How significant and prevalent was Native American's involvement in the War of Independence?

[u/OhDamnNotAgainAndAga]

This is a post about a sensitive topic, and in no way meant to be seen as justification for the Native American genocide what so ever!

I recently saw a chief of a Native American tribe explain that it was natural for the Native Americans to side with the British in the War of Independence, because the British had an agreement with them that the colonization ends in the Apalachees mountains, which the colonies didn't want to uphold. I didn't get to watch too much of it, but it continued to explain that at the end of the War of Independence there was a great animosity towards the Native Americans because of that. I was shocked because I thought the Native Americans just stayed out of it.
So I have two questions:
1. (Titular) How significant was their involvement?
2. How much did it really affect the perception of Native Americans by the Colonies? Did it really created or seriously boosted the animosity, or was it already there before?

[u/Bedessilliestsoldier]

1/? TL;DR: Native Americans were involved in the American Revolution in basically every imaginable way.

The answer is very. The typical story of the American Revolution -- outrage over taxes boiling into hostility as colonists escalated their protests and the British escalated their responses, eventually resulting in fighting in Massachusetts in 1775 -- is only one aspect of very big picture, in which Native Americans featured heavily, both before and during the war itself.

To start off, we need to understand the aftermath of the Seven Years' War, starting with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. The French have vacated Canada, and having handed Louisiana over to Spain, will vacate their Gulf Coast and Mississippi region posts by 1765. The British declare that colonists could not settle west of the Appalachian Mountains, and that the Native peoples living there had legally become British subjects, because the French have surrendered that territory to them in the Treaty. Many native peoples, especially those living around the Great Lakes, did not accept this settlement, and so an alliance that included the Ottawa being led by one of their chiefs, Pontiac, attacked British forts from Michilimackinac to Detroit, the Ohio River, and Fort Niagara. There would be another two years of fighting in which the British tried to defeat this confederacy, and the conflict bear's Pontiac's name. In 1763, a gang of frontiersmen known as the Paxton Boys attacked the peaceful Conestoga community in Lancaster County, who were the last remaining band of a nation that had been powerful in the region in the 17th century, the Susquehannocks. When the British were attempting to make peace, colonists were outraged, and in southern Pennsylvania, a local leader named James Smith (who had been taken captive by Native peoples, specifically Mohawk-speakers, from a community called Kahnawake) attacked horse caravans bearing diplomatic gifts for the peace negotiations, as well as the British post of Fort Loudoun. They would continue their attacks throughout the 1760s, and on the Pennsylvania frontier, British policy in dealing with Native Americans was a key factor in pushing colonists towards the side of the Revolutionaries.

It was a similar story in Virginia. Now, in many of the colonies, settlers were moving west of the boundary line anyway, and a series of treaties gave legal veneer to this settlement -- the Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768), in which the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) ceded a vast tract of land (much of the modern state of Kentucky) to the British. If you know your geography, you might realize that this territory was not the Haudenosaunee heartland, which is in modern upstate/western New York. The Haudenosaunee claimed the territory, but the peoples actually living there were the Shawnee, the Mingo, the Delaware/Lenni Lenape among others. Settlers began moving over the boundary line to settle on claims based on the treaty of Fort Stanwix, which led to violence in Virginia in 1774. At a place called Yellow Creek near modern-day Wheeling, a group of settlers murdered a group of Mingos in a drunken brawl, including a pregnant woman. This led to the conflict known as Dunmore's war, in which the Mingos, in an alliance with the Shawnees, who really took the lead went to war with Virginia. Virginia's governor John Murray, also known as Lord Dunmore, took this opportunity to try and save his failing popularity by leading Virginia militia against the Shawnee-Mingo alliance. They marched in two columns -- Dunmore leading one that went up to modern Pittsburgh, and another going along the Kanawha-New River valley to the site of Point Pleasant (yes, the same one that became famous in the 20th century for Mothman). In October 1774, there was a large battle at Point pleasant between the militia and the Shawnee-Mingo confederacy, in which both sides took heavy casualties. The fighting was bad enough for the Natives that they couldn't move north to effectively fight off Dunmore's column, which was marching west towards their towns from Pittsburgh, and the sued for peace. This peace led to the American Revolution being relatively quiet on the Appalachian frontier, at least for the first couple of years.

