The Pennamite Wars, fought between 1769 and 1799, were a series of military clashes for control of the Wyoming Valley in northeastern Pennsylvania. Because the combatants were from Connecticut and Pennsylvania, the wars are also known as the Yankee-Pennamite Wars.
The Pennamite Wars arose from conflicting claims to the Wyoming Valley along the Susquehanna River: King Charles II of England had granted the land to Connecticut in 1663, and also to William Penn in 1681. Yankee settlers from Connecticut arrived in the Wyoming Valley and founded the town of Wilkes-Barre in 1769. Armed bands of Pennsylvanians (Pennamites) tried without success to expel them in 1769-70, and again in 1775.
At the end of the American Revolution a congressional commission declared that the Wyoming Valley belonged to Pennsylvania. But when the state sought to force the Yankees from the land, another Pennamite war ensued, with Connecticut and Vermont sending men to help the settlers. The controversy ended in 1799, with the Wyoming Valley becoming part of Pennsylvania, and the Yankee settlers becoming Pennsylvanians with legal claims to their land.
