Hello. Im here in philadelphia, at the Gilder Lehrman study for american studies of the university of pennsylvania. Ive spent the week with an Amazing Group of educators from all over the, country brought together under the auspices of the Gilder Lehrman institute of American History. This has been supported by the Labor Company of philadelphia and the pugh center for arts and heritage, through their program, redrawn, history indigenous and colonial perspectives on america. We spent some time talking about how we might redraw early American History. We try to do that by suggesting that one productive way redrawing that history is to think in terms of a complicated and ever shifting set of contests among the three sets of actors, three sets of actors we have called native peoples, settlers or settler colonists, and european empires. Now, it is probably obvious to folks what we mean when we think about native peoples, although it should not be that obvious except to stress that it is a plural term. We are talking about many different peoples who have many different histories and are constantly in historical motion through this period. European empires may be obvious, although once again, it is a plural term. Were talking about the french, the dutch, the spanish, the english, and occasionally some other powers. Those two, those empires were in motion, they were actually being created in the time we are talking about. So it is a complicated set of things. We have also been talking this week about a technical use of the term settler, and settler colonists. I wonder if i might just embarrass somebody here in the room, among these wonderful teachers, to try to take a crack at defining what we mean by settler colonists. I think it is the theory that settlers believe the land they arrived on belonged to them and not a native peoples and so they had to resign a right to residing that land in the native peoples were just gonna be erased. Right. And that as well as a historical product. There may be some people who came to know the america from europe or elsewhere with the idea in their head that this land already belonged to them, but i think one of the things that we have been trying to think about in redrawn or the American History is to find ways of seeing how people come to see their own right to owning this land as something that is involved in their position in north america as farmers, as families who come to see that they have a right to this land and in a weird way that lands never did belong to native americans, it belong to them and that as well as something we have to explain as a historical process. So we have been trying to think in terms of the three parts, european empires, native peoples, settler colonists, and we have talked about how, through a long period of struggle and controversies through the 17th and early 18th centuries, somehow around 1720, a rough balance of power was achieved between those three forces, between the empires, the settler colonists and the native peoples, always unstable, always hard to maintain, always multiple and indifferent directions. Again, were talking with multiple of multitude of native peoples, various settlers with various perspectives, we are talking about various empires. A rough balance of power was achieved by about 1720, and that balance has several aspects to it. One of the important things is, to help us understand this threeway struggle, one of the important things was summed up by the governor of virginia in the early 17 twenties, who said a governor of virginia has to steer between a rock and a hard place, and what he meant by that was, it is always the job of a representative of the empire to try to mediate between the desire of settler columnist to conquer more land and to get the native peoples out of the way and the fact that if a governor tries to restrain that, he might have a civil war on his hands because the people will rebel against him, right . So, the three way struggle involves often imperial representatives trying to keep a balance of power between native people and settler columnist, keep them from fighting with each other but also to keep them from rebellion against the imperial power who is trying to keep the, peace right . So, it is a delicate thing. How much joy let people expand . How much do i try to coerced native people into agreeing to let more and more land go into settler hands, how much do i worry that if i dont do that, my own people are going to start rebuilding against me . So i think one of the things we are trying to say is that early American History is not to a subtle struggles between europeans and native peoples, it is often a threeway struggle among your european imperial powers, their own settler columnist, and native peoples, so that is one kind of rough balance it is achieved by the 17 20s or so in the governor of virginia recognizes that here. The governor of virginia has to steer between rock and a hard place, between indian or civil war. But also another kind of balance is being maintained, which was noted by the new york Indian Affairs secretary in about 1751. He said, to preserve the balance between us, that is, the british, and french, is the great ruling principle of the modern indian politics. Preserving the balance is what native people are also trying to do, and he also used this phrase which was partly in a way that europeans are so good at doing, a kind of insulting complement at the same time. When he talked about the modern indian politics, he was saying, it is what these people are doing today, there is a little bit and say this is the modern in politics, pot like to turn the phrase around and use it as a marker of historical change among native communities. These are modern 18th century native people who have come to understand what theyre dealing