The Importance Of Native Americans In The American Revolution

The American Revolution had lasting effects across the nation. Many different groups would be substantially affected by these changes in either negative but primarily positive changes.

The Native American’s were the first known settlers in North America, ten thousand years before Columbus came to the continent. Their origins completely unclear, anthropologists believe there were three to five million Native Americans in North America in the year 1492 (Hoxie and Iverson, 1997). As early as the Revolutionary War in 1775, European settlers started taking note of the Native Americans. Unfortunately, the Native American population plunged significantly in the first decades after their first contact with Europeans. Native Americans were now unprotected and exposed to deadly diseases like smallpox, influenza, and measles which did not previously exist in their society (North American Natives, 2016).

Chapter 7 of Alan Taylor’s American Revolutions begins by describing the tense state of affairs between American Patriots and Native Indians in 1775. Both sides feared the other and were determined not to let their enemy defeat them. The Patriots were angry with the British for seeking alliance with the Indians, compromising their “racial solidarity”, in order to gain a military advantage. The Natives believed that American independence would be the catalyst for their downfall into slavery and landlessness. The author moves on to say that this was not the case with all tribes. For example, weak bands of Indians in the Carolinas allied with Patriots and fought in their army in hopes for protection after the war. However, the reality was that

The European colonists and the Native Americans of North America had very different views on nearly everything they encountered in their lives. Living in vastly different cultures lead both groups to have two extremely different outlooks on four main topics; religious beliefs, the environment, social relations, and slavery, differences which the colonists used to their advantage when conquering the peoples of the New World.

The relationship between the English and the Native Americans in 1600 to 1700 is one of the most fluctuating and the most profound relationships in American history. On the one side of the picture, the harmony between Wampanoag and Puritans even inspires them to celebrate “first Thanksgiving”; while, by contrast, the conflicts between the Pequots and the English urge them to antagonize each other, and even wage a war. In addition, the mystery of why the European settlers, including English, become the dominant power in American world, instead of the indigenous people, or Indians, can be solved from the examination of the relationship. In a variety of ways, the relationship drastically alters how people think about and relate to the aborigines. Politically, the relationship changes to establish the supremacy of the English; the English intends to obtain the land and rules over it. Socially, the relationship changes to present the majority of the English settlers; the dominating population is mostly the English settlers. Economically, the relationship changes to obtain the benefit of the English settlers; they gain profit from the massive resource in America. Therefore, the relationship does, in fact, change to foreshadow the discordance of the two groups of people.

There are many reasons Native Americans and European Colonists did not have a good relationship. The reason for conflict between Colonist and Indians was due to the Colonists insatiable greed for power and land. Some of the reasons not only included physical mistreatment but also an ethical mistreatment of the Native Americans. European Colonists not only brought with them many different diseases that would later aid in the genocide of many Native American tribes, but also a mindset in which they felt superior to there Native neighbors. This feeling of superiority led to an outbreak of violence and many different civil wars. Due to the Native American and the Colonists irreconcilable

Imagine a person bought something that the person valued. The person was the owner of the product and took good care of it.Then, all of a sudden, a stranger comes and takes that product and declares it “discovered”. Now since the stranger “discovered” it, the product now has to be shared among them. This is similar to what happened to Native Americans in North America. Native Americans owned and lived in North America for several thousand years. Then, all of a sudden, European explorers came to North America and claimed the land “discovered”. Europeans started moving into the land and later, started sharing the land. Encounters between Europeans and Native Americans in the colonial era led to the exchange of diseases with Native Americans,

During the time of 1763-1775, one of the occurrences that happened to affect the colonists’ perception of the British was the French and Indian War. The war itself was not the main reason the colonists’ had trouble with the British, but the time after the war was the actual cause of eventual trouble. During the war, the British fought with France around the Ohio valley for the control of land. The Ohio valley was very important to both of the empires, because of the land value and the strategic location it held in the years to come. Both had their struggles especially with the Native Americans that called this area their home. Most of the Native Americans sided with either the British or the French because they thought that if they had sided with

The Market Revolution drastically increased industry in the United States. Its emphasis on economic development caused people to limit the rights of others for the sake of expansion and progress. Liberty overall contracts during the Market Revolution since opportunities for economic freedom and personal liberty have been restricted for various groups because the new economic way of thinking amplified disparities that had already existed before the Market Revolution.

When Europeans came to the American continent, contact with the Native Americans who were already living there was inevitable. In the colonization of early America, the various groups of European settlers: the Spanish, French, English, and Dutch each had unique experiences with, and therefore individual opinions of the Native Americans whom they interacted. Each of these nations also shared commonalties in their colonization processes and in how they viewed Native Americans. Furthermore, the Native Americans held differing opinions of each group of Europeans whom they encountered while some features of their relationships with Europeans were consistent despite the tribe or nation involved.

On the other hand, Native Americans decided to fight on the side of the British because they taught it might mean a victory in expansion. Similarly, there were Native Americans fought on the American side as well because they wanted to help the Americans at the Battles of Fort George and Chippewa (Fixico, para. 2). According to Fixico, There were Indians who sided with the Americans -- Red Jacket and Farmer’s Brother led a Seneca faction to help the Americans at the Battles of Fort George and Chippewa. But most Indian nations sided with the British against the U.S, believing that a British victory might mean an end to expansion. Although the Americans went to war with the British because the Americans thought that the British were being unfair because they were unfairly taxing the Americans to pay of their debts and the Americans just wanted freedom, the Native Americans and the Americans fought because the Natives thought

The American Revolution was a conflict that caused profound change in the world. Not only did it change America’s relationship with Britain, The American Revolution changed the way the Americans ran their government and economy. However, some of the biggest change that the American Revolution brought was societal change. The American Revolution affected minorities in ways that past conflicts never had before, and changed certain aspects of American society for life. While they may not be among the first groups one thinks of when talking about minorities, the Loyalists were a small but firm minority in the colonies.

As colonists from Britain began to enter the New World in the 1600’s, they colonized much of the eastern border of Northern America in the New World, and invaded the lands of the Native Americans, striving to drive them out of the area. The British felt superior to the Native, looking down upon them as ‘savage-like’ and uncivilized. They tried to ‘civilize’ the Natives, but the inevitable result of Native and colonist interactions was the decimation of Native populations due to conflict, disease, and other such factors. These interactions with Natives were not simply an obstacle in the path of the colonists; rather they had great influence on the colonists’ lifestyles, including language. Even though the colonists held their belief in superiority,

The Iroquois confederacy also known as Five Nations, was an alliance of five, later six, American Indian tribes—the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, and Tuscarora. The Revolution caused a civil war amongst them. Mohawks supported the British, and most Cayugas, Onondagas, and Senecas joined forces with them. Whilst Oneidas and Tuscaroras ended up siding with the Americans. In 1783, following the terms of the Treaty of Paris, Without consulting with their Indian allies first, Britain gave the Americans all of the territories, east of the Mississippi, south of the Great Lakes,

When the French tried to impose their franc on the population, they prohibited the use of cowries as transaction money. The people of Volta resisted because they believed it would diminish the value of the cowries they held. Hoarding of cowries thus became popular by village Elders. Upon France’s colonization of the Volta, they had brought with them the purchasing power of their soldiers, teachers, interpreters, and others, so that initially the arrival of the French along with their new money (the franc) and its availability, caused the franc to appreciate. Later when the volume of francs reached saturation, additional quantities of francs introduced into the market system began to depreciate its monetary value (Saul 2004: 93,94).