Jane McCrea was an American woman who was killed by a Native American warrior serving alongside a British Army expedition under the command of John Burgoyne during the American Revolutionary War. Engaged to a Loyalist officer serving under Burgoyne, her death lead to widespread outrage in the Thirteen Colonies and was used by Patriots as part of their anti-British propaganda campaign.

The Saratoga campaign in 1777 was an attempt by the British high command for North America to gain military control of the strategically important Hudson River valley during the American Revolutionary War. It ended in the surrender of the British army, which historian Edmund Morgan argues, "was a great turning point of the war, because it won for Americans the foreign assistance which was the last element needed for victory."