with in terms of the balance of power between the european empires and european settlers. In that sense, we could talk about another kind of balance, native peoples trying to maintain the balance, and preserving their autonomy and Political Authority do not getting very complicated Imperial World in which the european empires are being managed in some respects by native powers who are trying to keep the balance of power between them. So that has been the framework we have tried to develop this week. And we have also talked about how, in the middle of the 18th century, those balances all got upset, in the events that led up to and culminated in what we call the seven years war, or was settler calling us like to call the french and indian war, that french and indian war name, reflects beautifully that the settler columnist idea, because he was absent from their . There are no settler colonists, there are actually no british. The war is a war against the native peoples, the indian, and the french, right . And it reflects in the eyes of settler colonists a hope that they are achieving the goal of getting the other empire in the native people are out of the way so they can take over the continent. And what led to the upset of the balance of power . Many complicated causes but if theres one thing we want to point to it is the massive growth in several colors populations are at the early 18th century. 16 50, there is a mere 55,000 settlers colonists in the english colonies, by 1700 that has increased by more than five times to 265,000. By the eve of the seven years wore, 1,600,000 columnist, including almost a quarter of 1 million enslaved africans, one of the things that settler colonial theory points out is that, in a sense, you replaced the legislator that others might try to mobilize with imported labor, either peoples on families, indentured servitude, soar by this period, enslaved operations. All of these people are conceiving them selves as creating an empire settler congress who are replacing the native population, or, rather erasing the native population and replacing it with this new form of settler colonialism. And by the eve of the American Revolution, two and a quarter million settler colonists, one of their important things about seeing this chart, among other, things you can get a sense of the growing British Population, the growing demand for land that goes along with that, but also the growing importance of north america in a British Empire that use resented in the caribbean. You can see that by the period were talking about, here the vast majority of settler columnist now live in north, america not other places in the americas. Another way to conceive of this is to think in terms not just the population numbers, but land that is occupied through these periods, if you look at pearson about 16 75, the english settler colonial population is confined to a remarkably small area over the landscape, mostly along the coast and along a few rivers into the interior. By 1725, several expansions. By the eve of the seven years war, about 1755, that British Population is pushed up against the mountains, the Appalachian Mountains, and is poised to need to go into the interior. And if there is an origin to be upset the balance of power north america by the middle of the 18th century, it is this relentless pressure of british settler columnist for more and more land, more and more space, to put it agricultural production, to replace native people with english farmers, with german farmers, with guts irish farmers, within slaved opportune labor, and to push further and further into native Territories Order to achieve those goals. By the middle of the 18th century, much of this competition has come to focus on a particular part of the landscape, which people in the 18th century called the ohio country. Roughly, the areas around what is to be pittsburgh and to the states of western pennsylvania, ohio, indiana, and points adjacent. These places are where british settler columnist and British Empire have their sights set for the next place in which theyre going to expand. It also happens to be the place where native peoples, many of whom have already been pushed out of their homes farther east, have been migrating for generation, people like shawnees and delaware is unheard and shiny people. All of them are main gaining determined to maintain access to the land it is also a territory that the french have long claimed aspirational to be part of their empire, and so i think we have been arguing that by about 1750, native peoples in these two major empires, the british and french and the settler colonists of the britons have all come to focus on this particular region of the ohio country as the focus of all of their energies and activities in terms of their view of the future of north america, right . And those things have become utterly incompatible, after one was the same spot planned, in central columnist, the native peoples. You have to be empires, all of, them fighting among themselves over control of that space and this becomes the place with the great conflict of the seven years wars ignited. Fast forwarding, making an extremely long story very short, the British Empire and its british colonists briefly come to believe in 1763 that the entire continent has been conquered, the french of being expelled, the spanish should be confined to the area west of the mississippi and british mines, both British Imperial minds and british settler columnist minds, native people have not exactly been race from the landscape, but they have been conquered in this thing that british columnist like to call the french and indian war. All of the land now belongs to britain, a massive british flag planted across the expanse of north america. That dream lasts about five seconds. It