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Special Report for the 250th Anniversary of the United States

As the United States prepares to commemorate its 250th anniversary, the traditional narrative of the American Revolution—a binary struggle between scrappy colonists and a distant Crown—is undergoing a profound scholarly reassessment. At the heart of this revision is the harrowing, often overlooked story of the Native American nations for whom the "War for Independence" was an existential crisis that shattered centuries-old alliances and triggered a wave of dispossession that would define the American continent.

Main Facts: A War of Land, Not Just Liberty

While the Declaration of Independence spoke of "unalienable rights," its text also characterized Native Americans as "merciless Indian savages." This contradiction captures the fundamental reality of the conflict for Indigenous peoples: while the colonists fought for political autonomy, they simultaneously sought to expand into territories guaranteed to Native nations by British decree.

The conflict was particularly devastating for the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (also known as the Iroquois League). Comprising the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora, the Confederacy had maintained a "Great Law of Peace" for centuries. The American Revolution effectively ended this peace, forcing brother to fight brother.

Key facts of Native involvement include:

• Strategic Alliances: Most Native nations, including the majority of the Haudenosaunee and the Cherokee, allied with the British, viewing the Crown as the only barrier against colonial encroachment.
• The Oneida Exception: The Oneida and Tuscarora nations broke with the Confederacy to support the American patriots, providing vital military intelligence and food supplies during the starving winter at Valley Forge.
• The Battle of Oriskany: A pivotal 1777 clash that served as the "bloody breaking point" for the Haudenosaunee, where Native warriors fought on both sides of a British-American ambush.
• Diplomatic Sovereignty: Native nations were not mere mercenaries; they were "rational actors" and "diplomatically savvy" sovereigns making strategic choices to protect their homelands.

Chronology of Conflict: From Proclamation to Dispossession

The Prelude (1754–1763)

The roots of Native involvement in the Revolution lie in the French and Indian War. Following the British victory, King George III issued the Proclamation of 1763, which prohibited colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. To the British, it was a way to prevent costly frontier wars; to the Native nations, it was a recognized border of their sovereignty. To the colonists, however, it was an intolerable restriction on their perceived right to expand.

The Calculus of Neutrality (1775–1776)

When the Revolution began, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy initially sought neutrality. They viewed the conflict as a "family quarrel" between the King and his children. However, as R. Scott Stephenson, president of the Museum of the American Revolution, notes, the Declaration of Independence changed the calculus. Both the British and the Americans ramped up pressure, using trade goods, threats, and promises of land security to court Indigenous allies.

The Year of the Bloodied Ravine (1777)

In 1777, British General John Burgoyne launched a campaign to seize New York’s Hudson River Valley. A key target was Fort Stanwix (renamed Fort Schuyler by the Americans). During the siege of the fort, the Battle of Oriskany occurred on August 6.

The battle was a nightmare of fratricide. Mohawk and Seneca warriors, allied with the British, ambushed American militia and their Oneida allies in a narrow ravine. "There hadn’t been infighting for hundreds of years," explains Alexis Albright, Oneida County historian. The slaughter at Oriskany effectively ended the political unity of the Six Nations.

The Failed Treaty and the Southern Front (1778–1783)

While the northern theater bled, the Lenape (Delaware) Nation attempted a diplomatic path. In 1778, they signed the Treaty of Fort Pitt, the first formal treaty between the new United States and a Native nation. The Americans promised the Lenape a 14th state in the Union, governed by Indigenous people, in exchange for military support. The promise was hollow; within weeks, American settlers murdered Lenape leaders, and the treaty collapsed.

Simultaneously, the Cherokee Nation waged a parallel war against encroaching settlers in the South. Led by figures like Dragging Canoe, the Cherokee allied with the British to enforce the 1763 proclamation line, beginning a cycle of frontier warfare that would last long after the British surrendered at Yorktown.

Supporting Data: The Human and Territorial Cost

The scale of the conflict’s impact on Native populations is reflected in the grim statistics of the era:

• Casualties at Oriskany: The Americans and their Oneida allies suffered approximately 385 fatalities, including General Nicholas Herkimer. The high death toll for the Seneca and Mohawk warriors who fought for the British created a "blood feud" that fueled retaliatory raids for the remainder of the war.
• The Valley Forge Relief: During the winter of 1777–1778, the Oneida nation sent a delegation carrying hundreds of bushels of corn to Valley Forge. This intervention is credited by historians like Heather Bruegl as being a decisive factor in preventing the total collapse of the Continental Army due to famine.
• Refugee Crisis: By the end of the war in 1783, an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 people—including thousands of Native Americans—had become refugees. Many pro-British Mohawk, led by Joseph Brant, were forced to flee their ancestral homes in the Mohawk Valley to settle in Canada.

Official Responses and Historical Perspectives

The historical memory of the Revolution is currently being reshaped by Indigenous scholars and institutional leaders who emphasize that for Native nations, the war was never about "liberty" in the European sense.

Heather Bruegl, a public historian and citizen of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, argues that the war must be viewed through the lens of land. "While many tend to argue that the American Revolution is a war of independence, it’s really a war about land and access to it," Bruegl states. She notes that the "merciless Indian savages" rhetoric in the Declaration was a direct response to Native people simply defending their homes against illegal settlement.

Brandon Dillard, director of historic interpretation at Monticello and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, emphasizes the agency of Indigenous leaders. He rejects the idea that Native tribes were "pawns" of European powers. Instead, he describes them as "diplomatically savvy" actors who chose the side they believed offered the "best chance to protect their homelands from increasing invasion."

Alexis Albright points to the lasting scars in New York’s Mohawk Valley. The Battle of Oriskany, she says, "changed the landscape for the Oneida, for the Palatine settlers, for the colony of New York." The site remains "hallowed ground" for the Six Nations, a reminder of the moment their ancient confederacy was torn asunder.

Implications: From Independence to Removal

The conclusion of the American Revolution in 1783 brought peace to the Atlantic, but it brought disaster to the interior. The Treaty of Paris, which ended the war between Britain and the United States, notably excluded any mention of the Native allies who had fought on both sides. The British ceded territory they did not technically own, leaving Native nations to face the victorious and land-hungry Americans alone.

The implications of this betrayal were immediate:

1. Forced Cessions: At the 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, the U.S. pressured the Haudenosaunee into ceding vast tracts of land in New York and Pennsylvania as "punishment" for those who sided with the British—ignoring the loyalty of the Oneida.
2. The Precedent for Removal: The Revolution established a pattern of "treaty-breaking" and territorial aggression that culminated 50 years later in the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The Cherokee, who had fought so hard to maintain their borders during the Revolution, were eventually forced onto the Trail of Tears, where 4,000 people died.
3. A Reframed Anniversary: As the 250th anniversary approaches, the narrative is shifting from "celebration" to "commemoration." For many Indigenous communities, the birth of the United States is inseparable from the loss of their own national sovereignty.

"No Native community wins the American Revolution," concludes Richard Bell, a historian at the University of Maryland.

The story of the Revolution’s Native allies and enemies is not a footnote; it is a central pillar of the American story. It reveals a nation born of high ideals but built upon the forced dispossession of its original inhabitants. Recognizing this complexity is essential for a complete understanding of the American experiment as it enters its third century.