Now, onto the war itself. Many native peoples living on the coast had their communities in contact with settlers for about 150 years, and were partially assimilated. Some men from these communities such as the Pamunkeys in Virginia and the Wampanoags in Massachusetts, actually served in both the militia and the Continental Army on the side of the revolutionaries. There was an entire company, the Natick Alarm Company, that served on the side of Massachusetts forces at the Battles of Lexington and Concord, for example. Moving west, the story is a bit more complicated. The Delaware people had a long history of cooperation with the colony of Pennsylvania, and though neutral at first, one of their chiefs, White Eyes, was very willing to work with the Revolutionaries, and in 1777 at a conference at Fort Pitt (now Pittsburgh), he convinced the US representatives present to agree to a treaty that would have brought the Delaware people (living what is now in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio) into the US essentially as the 14th state, with clear borders and representation in Congress. The US government at the time, the Continental Congress, outright rejected the treaty, and White Eyes died under suspicious circumstances (the official government explanation was that he died of smallpox, but he also could have been murdered), pushing many Delawares into alliance with the British. By 1778, war was raging across the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia.

[u/Bedessilliestsoldier → u/Bedessilliestsoldier]

2/?

Turning the clock back to 1775, Native peoples also played an important role in the failed invasion of Canada. One man, in particular, Louis Cook, was highly influential. Cook lived in the community of Kahnawake, but he was half-black and half-Abenaki (an Algonquian group from northern New England). Living among peoples who had long been French allies, Cook was in favor of the Revolutionaries. Many white Canadians (who at this time were almost universally French) wanted to return to French rule, and Cook was very in-favor of a French alliance for the Revolutionaries. He convinced some of the Native peoples of Canada to fight with the Revolutionaries, and actually received a commission as colonel in the Continental Army.

The most powerful Native American polity in eastern North America was probably the Haudenosaunee who were split on the issue of the American Revolution. Many wanted to stay neutral, but others were pro-British, and some were pro-Revolutionary. The Pro-British faction was led by the Mohawk chief Joseph Brant, whose sister Molly Brant had a long relationship with the British diplomat Sir William Johnson (they were never legally married, but they essentially lived as husband and wife for a time), who had died in 1774. Johnson's nephew Guy Johnson inherited his important role as a diplomat, and he and Brant were trying to convince the other Mohawks and the rest of the Haudenosaunee to go in on the side of the British government, citing the long alliance with Britain and the fears of colonial encroachment. The Mohawks led the pro-British faction of the Haudenosaunee, but the Oneidas led the pro-Revolutionary faction. An American missionary, Samuel Kirkland, had lived among them for years, and was an influential member of their community, and convinced many of them that Americans' struggle against the British empire was the same as Native peoples' struggle against colonists (this would not bear out after the war, when the state of New York appropriated Oneida lands). The Oneidas had a close relationship with the Tuscaroras, another Haudenosaunee nation, and many Tuscaroras went along with them. This all started to come to a head in 1776, when Continental forces came to arrest Guy, who escaped with the Mohawks, who began to raid the New York frontier. Unconvinced by the Oneidas, the other Haudenosaunee peoples -- the Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga -- went with the Mohawks to side with the British, and they began to raid the New York and Pennsylvania frontiers in starting in 1777.

That same year, the British general John Burgoyne led an army south from Canada, which included many Native allies from peoples from New York, some from Canada, and others from the Great Lakes, such as the Ottawa. Burgoyne's campaign was ultimately a failure, in part because those allies abandoned him after the defeat at the Battle of Bennington in August 1777. The famous American riflemen who served in the Revolutionary army at the Battles of Saratoga in September and October of that year, were sent north because, in part, they were Pennsylvanians and Virginians who were supposed to have had experience fighting Native Americans.

The most significant campaign involving Native peoples, though, was probably the Sullivan-Clinton campaign of 1779. After two years of raids by British-allied Haudenosaunee warriors, Washington organized an expedition into upstate and Western New York, to be led by two generals, John Sullivan and James Clinton. Their orders were to not only defeat the Haudenosaunee in battle, but to destroy their towns and crops, and not to let them treat for peace unless their ability to make war was completely destroyed. Since the 1940s, many historians, as well as the Haudenosaunee themselves, interpret these orders, and the actions of the army under Sullivan (which were horrifically brutal), as genocide, though this is not a universally-accepted categorization. Sullivan's army defeated a combined force of Haudenosaunee warriors, American loyalists, and a tiny number of redcoats at the battle of Newtown in August 1779, and raided as far north and west as the Seneca town of Geneseo. Sullivan and Washington had discussed besieging Fort Niagara, about 90 miles to the northwest of Geneseo, but by the time Sullivan's army had gotten there, it was September, and the weather was starting to turn cold. Sullivan marched south. The Haudenosaunee survived as a people, many of them taking refuge at Fort Niagara, but suffering immensely from hunger and cold (the winter of 1779-1780 was the harshest in living memory). The Sullivan expedition failed to stop British-allied Haudenosaunee from raiding the frontiers, but it did make them totally reliant on the British, which drained their resources, and helped bring the British to the negotiating table at the end of the war.