continues to be embody in our maps like this that showed the British Congress in north america to seven years war, and of course a native people have other ideas and one of the results of that is the connected but decentralized set that we conveniently long together as pontiacs wars, 1763 1760, five in which native people rose up against the british threat this territory the british claim to have conquered and certainly if nothing, else prove to them that they remain hes part of this balance of power between british columnist, the British Empire and native people. What results is a kind of imbalance embodied in the british proclamation known as the proclamation of the 63, which at least in the region is aligned on the Appalachian Mountains and says british people must remain east of those mountains, the area in the interior, this call, as you can see on this map here, lands reserved for indians. Which is an interesting grammatical construction, because the British Crown still claims that all of that land belongs to them, but the British Crown is now saying were going to reserve this land for a native peoples, and the British Crown has reintroduced itself as the balance of power between settler columnist in the east and native peoples in the west. Now, to bring us to what it is supposed to be todays topics redrawing and we understanding the American Revolutions, i think it is useful to think in terms of this reestablishment of a balance of power very briefly its, in which the British Empire sees itself as the balance between the native peoples whose lens it says it has guaranteed reserved in the interior and the columnist the colonists its trying to restrain the areas to the east of the mountains. So with that in mind, lets talk about native americans and european settlers. If we think about this three way contest, it might be useful to think of the water depends is multiple wars, multiple American Revolutions, all of them working out within this structure of British Empire, native peoples, settler colonists. In many respects, what we have is to watch for independence, won by the settler columnist against their empire. And another, a much more complicated set of wars for independence for native, peoples trying to maintain their independence in this context of a British Empire against settler colonists, right . It is not entirely clear that there war for independence is so much against the British Empire as it is against the settler columnist. So, we have two american wars for independence, won by the european settlers, won by the native americans. Among the things at stake in the contest here is actually an interesting contest over who gets to call themselves americans. I dont know whether youve thought about that much before, but for most of the 17th and 18th century, when europeans, whether british or french or setter settler colonists use the word americans, they quite rightly use that term to describe Indigenous Peoples from north america. It is in this period that settler colonists begin to call themselves the real americans which is a perfect example of what we are talking about as a settler colonial mindset. We are the real americans, not those people who now need to be called some other thing, or at best, native americans because they need adjective now which they did not really need before. But really, we are the real native americans, settler columnist to call themselves americans, so as teachers, it is often important to think about the words we use and why we use them, and maybe wed better be careful about talking about the American Revolution or at least think in terms of American Revolution, american wars for independence, and keep in mind that native peoples and settler colonists are both engaged in american wars for independence in this period and maybe even struggle to find another way, another word to use to describe the settler columnist other than the american turn they want to use for themselves. There is a lot of options here, perhaps, we could call them european settlers but they are not really european settlers anymore. Most of these people have been here for generations, and as we have seen, they see themselves as the genuine and illegitimate occupiers of this landscape, so we often find ourselves using words like u. S. Americans, United States americans, and anyone who has dealt with pushback from other parts the americas with this idea, how can you get to be americans we are not, you come up with muscles like u. S. Americans, United States americans. We also like to talk about peoples of the u. S. , both of those are mouthfuls so i want to throw the term here that may or may not stick, probably will not stick. I did not come up with this term myself, i believe it was gregory nobles who teaches at george attack, maybe even as long ago is 15 or 20 years ago. The word i want to throw there is you sony in, who is a person who lives in the United States. Okay, fellow usonians, what do you think about that . It is a real word. Anyone over this word comes from . Frank lloyd right, at the great architect, in 1939 came up with plans for what he called the usonian house a peoples house for the United States, simple architecture, the kind of house that a good usonian would live in, so lets just throw that out for a while and think about the possibility that we might want to use the word usonian, at least in this period, to describe these people who are creating the United States, yes. So, usonian, and these other terms you put out there are people of european ancestry. These terms are always needed to the same area . I would say it could include any one subject to the jurisdiction of the United States which would include a slave difference, free africans, all sorts of people, but the People Associated with that political entity we cal