died; scholars believe it may have been because of cholera. Early life and education Soon after the American Revolutionary War, Billy Caldwell, was born in 1782 (as documented through two autobiographical letters) in a Mohawk refugee camp near Fort Niagara to a Mohawk woman. His father was William Caldwell, a Scots-Irish immigrant who came to North America in 1773 and served as a Loyalist soldier in the war. Living first in Virginia, in 1774 his father had fought as an officer with Lord Dunmore and was wounded. After recovering, he went to Fort Niagara in New York, where he fought with the partisan Butler's Rangers against Patriot colonists in New York and Pennsylvania. After the war, Caldwell abandoned Billy and his mother, moving to the Detroit area. He resettled as a Loyalist in Upper Canada, where he was granted land by the British Crown. In addition to clearing land for his own farm, he helped develop the town of Amherstburg, in present-day Ontario. In 1783, the senior Caldwell married Suzanne Baby (daughter of Jacques Baby dit Dupéron), of French-Canadian descent. They eventually had eight children together. In 1789, when Billy was seven, his father took the boy to live with him and his Canadian wife, who wanted to rear him in the Catholic faith. Billy was given a basic Anglo-Canadian education and became Catholic. Living with his father's family, Billy learned to speak both English and French, after having grown up learning the Iroquoian Mohawk. Although Billy worked on his father's farm as he was growing up, he wanted a different life. Career In 1797 at the age of 17, Billy Caldwell entered United States (US) territory for the first time, to learn the fur trade business (he traded for much of his life). He kept his British Canadian loyalties and learned Potowatomi, an Algonquian language, for dealing with the several tribes of that language family near Lake Michigan. Billy Caldwell Jr. was considered the left hand of the Great Leader Tecumseh, One of North America's greatest European resistance movements. In 1812, after the Battle of Fort Dearborn, Caldwell at age 32 returned to Canada to enlist in the British service; he looked for his father's help to gain a commission. The senior Caldwell by then was a Lieutenant Colonel and had gained commissions for his sons by Suzanne. The regular army did not accept Billy Caldwell, but he was