Fort Ligonier was initially known as the Post at Loyal Hanna, an Anglicized version of the Lenape Indian word, Layalhanning, meaning “Middle Creek.” The Post at Loyal Hanna was built on the site of an abandoned Indian village. As more English colonists arrived on the eastern seaboard in the 18th Century, Native Americans moved further west away from their ancestral homelands. Despite harboring understandable resentment towards the British settlers, most native peoples maintained active commercial ties with both English and French colonists. Conflict between the two colonial powers left Indian tribes with a undesirable choice. Most initially allied with the French - who promised gifts and trade while centralizing their limited population in the cities of New France (present-day Montreal and Quebec). The British, on the other hand, rapidly increased their settler population and continuously expanded their territorial claims - forcing native peoples further and further west. Remains of an abandoned Indian community were found by British forces who arrived here, at the Loyal Hanna Creek, to build a fort in 1758.
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