born Nov. 7, 1731, Methuen, Mass.
died May 18, 1795, London, Eng.
American frontier soldier.
He raised and commanded a militia called Rogers's Rangers, which earned fame in the French and Indian War and in Pontiac's War. He led the first English exploration of the upper Mississippi River and Great Lakes region (1766) but failed to reach the Pacific Ocean, his intended goal. In the American Revolution he was regarded as a loyalist spy; imprisoned by George Washington , he escaped to organize the Queen's Rangers, which he led in operations around New York. Defeated in 1780, he fled to England.