CHERRY VALLEY RAID

(Nov. 11, 1778), during U.S. War of Independence, Iroquois Indian attack on a New York frontier settlement in direct retaliation for colonial assaults on two Indian villages. Earlier in the year the Americans had decided to increase military pressure against Britain's Indian allies in the West who had been intensifying their depredations of frontier settlements. In the fall a small American army annihilated the Indian villages of Oghwaga and Unadilla. Enraged, Iroquois chief Joseph Brant joined Tory captain Walter Butler in a surprise raid on Cherry Valley, N.Y., one of the few remaining fortified villages south of the Mohawk River. The town was destroyed; 30 of its defenders were killed and 71 wounded or captured before the invaders withdrew.