Treaty Lines and Broken Promises: What the Revolution Cost Native Nations

When the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, there were no Native nations at the table. No voices to speak for the Iroquois, the Cherokee, the Shawnee, the Creek, or the many others who had fought, negotiated, or tried to stay out of the war. Their land was discussed. Their fate was decided. But their presence was missing. The treaty line, drawn between Britain and the United States, carved through forests, rivers, and ancestral homelands as though no one had lived there at all. To the American negotiators, the treaty was a victory.

To Native nations, it was a betrayal of silence. Many had allied with the British under promises of support and protection. Others had fought alongside American forces, believing shared struggle might lead to shared sovereignty. Some had remained neutral, hoping that by avoiding allegiance, they might preserve peace. In the end, none of it mattered. The Revolution cost them not just their political leverage. It cost them their voice. The new American government wasted no time claiming the spoils. Land west of the Appalachian Mountains was now declared open for settlement. Treaties that had once marked boundaries were ignored or rewritten.

The Iroquois Confederacy, fractured by war, saw half its remaining territory stripped in a single diplomatic season. The Shawnee and Miami were pushed further west. The Cherokee, already burned out by repeated campaigns, faced a wave of settler intrusion. The logic was simple. Victory justified expansion. What made the promises so hollow was how easily they were made. Throughout the war, American envoys assured Native leaders that their lands would be protected. That autonomy would be respected. That their role in the Revolution would be remembered. Some tribes signed treaties in good faith. Others provided warriors, guides, and resources. In return, they expected recognition. Instead, they received displacement. These weren’t just betrayals of words. They were betrayals of relationship. Many Native nations had invested generations in diplomatic ties. Wampum belts were exchanged. Councils held. Agreements renewed. But to the new federal government, those agreements were not binding. They were inconvenient.

The Revolution may have created a republic, but it did not end the settler mindset that land was there for the taking, and treaties were there to be revised. The mural addresses this chapter not in bright colors or central figures, but in the quiet divide of a landscape. A valley is split by a faint line. On one side, a family plants corn. On the other, surveyors mark a claim. The line runs through both scenes. Neither side looks up. The land is the same, but the story is being told in two languages- only one of which will end up on the map. What is most striking about this moment is the speed of forgetting. The Revolution celebrated voices rising against tyranny. But it quickly ignored the ones that had warned of this all along.

The treaties broken in the 1780s and 1790s set the tone for a century of removal, relocation, and erasure. Native nations were pushed westward by the very people they had once tried to protect their land from. And every new treaty became a countdown to its own expiration. Yet the memory of those early agreements still holds meaning. In the oral histories of Native communities, the Revolution is not a story of founding. It is a story of severance. It marks the moment when potential turned to policy. When relationship turned to rhetoric. And when the fight for survival began all over again, this time in the language of law. Treaty lines may have drawn borders. But they did not draw justice. And the cost of those broken promises still echoes in the landscape they tried to contain.