This is generously supported by the Library Company of philadelphia and the pew center for arts and heritage. We spent the week tossing around ideas about how we might redraw Early American History. We tried to do that by suggesting one productive way of redrawing that history is to think in terms of a complicated and ever shifting set of contests among three sets of actors. Three sets of actors we call native people, settler colonists, and european empires. 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 it is a plural term. We are talking about many different peoples who have many different histories and are constantly in historical motion. European empires may be obvious, but once again it is a plural term. We are talking about the french, the dutch, the spanish, the english, and occasionally some other powers. Those empires were in motion. Theyre being created in the period we are talking about. It is a complicated set of things. We have also been talking about the technical use of the term settler and settler colonists. I wonder if i might embarrass somebody in our room among these wonderful teachers to try to take a crack at defining what we mean by settler colonists in this threepart mix. It is the theory the settlers believed the land they arrive to belonged to them and not the native people so they had a right to be on that land and the native people could be erased. Right, and that is a historical product. There may be some people who came to north america from europe or elsewhere with the idea in their head this land already belonged to them. One of the things weve been trying to think about in redrawing Early American History is to find ways of seeing how people come to see their own rights to owning this land as something involved with their position in north america as farmers, men as head of families, who come to see they have a right to this land, and in a weird way, that land never did belong to native americans, it belongs to them. That too is something we have to explain as a historical process. Weve been trying to think in terms of these three parties. European empires, native peoples, settler colonists. We have talked about how, through a long period of struggle and controversy through the 17th and early 18th century, sometime 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 in different directions, again we are talking about a multitude of native peoples. Talking about various settlers from various perspectives, various empires. A rough balance of power was achieved by about 1720. That balance has several aspects to it. One of the important things to help us understand this threeway struggle, one of the important things was summed up by the governor of virginia in the early 1720s, who said, a governor of virginia has to steer between a rock and a hard place, either an indian or a civil war. What he meant by that is it is always the job of representative of the empire to try to mediate between the desire of settler colonists to conquer more land, to get the native peoples out of , 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. The threeway struggle involves imperial representatives trying to keep a balance of power between native people and settler colonists, to keep them from fighting each other, but also to keep them from rebelling against the imperial power who was trying to keep the peace. It is a delicate thing. How much do i let people expand, how much do it right try to coerce native people into moreing to let more and land go into settler hands. How much do i worry that if i do not do that, my own people will start rebelling against me . So i think one of the things we are trying to say as Early American History is not a two way set of struggles between europeans and native peoples, it is often a threeway struggle among the european imperial powers, their own settler colonists, and native people. Peoples. That is one rough balance that is achieved by the 1720s or so. The governor virginia is recognizing it here. A governor of virginia has to steer between a rock and a hard place, either an indian or a civil war. Another kind of balance is being maintained, which was noticed by the new york Indian Affairs secretary in 1751. He said, to preserve the balance between us that is the british and the french is the great ruling principle of the modern indian politics. Preserving the balance is what native people are also trying to do. He also used this phrase, which was partly in a way that europeans are so good at doing, a kind of insult and complement at the same time. I am sure when he talked about the modern indian politics, he was saying it is what these people are doing today it is insulting to say the modern indian politics. I would like to turn that phrase around and use it as a marker of historical change among native communities. These are modern, 18thcentury people who have come to understand what they are dealing with in the terms of the balance of power with the european empires in the european settlers. In that sense, we can talk about another balance, native people s trying to maintain the balance between the empires, trying to keep their options open and preserving their autonomy and Political Authority through navigating a complicated Imperial World in which the european empires are being managed by native powers, trying to keep the balance of power between them. That has been the framework we have tried to develop this week. We have also talked about how in the middle of the 18th century, those balances got upset and the events that led up to and culminated in what we car in the in what we call the seven years war, or what colonists like to call the french and indian war. That french and indian war name reflects beautifully the settler colonist idea, because who was absent . There are no settler colonists or british. The war is a war against the indians and the french, and it reflects in the eyes of settler colonists a hope they are achieving the goal of getting both the other empire and the native people out of the way so they can take over the continent. What led to the upset of the balance of power . Many complicated causes, but if there is one thing we want to point to, it is the massive growth in british settler colonist population through the early 18th century. In 1650, there are 55,000 settler colonists in the english colonies. By 1700, that has increased more than five times, to 265,000. By the eve of the seven years war, 1,206,000 colonists, including almost a quarter of a million enslaved africans. One of the things settler colonial theory points out is you replaceence, the indigenous labor other empires might have tried to mobilize with imported labor, either with indentured servitude or enslaved africans, increasingly. All of these people are conceiving themselves of creating an empire of settler colonists replacing the native population or erasing the native population and replacing it with this new form of settler colonialism. By the eve of the American Revolution, 2. 