Native alliances during revolution
Native American tribes weren't bystanders during the American Revolution. They were active participants whose choices about alliances carried enormous consequences. Most tribes sided with the British, though some backed the colonists, and these decisions fractured longstanding confederacies and reshaped the political landscape of eastern North America for generations.
British vs colonial allies
British forces had a major advantage in recruiting Native allies: decades of established trade relationships and, crucially, promises to halt colonial expansion westward. From the Native perspective, the British represented the lesser threat to their lands.
- Mohawk leader Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea) was instrumental in rallying significant Iroquois support for the British cause
- The Oneida and Tuscarora broke from the rest of the Iroquois Confederacy to support the colonists, creating a painful rift within one of North America's most powerful political bodies
- Colonial forces struggled to win widespread Native support, largely because colonists had a well-earned reputation for aggressive westward expansion into tribal lands
Iroquois Confederacy's role
The Iroquois Confederacy (also called the Haudenosaunee) consisted of six nations, and the Revolution split it apart. This was a political disaster for a confederacy that had maintained unity and regional dominance for centuries.
- Pro-British: Mohawk, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca
- Pro-colonial: Oneida and Tuscarora, who provided intelligence and military assistance to the Continental Army
The internal division destroyed the Confederacy's ability to speak with one voice. After the war, member nations found themselves negotiating from positions of weakness rather than collective strength.
Cherokee and southern tribes
In the South, the Cherokee initially allied with the British and launched attacks on colonial settlements in the Carolinas and Georgia. The Chickasaw and Choctaw also predominantly backed the British.
Colonial retaliation was brutal. Militia forces destroyed dozens of Cherokee towns and burned crops, devastating communities. Some Cherokee leaders sued for peace, but Dragging Canoe refused to stop fighting. He led a breakaway faction that continued armed resistance against American expansion well after the main Cherokee nation had negotiated terms.
Impact on tribal territories
The Revolution's outcome was catastrophic for Native land holdings across eastern North America. Tribes that had backed the losing side faced punishing land seizures, but even tribes that supported the colonists found their territorial claims increasingly ignored.
Treaty negotiations
Post-war treaties consistently favored the United States and disregarded Native claims, especially for British-allied tribes.
- Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1784): Forced Iroquois nations to cede large portions of their territory in New York and Pennsylvania. The U.S. negotiated with individual nations rather than the Confederacy as a whole, exploiting the wartime divisions.
- Treaty of Hopewell (1785): Established new boundaries and trade relations between the Cherokee and the United States, though settlers routinely violated its terms.
These treaties also sparked intertribal conflicts, as competing land claims overlapped and tribes disputed who had authority to cede which territories.
Land cessions and disputes
- British-allied tribes faced pressure to surrender lands as punishment for their wartime allegiance
- The Iroquois Confederacy lost significant territories in western New York and Pennsylvania
- Cherokee ceded lands in present-day Tennessee and parts of Kentucky
- Settler population growth drove constant westward pressure, and land disputes between tribes and settlers escalated into cycles of violence and further forced treaty negotiations
Native American military participation
Native involvement in the war went far beyond choosing sides politically. Tribes contributed fighters, scouts, logistical support, and tactical knowledge that shaped military outcomes on both fronts.
Scouting and auxiliary roles
Native warriors served as scouts who provided intelligence on enemy movements and guided troops through terrain that European-trained soldiers found unfamiliar. Tribes also supplied food, maintained supply lines, and offered safe havens for their respective allies. Their expertise in guerrilla-style tactics proved especially effective against conventional European military formations, which were designed for open-field engagements.
Direct combat involvement
- Iroquois warriors fought in major engagements, including the Battle of Oriskany (1777) and the Wyoming Valley massacre (1778)
- Cherokee forces conducted raids on colonial settlements across the southern colonies
- Native combatants typically employed ambushes and hit-and-run attacks rather than the line-formation fighting Europeans favored
- Joseph Brant led mixed forces of Mohawk and Loyalist fighters in devastating campaigns across New York's frontier
Consequences for Native communities
The war's aftermath brought displacement, political fragmentation, and the loss of leverage that tribes had maintained by playing European powers against each other. With Britain largely out of the picture east of the Mississippi, Native nations faced a single, expansionist United States.
Population displacement
- Mohawk and other British-allied Iroquois nations migrated to Canada to escape American retaliation. Brant negotiated land along the Grand River in Ontario for displaced Haudenosaunee people.
- Cherokee and other southern tribes faced mounting pressure to move westward as settlers flooded onto their lands
- Displacement shattered community structures and cut people off from traditional hunting grounds and agricultural lands that had sustained them for generations
Shifting tribal power dynamics
The Iroquois Confederacy's influence declined sharply due to its internal split and territorial losses. Tribes that had backed the colonists, like the Oneida, initially expected favorable treatment but found their lands encroached upon as well.
New intertribal alliances began forming as groups recognized the need for collective resistance. Within tribes like the Cherokee, political divisions deepened between leaders who favored negotiation and those who, like Dragging Canoe, insisted on continued armed resistance.
Post-revolution Native American status
The end of the Revolution fundamentally changed how Native nations were treated in law and diplomacy. The new U.S. government had to define its relationship with tribes occupying territory it now claimed, and the precedents set during this period proved deeply harmful.
Treaty of Paris implications
The 1783 Treaty of Paris ended the war between Britain and the United States, but no Native nations were invited to the negotiating table. Britain ceded to the U.S. vast territories that belonged to Native peoples, without their consent or even their knowledge in many cases.
