Native Americans in the American Revolution: Side with Britain or the Colonies?

One of the events that set up the American view of the Native Americans was their role in the American Revolution. The Native Americans had to make a huge decision as to whether they would support the colonists or the British. They had already experienced some oppression, mainly on the East Coast, so they were aware that they there was a chance that they would be further oppressed if they supported the wrong side. While not all Native Americans sided with the British, many of them did. They chose to do this because "it appeared the British would win the war," "British trade routes and practices were more lucrative and widespread than those of the rebellious colonists," and "for the British, violent retaliation was a dangerous trend that they hoped to curb" ("Native Americans in the American Revolution"). The Native Americans wanted to side with who they felt would win the war, which was the British, many saw that trade with Britain was more beneficial to the Native Americans and they felt that the British would be less violent and oppressive to them. Due to these factors they chose to side with the British, which I do not blame them for at all. It simply made more sense as they would be safer, richer, and have more land if the British won, so they helped to try and make the British win. Despite the attraction of fighting with the British many Native Americans stayed neutral as long as possible, the Iroquois Confederacy was officially neutral as smaller tribes supported specific sides, and some tribes still joined the American side as soldiers.

When America won the war, the widespread support of Britain by Native Americans greatly backfired and set up years of racism and aggression towards Native Americans by the whites. While not all Native Americans supported the British, and some even supported America, "All Native Americans were considered traitors" and they were targeted "as enemies of the nascent republic" ("Native Americans in the Revolution"). The Americans grouped together all Native Americans as one and saw them as a threat, not caring about whether or not specific tribes or groups fought against them. This is a very typical act of racism, assuming that all people of one group acted the same way and have the same beliefs. We saw this a lot with African-Americans in history as the whites often just assumed that every black was dangerous, stupid, and mean. The white Americans assumed all Native Americans fought against them simply because the majority of Native Americans fought against them. American wanted to weaken the Native Americans because they felt that they were a threat to the new nation, and leaders such as Thomas Jefferson "called for Native American extermination" ("Native Americans in the Revolution"). This amazes me, as Thomas Jefferson is thought to be one of the greatest leaders of all time and yet he wanted to get rid of an entire group of people who frankly had been on the land before the whites took it from them. When I think of Thomas Jefferson I imagine a great man and a great leader and yet he was extremely racist towards the Native Americans. This shows another connection between Native Americans and blacks as many great leaders of America also owned slaves, which I also see as an awful attribute of some seemingly great men. The encouragement of leaders such as Jefferson to get rid of the Native Americans must have had a great impact on the nation's views of these people as the average white American looked up to Thomas Jefferson as a leader and they valued his opinion. So, from the start the Native Americans had the cards stacked against them because they supported the losers in the American Revolution causing them to have diminished trade and they had to live in a country in which the powerful looked at them as traitors.

Stockdale, Nancy L. "Native Americans in the American Revolution." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 31 Jan. 2010. .