25 million settler colonists. One of the important things about seeing this chart, among other things, is you can get a sense of the growing British Population, the growing demand for land that goes along with that. Also, the growing importance of north america and a British Empire that used to be centered in the caribbean. By the period we are talking about, the vast majority of british colonists now live in north america, not in other places in their empire. Another way to conceive of this is to think in terms not just of population numbers, but land occupied through these periods. We look at 1675, the english settler population is confined to a remarkably small area of the landscape, mostly along the coast and along a few rivers into the interior. By 1725, considerable expansion. By the eve of the seven years war, in 1755, that British Population has pushed against the mountains, the appellation mountains, the Appalachian Mountains, and is poised to go into the interior. If there is an origin to the upset of the balance of power in north america by the middle of the 18th century, it is a relentless pressure of british colonists for more and more land and space to put into agricultural production, to replace native people with english farmers, with german farmers, with scots irish farmers, with enslaved african labor, and to push farther and farther into native territory in 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 area centered around what is today pittsburgh and into the states of western pennsylvania, ohio, indiana, and points adjacent. These places are where british settler colonists and the 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 a generation. People like shawnee and delaware. All of whom are determined to maintain their access to the land and not allow them to be dispossessed again. It is also a territory the french have long claimed, aspirationally at least, to be part of their empire. By 1750, native peoples and these two major empires, and the colonists of britain are all coming to focus on this particular region of the ohio country as the focus of all of their energy and activity in terms of their view of the future of north america. Those things have become utterly incompatible goals. Everybody wants the same spot of land. The settler colonists, the native peoples, the empires, all of them fighting among themselves for control of that space. This becomes the place where the great conflict of the seven years war is 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 have been expelled, the spanish have been confined to west of the mississippi, and in british minds, both British Imperial mind and british colonist minds, native people have not been erased from the landscape, but they have been conquered in this thing british colonists like to call the french and indian war. All of the land now belongs to britain. A massive british flag planted across that expanse of north america. That dream lasts about five seconds. It continues to be embodied in our maps like this that show the british conquest of north america in the seven years war, but of course native people have other ideas, and one of the results of that is a connected but decentralized set of wars that we conveniently lumped together as pontiacs war from 1763 to 1765, in which native people rose up against the british throughout this territory the british claim to have conquered, and if nothing else proved to them they remain a huge part of this balance of power between british colonists, the British Empire, and native people. What results is a reestablishment of a balance embodied in the british policy known as the proclamation of 1763, which at least in theory draws a line down the Appalachian Mountains and says british people must remain east of those mountains. The area in the interior are lands reserved for indians. Which is an interesting grammatical construction because the British Crown still claims all of that land belongs to them, but they are now saying we will reserve this land for native peoples, and the British Crown has reintroduced itself as the balance of power between the settler colonists in the east and native peoples in the west. To bring us to what is supposed to be todays topic, reunderstanding the American Revolution, i think it is useful to think in terms of a reestablishment of the balance of power very briefly in which the British Empire sees itself as the balance between the native peoples whose lands it says it has guaranteed and reserved in the interior, and the colonists it is trying to restrain in areas east of the mountains. With that in mind, lets talk about native americans and european settlers war for independence. If we think about this threeway contest, it might be useful to think about the wars for independence as 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 two wars for independence, one by the settler colonists against the empire, and another, much more complicated set of wars for independence by native people trying to maintain their independence in this context of the British Empire and its settler colonists. It is not entirely clear there their war for independence is so much against the British Empire as it is against the settler colonists. We have two american wars for independence, one by the european settlers, one by the native americans. Among the things at stake in the contest is an interesting contest over who gets to call themselves americans. I do not know whether we have thought about that much before. For most of the 17th and 18th century, when europeans whether british or french or colonists use the word americans they use that term to describe Indigenous Peoples from north america. It is in this period that settler colonists get themselves the right to call themselves the real americans, which is a perfect example of what we were talking about as the 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 an adjective, which they did not need before. Really, we are the real native americans, the settler colonists who call themselves americans. As teachers, it is important to think about the words we use and why we use them. Maybe we better be careful about talking about the American Revolution, or at least think in terms of American Revolutions, american wars for independence, and keep in mind that native peoples and settler colonists are both engaged in their american wars for independence in this period, and maybe even struggle to find another way, another word to use to describe those settler colonists other than the americans, the term they want to use for themselves. A lot of options here, perhaps. We could call them european settlers, but they are not really settlers anymore. Most have been here for generations. As we have seen, they see themselves as the genuine occupiers of this landscape. We find ourselves using words like u. S. Americans, and anybody who has dealt with people who live in other parts of the americas for this idea of how come you get to be called americans and we are not, comes up with mouthfuls like u. S. Americans. We also might talk about peoples of the u. S. , both of those are mouthfuls. I want to