Lord Dunmore’s War was a conflict between Virginia militia under the command of John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore and Virginia’s last royal governor, and a confederation led by the Shawnee and Mingo with representation from other Ohio Country tribes. It resulted from tensions caused by the movement of white settlers into regions ceded to Virginia under various treaties with tribal nations but not recognized by other tribes such as the Shawnee that had long hunted in the area south of the Ohio River. The conflict lasted from May until October 1774. On October 10, 1774, a force of approximately 800 Virginia militia soldiers engaged an equal number of warriors under the Shawnee commander Hokoleskwa, or Cornstalk, in the Battle of Point Pleasant at the confluence of the Ohio and Great Kanawha rivers. Cornstalk’s forces were defeated in a pitched battle that raged from sunup to sunset. Under the Treaty of Camp Charlotte, agreed to on October 19, 1774, the Shawnee agreed to recognize the land cessations granting Virginia the territory south of the Ohio River and to cease harassing travelers and settlers on the river, opening Kentucky to settlement.
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