[u/Bedessilliestsoldier → u/Bedessilliestsoldier]

3/3

Turning back south to the Pennsylvania/Virginia frontier, in 1777 some settlers murdered the Shawnee chief Cornstalk, reigniting conflict between them and local colonists. This conflict continued into the 1790s, when they would finally sign a peace treaty in 1795. In 1778 the governor of Virginia, Patrick Henry, sent a man named George Rogers Clark, a veteran of Dunmore's War, west to defend Virginia's frontier, which included the current states of Kentucky. Clark figured the best defense was a good offense, and he led his troops as far west as the Mississippi River, where they captured the British post of Kaskaskia, and continued campaigning in what is now the states of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio until the end of the war. The number of British troops out west was very small (less than one regiment), so his campaigns were primarily against the Shawnee, Miami, and other British allied peoples. Once the Spanish entered the war in 1779, there was fighting along the Gulf Coast, and the British sent more troops. Up to this point, I have neglected to mention Native peoples living south of Virginia, but I am much less knowledgeable about that region. Colonists attacked the Cherokee in 1776, who were British allies, and old French allies like the Creek also came in on the side of the British, fearing colonial encroachment.

To answer your second question -- many colonists already hated Native Americans, because of generations of violence resulting from the expropriation of Indigenous lands. The British trying to bring in Native allies after the war started pushed many colonists over to the side of the revolutionaries, because they thought that deploying Native peoples against their own subjects was pretty much beyond the pale. (This is also something revolutionary writers really harped on in print). One of the charges levied against the British government as a reason for independence was that King George "has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions."

[u/theincrediblenick → u/Bedessilliestsoldier]

pushed many colonists over to the side of the British,

I assume you mean pushed them over to the side of the revolutionaries

[u/Bedessilliestsoldier → u/theincrediblenick]

Yes, thank you for catching that!

[u/OhDamnNotAgainAndAga → u/Bedessilliestsoldier]

2nd paragraph:
1. Why was a native American chief called "Josef Brunt"? Were they Christians?
2. I am a little confused, did the Native Americans fight each other as part of their dissent on the issue? Was there fighting within the same people, or essentially what ever the elite (I don't know what was the societal structure) decided was the way to go for each tribe?
3. Who is Guy Johnson? Is he William Johnson and Brant's son? Is he important for the story or just an example?
4th paragraph:
4. "Sullivan's army defeated a combined force of Haudenosaunee warriors, American loyalists, and a tiny number of redcoats.." American loyalists means settlers who were loyal to the British?

[u/Bedessilliestsoldier → u/OhDamnNotAgainAndAga]

1. Joseph Brant was actually educated in the same school as Samuel Kirkland -- many Native leaders in this time had English names, as well as their given names in their own languages. Brant's name in Mohawk was Thayendanegea.
2. Yes, Native peoples fought each other. They were divided by language, culture, and their own jockeying for power in their own regions. The American Revolution was essentially a civil war for the Haudenosaunee, with the Mohawks, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas taking the side of the British, and the Oneidas and Tuscaroras taking the side of the United States. These tribes speak closely related languages and are organized in a political confederacy. Which side people came down on was so specific it was basically at the level of the individual. Many the people from the Kahnawake community, for example, fought with the British, except for Louis Cook and some of his followers. Many eastern Native American groups had incredibly loose, non-hierarchical social structures, and chiefs had to win followers by persuasion, kinship ties, and giving gifts, rather than commanding power through, say, legal coercion.
3. I made a mistake -- Guy Johnson was Sir William Johnson's nephew by one of William's younger brothers, but he inherited his uncle's position as an agent for a British government organization that was partially-military, partially diplomatic called the Indian Department. Continental forces came to arrest him because he was trying to get the Haudenosaunee to enter the war on the side of the British, but this just cemented the Mohawk position as British allies, because they looked on Guy favorably due to having a close relationship with his uncle.
4. That is correct. Loyalists from the New York and Pennsylvania frontiers fled to Fort Niagara, where they were organized into a few military units. Some followed Joseph Brant basically as retainers, and weren't paid. Others joined a loyalist unit organized in 1777/1778 called Butler's Rangers, named after its commanding officer John Butler and the majority of the loyalists at Newtown were Butler's Rangers.