This effectively treated Native nations as conquered peoples, even though many had never been militarily defeated. Numerous tribes refused to recognize the legitimacy of these land transfers, which fueled ongoing armed conflicts throughout the 1780s and 1790s.
US government Indian policies
Early U.S. policy toward Native nations was a mix of diplomatic gestures and expansionist pressure:
- The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 included language recognizing Native land rights, but its primary purpose was organizing new territories for settlement
- "Civilization" programs aimed at assimilating Native peoples through European-style agriculture, education, and Christianity
- The Trade and Intercourse Acts (beginning 1790) regulated trade with tribes and prohibited private land purchases from Native nations without federal approval, giving the government a monopoly on treaty-making
These policies framed Native nations as wards of the federal government rather than as equal sovereign powers.
Cultural and social changes
The Revolution accelerated cultural pressures that had been building for decades. External forces pushed Native communities toward European practices, while internal movements worked to preserve traditional ways of life.
Adoption of European practices
Some communities began shifting toward European-style farming and animal husbandry, partly out of necessity as hunting lands shrank. European clothing and manufactured goods became more common in certain tribes. Christian missionaries gained greater access to Native communities, establishing mission schools and seeking conversions.
The Cherokee offer a striking example: in the decades after the Revolution, they developed a written syllabary (created by Sequoyah in the 1820s), established a formal constitution, and built European-style institutions, partly as a strategy to demonstrate "civilization" and protect their sovereignty.
Resistance to assimilation
Many communities viewed assimilation as a direct threat to their identity and actively resisted it. Religious and spiritual leaders worked to preserve traditional beliefs and ceremonies. Some tribes developed syncretic cultural forms that blended traditional and European elements on their own terms.
Resistance also took political and military forms. Tecumseh's confederacy in the early 19th century drew on the legacy of Revolutionary-era resistance leaders like Dragging Canoe, seeking to unite tribes across a wide region against further American encroachment.
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Economic effects on tribes
The war and its aftermath disrupted the economic systems that Native communities had built over centuries of adaptation to both traditional practices and European trade.
Trade disruptions
Before the Revolution, many tribes had integrated into trade networks connecting them with British, French, and Spanish partners. The war severed many of these connections. British withdrawal from frontier outposts eliminated key trading partners, and the U.S. government moved to control and regulate all trade with Native nations through federal policy. Tribes that had depended on access to European goods like metal tools, firearms, and textiles faced real economic hardship.
New economic dependencies
With traditional trade networks broken and hunting lands shrinking, many communities became increasingly reliant on the United States for essential goods.
- The fur trade declined in economic importance, pushing some tribes toward agriculture and livestock
- Government annuities, promised through treaties in exchange for land cessions, became a significant income source for some tribes, but also a tool of political leverage for the U.S. government
- Some Native individuals and communities began participating in the cash economy as laborers or by selling crafts to settlers
This growing dependency gave the U.S. government enormous power over tribes that had previously been economically self-sufficient.
Native American leaders
The Revolutionary period produced Native leaders whose strategies ranged from diplomatic alliance-building to armed resistance. Their decisions shaped their peoples' fates and left legacies that influenced Native political movements for decades.
Joseph Brant's influence
Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant) was a Mohawk leader who had been educated in colonial schools and maintained close ties with British officials. He played a central role in aligning most of the Iroquois Confederacy with the British and personally led Mohawk and Loyalist forces in campaigns across New York's frontier, including raids on Cherry Valley and other settlements.
After the war, Brant negotiated with the British Crown to secure land along the Grand River in present-day Ontario for displaced Mohawk and other Haudenosaunee people. He spent his later years working to maintain Mohawk sovereignty while adapting to the new political reality, a balancing act that influenced later Native leadership strategies.
Dragging Canoe's resistance
Dragging Canoe opposed the land cessions that older Cherokee leaders had agreed to and broke away to form the Chickamauga Cherokee, a faction committed to armed resistance against American expansion. While the main Cherokee nation negotiated peace, Dragging Canoe's warriors continued fighting from bases along Chickamauga Creek in present-day Tennessee.
His resistance movement lasted until his death in 1792 and inspired later leaders who refused to accept American territorial demands. The spirit of his movement fed directly into broader pan-Indian resistance efforts, including Tecumseh's confederacy in the early 1800s.
Long-term impact on sovereignty
The Revolution didn't just redraw maps. It redefined how Native nations were understood in American law and politics, establishing frameworks that persist in modified form today.
Tribal nation recognition
The U.S. government gradually developed the concept of tribes as "domestic dependent nations," a phrase formalized by Chief Justice John Marshall in the 1830s but rooted in post-Revolutionary practice. This framework acknowledged a degree of tribal self-governance while asserting ultimate U.S. authority over Native affairs.
Federal recognition processes evolved over time, and whether a tribe was formally recognized determined its ability to maintain lands, govern its members, and access government services. This system created a hierarchy in which the federal government held the power to define which Native groups counted as legitimate political entities.
Future treaty negotiations
The post-Revolutionary period established the treaty as the primary tool for formalizing U.S.-tribal relationships. The pattern was consistent: treaties typically involved Native land cessions in exchange for promises of protection, annual payments (annuities), or reserved lands.
These promises were frequently broken. Treaty-making with Native nations continued until 1871, when Congress unilaterally ended the practice, declaring that no tribe would be recognized as an independent nation capable of making treaties with the United States. This decision further eroded tribal sovereignty and shifted Native affairs even more firmly under federal control.