21h.001 How to Stage a Revolution Essay 1 rewrite
The Indian Revolution during the American Revolution
Unlike most revolutions in history the events that took place in north America from 1775 to 1783 did not involve just two competing groups of people. On one side was the British Empire trying to strengthen its control over North America, while on the other side were the American Colonies fighting for liberty. Yet there was a third, often forgotten, side - that of the native peoples. Since the Indian tribes were not united and had separate views about the conflict it is not easy to examine the war from their point of view. One thing however is clear – they did not fight in the Revolution for the British or for the Americans. They fought for their own liberty, independence, land and most importantly – survival. The Native American perspective of the American revolution has often been disregarded by historians. The conflict following the aggressive British policies in North America is often considered to be simply a struggle between the Americans representing liberty and the British Empire representing colonization. The Indians are considered simply as supporters of one side or the other. One reason for this representation of the events is that the primary historic sources from this period depicting the Indian position, consisting mostly of speeches of Indian Leaders, were transcribed by Europeans thus the resulting documents only presented the European ideas of the actual speech. The ideas of
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the Indian Leaders concerning their own people have often been “lost in translation”. However, a deeper analysis, such as the one presented by Collin Calloway in his book The American Revolution in Indian country, reveals that most of the British colonial policies in North America were unimportant to the Indians. The Native Americans saw the conflicts between the whites as a civil war rather than as a revolution. This position of the Indians is...