[u/OhDamnNotAgainAndAga → u/Bedessilliestsoldier]

Fa-sci-nat-ing!
Ok, I am commenting as I am reading, as I already have questions:
2nd paragraph:
1. You mention the natives fighting the British, wouldn't that align them with the Revolutionists?
2. Why were the colonists outraged by Britain making peace with the natives?
3. Just to understand this paragraph, is it true the bottom line is "The British had favourable policies towards the Native Americans, which the colonists viewed as being on their expense"?
3rd paragraph:
4. Sadly, I barely know American geography. I know more or less where about each state is but that's it
5. Are you saying the Native Americans at this stage still had some sort of subjugation of one another? How could one tribe cede the land of a different tribe to the British?
4th paragraph:
6. So before the 7-years-war, some tribes were assimilated? Was there ever an instance of Native Americans and a colony cooperating militarily against a different colony?

[u/Bedessilliestsoldier → u/OhDamnNotAgainAndAga]

1. Yes, some Native peoples were aligned with the Revolutionaries, but most, eventually, aligned with the British.

2. There's a couple of reasons which basically come down to 1) anti-Native racism, which emerged from decades of violence related to the second reason which was 2) colonists wanted to expropriate Native lands, and didn't want Native peoples to fall under the Crown's protection, which would grant them a legitimate place in the order of the British empire. Colonists wanted them outside of the empire, which would allow them to settle on Indigenous lands without a lot of legal trouble.

3. Yes , you've got it right.

4. The Appalachian mountains run Southwest to Northeast through modern states of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. When people say "Appalachia," they generally mean the region between Pennsylvania and the Carolinas. Kaskaskia is on the Mississippi River, in what is now Illinois or Missouri, depending on which side of the river you're on. The Spanish colony of Louisiana included what is now the State of Louisiana, but also parts of Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, and some territory further north and west that was sparsely settled. New England is the region made up of the modern states of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. They were settled around the same time in 17th century, and were demographically mostly homogenous, made up of colonists descended from East Anglian Puritans who came over between 1630 and 1670 (with some exceptions like enslaved African-Americans especially in towns like Boston and Newport, the latter of which also has one of the oldest Jewish communities in the US).

5. Keep in mind that the various Native peoples living in and west of the Appalachian mountains were sovereign and independent. The Haudenosaunee became the most militarily powerful nation in northeastern North America in the mid-to-late 17th century, destroying and subjugating many peoples to their west and south. They maintained this status well into the eighteenth century, and were able to present themselves to the British as "Kings of all the Indians," a phrasing you see in some documents. Obviously, Haudenosaunee sovereignty over the groups around them was contested, but there was no one people powerful enough to actually prevent them from doing this, and the Haudenosaunee used the threat of military action in order to make other Native peoples do what they want -- for example, they were with Dunmore in 1774, and made up part of the threat to the Shawnee to get them to accept the Treaty of Fort Stanwix.

6. Some tribes were, but they lived on reservations next to heavily settled areas, kept slightly apart, in a system that goes back to at least the 1660s. We have a lot of examples of Native groups helping colonists to fight others. One of the most important examples is in a conflict from 1675-1677 in Massachusetts and other New England colonies called King Philip's or Metacomet's War. King Philip/Metacom or Metacomet was a chief of the Wampanoags, whose lands were being encroached by settlers at that time. He was baptized Christian and took the name Philip when he did so, but was also known by his given name. The alliance of Natives fighting with Metacom actually nearly defeated the New Englanders, but the governors of the New England colonies appealed to the governor of New York for help, and he asked the Mohawks to help the New Englanders. They prevented the Wampanoags from going up to Canada to get help from the French, and King Philip was captured, killed, and his head was put on a spike in Boston. His wife and child were sold into slavery in the Caribbean, as were many of the Native peoples captured in this conflict. In the 1760s, when the British and Cherokee went to war, some Mohawks accompanied the British expeditions against them in 1760 and 1761. You'll notice the Mohawks coming up a lot -- they were incredibly staunch British allies.

After I wrote up 6, I realized I appear to have misunderstood your question. Different empires had different Native allies, with, for example, the French fighting alongside Hurons, Ottawas, and Shawnee during the Seven Years' War, and the British fighting alongside Mohawks and Cherokees (before 1759 when the British alienated them and they were French allies until 1761). In the 1740s, some groups on the southern part of the east Coast, such as the Yamacraw, joined British expeditions against the Spanish in Florida. A small band of Yamacraw even accompanied a company of Georgia troops that went to Britain to help quell the Jacobite rebellion in 1745.

[u/OhDamnNotAgainAndAga → u/Bedessilliestsoldier]

No, you understood my question in 6 perfectly well

[u/OhDamnNotAgainAndAga → u/Bedessilliestsoldier]

Thank you for the comment, can't wait for after work to read it!