On August 25, 1775, four commissioners appointed by Congress met with the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy near Albany, New York, and delivered a speech, stating, in part: "Brothers and friends!… This is a family quarrel between us [the white colonists] and Old England. You Indians are not concerned in it. We don't wish you to take up the hatchet against the king's troops. We desire you to remain at home, and not join on either side, but keep the hatchet buried deep."
The Six Nations agreed to pledge neutrality. In the fall of 1775, the Western Nations (the Shawnee, Wyandot, and others) also agreed to remain neutral.
Other tribes took advantage of wartime to express their hostility toward Americans. The Cherokee, for example, staged an uprising in 1776 against settlers in Georgia and the Carolinas, but they were soon put down by American soldiers. Seven years later, the Cherokee lost much of their land in the treaty that ended the Revolutionary War.
Even some of the nations in the Iroquois Confederacy ended up taking sides in the war—despite their earlier pledges of neutrality.
This is a free page. This page contains 181 words. This
article contains 3,717 words (approx. 12 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Article with our Native Americans and Blacks in the American Revolution Access Pass.
