Native Americans Lost their Territory

During the American Revolution, several Native American tribes took part. The majority of them supported the British in the hopes that a British victory would halt further colonial expansion into their lands. However, the majority of people did not engage in the war and chose to remain neutral, believing that joining what they saw to be a European struggle was pointless. Thayendanegea, a Mohawk chief, was one of the prominent Native American chiefs who commanded raiding parties of Indians, British, and Loyalists in western New York and Pennsylvania in 1778 and 1779.

This session, which put those Iroquois who had been aligned with the English loyalists in what was now U.S. territory, was made without consulting the indigenous people. Thousands of members of the Iroquois-English alliance abandoned their villages after native Americans lost their territory and moved to Canada after realizing that remaining in the region would expose them to retaliation.

After the conflict, there was no local representation at the peace talks. Even though this region was mainly unsettled by Europeans and predominantly inhabited by Native Americans, the British awarded the United States all territory between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. The United States quickly moved westward after winning freedom, often violently, taking Indian territory by treaty and force. Supporters of the Americans, such as the Stockbridge and Oneidas, as well as the Senecas and Shawnees who fought against them, lost their territory. It is possible to say that American independence signaled the beginning of the end of Native American independence.