, the historically significant and savage, bloody attack on the village of Saint Francis, Quebec.

With British tempers stoked by the 1757 French-led, Indian massacre at Fort William Henry, calls for retribution reached a fevered pitch throughout the colonies. The task of exacting that retribution fell to the Rangers. In what was unquestionably one “war crime” in response to another Rogers was ordered to exact revenge by leading a hazardous search and destroy mission against the Abenaki Indian village of St Francis, far behind enemy lines in Canada’s St. Lawrence Valley.

Against all odds, Rogers and his men fulfilled their perilous orders, only to be faced with the even more daunting prospect of a grueling retreat. Between them and safety lay some 200 miles of unforgiving wilderness. It was a nightmarish journey home. Vengeful French and Indians were soon in hot pursuit. The rangers who evaded them faced other unforgiving enemies. Winter was closing in, and their rations were soon gone: crazed with hunger, some resorted to cannibalism in a desperate bid for survival; those who finally reached safety were truly the walking dead.

St. Francis expedition won Major Rogers’ heroic status throughout Britain’s empire and the moniker “White Devil” among the Abenaki. Today, competing historical views of the events surrounding the attack on St. Francis depict Rogers and his Rangers in much the same dichotomous view.

Without romance, and with a revealing understanding of the emblematic nature of the St. Francis massacre, author Stephan Brumwell draws upon meticulous archival research and first-hand knowledge of the rugged region where these dramatic events unfolded to create a gripping account of the events. Brumwell weaves together the testimonies of eyewitnesses—British, French and Indian—to tell a powerful and moving true story from North America’s violent colonial frontier.
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Stephan Brumwell is based in Amsterdam. A former newspaper reporter, he received his Ph.D. at the University of Leeds. Brumwell is the author of an acclaimed book about ordinary soldiers who fought the French and Indian War called Redcoats: The British Soldier and War in the Americas, 1755-1763, as well as many journal and magazine articles. A recipient of the Authors’ Foundation Elizabeth Longford Grant, he lectures regularly in the US and the UK.

White Devil – by Stephan Brumwell, Da Capo Press Eleven Cambridge Center, Cambridge MA 02142. Paperback · $17.95 · ISBN: 0-306-81473-0 · 335 pages