Panelists emphasize Native nations as sovereign actors whose alliances reshaped campaigns
Summary
Speakers warned against reading the Revolution ‘backwards’ and urged recognition that Native nations were powerful diplomatic and military actors who materially affected battles and settlement patterns in places such as upstate New York and around the Great Lakes.
Both panelists warned against imposing modern assumptions about Native political weakness onto the 18th century and argued Native nations were sought-after military and diplomatic partners. "They were incredibly powerful and desired military and diplomatic allies," Lindsay (S2) said, stressing that different Iroquois nations sided with different parties and that campaigns in upstate New York were materially shaped by those alliances.
Sarah (S3) added that some frontier settler disaffection was tied to British attempts to accommodate Native nations in the interior, and that recognizing Native sovereignty in this period complicates straightforward narratives of American expansion.
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