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Butler's Rangers (1777–1784) was a British provincial regiment composed of Loyalists (or "Tories") in the American Revolutionary War, raised by Loyalist John Butler. Most members of the regiment were Loyalists from upstate New York. Among the regiment were black former slaves; the total number of black soldiers in Butler's Rangers is unknown, with estimates ranging from two to "more than a dozen". While some blacks served in other units and as sappers in the Engineer Corps and in the Royal Artillery, Sir William Howe banned the enlistment of blacks and ordered the disbanding of existing black regiments. The Rangers were accused of participating in — or at least failing to prevent — the Wyoming Valley massacre of July 1778 and the Cherry Valley massacre of November 1778 of white settlers (including some Loyalists) by Joseph Brant's Iroquois. These actions earned the Rangers a reputation for exceptional savagery. They fought principally in western New York and Pennsylvania, but ranged as far west as Ohio and Michigan and as far south as Virginia. Their winter quarters were constructed on the west bank of the Niagara River in what is now the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. Although the building that houses ''The Lincoln and Welland Regiment Museum'' in that community is traditionally known as "Butler's Barracks", it is not the original barracks and never housed Butler's Rangers. It was built in the years following the War of 1812 to house the Indian department and received the name because Butler had been a Deputy Superintendent in that department.〔(Lincoln and Welland Regiment Museum: Butler's Barracks. Retrieved on July 12, 2008. )〕 ==Background== Like similar guerilla regiments that fought for the British during the Revolution, like the King's Royal Regiment of New York or Jessup’s Loyal Rangers, Butler’s Rangers were made up of American loyalist refugees who had fled to Canada following the outbreak of the American Revolution. John Butler himself was a French and Indian War veteran-turned landowner with a 26,000 acre estate near Caughnawaga in the Mohawk Valley. However, at the outbreak of the war, Bulter abandoned these holdings and fled to Canada in the company of other Revolutionary figures such as Joseph Brant. There, he served as a deputy to Guy Johnson, himself a loyalist from the Mohawk Valley who led mixed anti-Republican First Nations and loyalist militias. Butler distinguished himself at the Battle of Oriskany on August 6, 1777. As a result, he was commissioned a lieutenant colonel and allowed to raise his own regiment. This group would come to be known as Butler’s Rangers. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Butler's Rangers」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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