The Crossroads of Nations: Native Sovereignty and Revolutionary Ambiguity
The American Revolution is often framed as a struggle between liberty and empire. But for the Native nations of North America, it was something else entirely. It was not a war for independence. It was a war of encroachment, wrapped in different flags. The British promised alliances. The Americans promised freedom. But neither promised sovereignty. And so Native leaders stood at a difficult crossroads, facing choices that were less about ideology and more about survival. Some nations, like the Mohawk under Joseph Brant, allied with the British.
They saw London’s distance as a potential buffer against colonial expansion. Others, like the Oneida, sided with the Revolutionaries, hoping that shared resistance against British rule would earn them respect and autonomy in the new republic. Still others tried to remain neutral, knowing that whichever side they favored could later claim betrayal. It was a map with no safe path. The Iroquois Confederacy, once a model of balance and cooperation, fractured under the weight of these decisions. Longhouse diplomacy gave way to battlefield alignment. Brothers found themselves on opposite sides of the same conflict. Communities once united by common language and tradition were pulled into a war not of their choosing.
That internal division would outlast the war itself. The mural recognizes this complexity in quiet ways. In one panel, a Native figure stands with a wampum belt in one hand and a musket in the other. He faces east, where distant flags rise. Behind him, a trail vanishes into trees. His position is not one of allegiance. It is one of decision. The posture does not declare a side. It declares a burden. This is not a story of defectors or loyalists. It is the story of sovereign nations forced to measure every step against disappearing land. When peace came in 1783, Native peoples were not invited to the table. The Treaty of Paris redrew boundaries and transferred vast stretches of Indigenous land without consultation. Those who had allied with the British found themselves branded as enemies.
Those who had sided with the Americans found their promises forgotten. Neutrality had earned no favors. Victory brought little recognition. The new United States looked west- and saw opportunity where nations already stood. This erasure was not accidental. It was strategic. The new republic would expand by laying claim to territory whose governance had never been ceded. Treaties followed, often negotiated in bad faith, often broken. The Revolution had changed governments, but not the settler logic that placed Indigenous sovereignty as an obstacle to be overcome. What remains powerful in this history is the resilience of Native voices. In the writings of Brant, in the petitions of tribal elders, in the continued resistance across the Ohio Valley, we see a clarity that was often lacking in the colonial congresses. Native leaders did not always speak in the language of freedom.
They spoke in the language of land, continuity, and survival. And in doing so, they preserved nations even as maps erased them. The Revolution was not only a story of new beginnings. It was also a story of broken continuities. For Native peoples, it marked a shift from one form of colonial pressure to another. But it did not mark an end. Their stories, decisions, and strategies remain central to the true telling of American independence. Not as footnotes. As frameworks. And that truth still echoes at the crossroads.
