Butler's Rangers
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.
