Reading List: Native Americans in the American Revolution

As November marks Native American Heritage Month, the Museum is exploring Native American history, culture, and their role in the American Revolution. More than 250,000 Native Americans lived east of the Mississippi River during the Revolutionary era. They formed more than 80 nations and spoke dozens of languages. The decades of political turmoil and warfare that divided Great Britain and the colonies — and led to the creation of the United States — profoundly affected Native people. Decisions on which side to support led to intense debate within the Six Nations Confederacy as the Oneida Nation chose to break away to back the United States against the British.

To dive deeper into the voices, viewpoints, experiences, contributions, and legacies of Native Americans during the Revolutionary era, check out these six books previously featured in the Museum's Read the Revolution series.

Reading List

Memory Wars: Settlers and Natives Remember Washington’s Sullivan Expedition of 1779
by A. Lynn Smith
In Memory Wars, historian A. Lynn Smith explores historical memories of Revolutionary General John Sullivan’s military invasion of the homelands of the Haudenosaunee, also known as the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. Read an excerpt to learn about General George Washington’s strategic goals for the 1779 Sullivan Expedition, which resulted in devastation and suffering that, for nearly 250 years, descendants of the combatants have lived among – and continue to grapple with – in the wooded mountains and narrow valleys of Pennsylvania and New York.

The Cutting-Off Way: Indigenous Warfare in Eastern North America, 1500–1800
by Wayne E. Lee
What did the experience of early American warfare look like from a Native American perspective? Before contact with European people, Native Americans formulated their own modes of warfare, which were defined by their societies and cultural understandings of violence. Wayne Lee’s recent book, The Cutting-Off Way, establishes the societal norms of warfare among the peoples of the Eastern Woodlands over a 300-year period. Read a short excerpt about the expensive, but necessary, costs the British Army incurred for enlisting Iroquois help at Fort Niagara in 1779. 

Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America
by Pekka Hämäläinen
In Indigenous Continent, historian Pekka Hämäläinen redraws our perception of early America, arguing that the boundaries on many European maps of the 18th century had little to do with reality. On the ground, sovereign Native American nations controlled land and held the upper hand in many international relationships. Hämäläinen’s history spans millennia and places the American Revolution in its broader, indigenous context. “Rather than a ‘colonial America,’” he argues, “we should speak of an Indigenous America that was only slowly and unevenly becoming colonial.”

Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World
by Maya Jasanoff
The history of loyalists in the American Revolution is not just a national history, it's a global one. Few explain this better than Maya Jasanoff, in her pivotal work, Liberty's Exiles. Through the stories of 10 major characters, including Mohawk leader Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant), who went to what's present-day Ontario, Jasanoff explores loyalists' decisions to leave America after the war and their ventures to resettle across the British Empire, from Nova Scotia to Jamaica, Sierra Leone to India. She finds that each journey reveals "a different stamp of the revolution on the world."

The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution
by Alan Taylor
Alan Taylor’s book, The Divided Ground, features an important ally in the American Revolutionary War: the Oneida Nation. The Oneida were one of the six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy (including the Tuscarora, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Mohawk) whose ancestral lands span present-day New York and Canada. For more than a century before the American Revolution, the Oneida and other Iroquois nations had skillfully played French and British colonial powers off one another in order to defend their lands and sovereignty. Tragically, this strategy sometimes brought Iroquois people into conflict among themselves. The American Revolution plunged the Confederacy into danger again, as British and American leaders appealed to the Oneida and other native nations for support.

Forgotten Allies: The Oneida Indians and the American Revolution
by Joseph T. Glatthaar and James Kirby Martin
In Forgotten Allies, military historians Joseph Glatthaar and James Kirby Martin present the action-packed story of Oneida contributions and sacrifices during the Revolutionary War, honoring centuries of oral history and written for a broad audience. The authors present perspectives from a powerful couple, Revolutionary War veterans Tyonajanegen (Two Kettles Together) and Han Yerry Tweahangarahken (He Who Takes Up the Snow Shoe), both of whom are featured in the Museum's Oneida Nation Theater. Read an excerpt for an introduction to Two Kettles Together and Han Yerry as we remember their bravery during the Battle of Oriskany.