Independence Day

Keeping Indians Out of the Revolution

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From an article in the Harvard Law Review in 1900 (13 Harv. L. Rev. 319):

Talk to the Six Nations, of July 13, 1775: “Brothers and Friends! We desire you will hear and receive what we have now told you, and that you will open a good ear, and listen to what we are now going to say. This is a family quarrel between us and old England. You Indians are not concerned in it.” (The Six Nations, however, were inhabitants of New York State.) Journals of Congress, July 13, 1775. The committee consisted of five members: Philip Schuyler (N. Y.); Patrick Henry (Va.); James Duane (N. Y.); James Wilson (Penn.); and Philip Livingston (N. Y.)

NYTs Op-Ed on Independence Day, Indians, and Government

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the NYTs:

By KATHLEEN DuVAL

FROM the perspective of 2009, democracy in the United States is a great success. This makes it is easy to imagine that the march to democracy was the only path — that there is a clear line from the Declaration of Independence to the presidency of Barack Obama, and that democracy is the only fair society. But republican government was a risky choice at the time of the Revolution, and democracy was almost out of the question. There were more proven alternatives for running a society fairly. A look at two other contenders for control of the continent in 1776 — American Indians and Spaniards — reveals that democracy’s supremacy in promoting human rights was far from inevitable.

There were Indians fighting on both sides of the Revolution and others who tried to stay neutral. But whatever their choice, Indians did not fight for an American republic or a British constitutional monarchy but for their own goals, especially sovereignty. While American Indians were politically diverse, by the Revolution their most common governance structure consisted of multiple chiefs with limited power, advised by councils of elders. Chiefs led by persuasion rather than force. As a Mohawk man of the day explained, “We have no forcing rules or laws amongst us.”

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