ABSTRACT
Jane McCrea was murdered by Indians near Glens Falls, New York on 27 July 1777. The unfortunate young woman was travelling to meet her fiancé David Jones, a loyalist officer in the British army of Major General John Burgoyne then advancing on New York from Canada. In one of those not uncommon quirks of history, Jane McCrea was soon transformed in the public imagination into a heroine of the American Revolution. The murder of this virginal maiden by the King’s “savage” allies appeared to confirm the charge in the Declaration of Independence that George III had encouraged ferocious tribes to take up the hatchet against his defenseless subjects. It could be claimed that a government which resorted to such barbaric practices had ceded legitimate authority. McCrea’s murder was a priceless gift to propagandists for the American cause and for British critics of government policy. The countryside was said to be roused against the invaders by news of this bloody act: “Thus an army poured forth by the woods, mountains and marshes…. The Americans recalled their courage; and when their regular army seemed to be entirely wasted, the spirit of the country produced a much greater and more formidable force.”1 In what became the legend of Jane McCrea, her death at the hands of her Indian escort fired a torch which incinerated Burgoyne’s army and the forces of Lieutenant Colonel Barry St Leger operating in the Mohawk Valley. Burgoyne’s defeat at Saratoga was of course the turning point of the war and the catalyst for the Franco-American alliance. Although she herself seems to have been a loyalist, McCrea’s sacrifice was the salvation of the American cause.