throw out a term that may or may not stick. It probably wont stick. I did not come up with this term myself. I believe it was gregory nobles, who teaches at georgia tech, maybe 15 or 20 years ago. The word i want to throw out is usonian, a person who lives in the United States. Ok, fellow usonians. What do we think about that . It is a real word. Does anyone know where the word comes from . Frank lloyd wright came up with plans for what he called the usonian house, the peoples house for the United States. Simple architecture. The kind of house a good usonian would live in. Lets think about the possibility we might want to use the word usonian to describe the people creating the United States. [indiscernible] other opportunities are people of european ancestry. Natives who live in the same area . Daniel i would say it would include anyone subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, enslaved africans, free africans, all kinds of other people, but the People Associated with the political entity of the United States we could call usonians rather than americans. They are all americans. How do you feel about putting these people under an umbrella, indigenous people, African People i have trouble identifying what is the purpose. We have been stressing there is always an s on the end of these words. It is always contingent. There are many meetings. It helps to understand the thing we are trying to call the usonian revolution, some African People cast in their lot with the United States, but far more cast in their lot, for their own purposes, with the british. Native peoples, some of them cast in their lot with United States. The vast majority were engaged in their own struggle for independence. My stressing usonian is fundamentally the people used to call european settler colonists creating their own political order dominated by white men and dominated by a view of the United States is legitimate owner of this continent. In many respects we have the usonians against the British Empire against the native peoples, but there are complicated configurations, shifting alliances, people operating for different purposes and different ways. [indiscernible] i feel like people are moving, i think it erases peoples individual reasons for doing different things. African people fighting with the british or with the colonists, the indian war, was all for for me, it feels like associating with that is taking away pieces of their individual story. Daniel i cannot agree more. I think naturalizing the term that american are the People Associated with the people who won the battle to create a United States, does more harmony more harm in erasing those differences than trying to distinguish the fact there is nothing natural about these people calling themselves america, or that their United States of america is the thing we call american. Throughout all of these wars and revolutions, people are having to choose sides. Absolutely. Not all white people decide to go along with the u. S. It is not entirely it is probably not a good way of describing things that africanamericans who self emancipate themselves and run away from their enslavers are necessarily doing that because they like the british. They are engaged in their own war for independence. Maybe have an alliance of convenience with the british army, or at least are seeing some possibility of aligning themselves with the british. The same thing for native americans. Very few of them love the British Empire, but their war for independence tends to coincide with the aims of the British Empire. Other native americans make the choice they will ally with United States and hope that will work out. We are trying to maintain the three way thing, empires, settlers, and indigenous people. We need to be careful about assuming settlers are all one thing, but also to give them a foreign sounding name like usonian to make them strange to us and something that has to be explained and talked about and deconstructed, not just naturalized. Thank you very much. That really helped i hope that helps clarify things. Usonians, try it out, see what your students say. I tried to use this in a book review and the editor just scratched it out. I use it with my students all the time. At least some of them start calling themselves usonians because it is a lot easier to say than u. S. Americans. Lets try out native americans and usonian war for independence. I hope youre with me on these ideas there are at least two american wars for independence, at least two. There are many other people from the settler populations who have different aims for what they mean by independence, there is certainly a war for independence among africanamericans or African People who see themselves as having the opportunity to achieve their independence by taking advantage of the chaos to self emancipate. Lots of wars for independence. Putting in s on the end of the word is an important way of thinking things through. There are native peoples and settler colonists engaged in two parallel wars to maintain their independence or create their independence at the same time. That is what i mean by at least two wars. Perhaps two sets of american wars. Native peoples and settler colonists both engaged in these wars at the same time. In some respects, it all traces back to the seven years war, the contest for the continent, a deep sense of betrayal by settler colonists who believed the British Empire has turned their back on them by denying them the fruits of the conquest of the continent through the proclamation of 1763, not to mention the taxes they are imposing, not to mention many other things that are the central grievances of the usonian revolution. Again, the contests of the seven years war echo into creating the children of pontiacs war, native people trying to create their independence, and the sense of betrayal on the part of the british settler colonists against the British Empire. The three way of analyzing this helps us understand or rethink through the period we too easily we call the period of the American Revolution. I have stunned the room into silence once again. Two sets of wars for independence. Three want to talk about axis of interpretation for those two wars. This kind of axis. This is like my college classrooms, i throw a joke out and nobody laughs. [laughter] daniel there is nothing funny about any of this story, but once in a while we have to try to inject a note of levity or irony. What i mean i those axes of interpretation, we can talk about an axis that has to do with causes of these wars for independence. We have talked through some of that, and for both native peoples and protousonians, causes of their wars of independence are pretty similar. We talk often about the causes of events. Of second axis interpretation is the nature of struggle, a lot of parallels there as well. Axis of interpretation is what i call the parallel struggle. Lets focus on usonians wars for independence first. History teachers are used to thinking about causation in two ways. We talk about longterm causes and shortterm causes. We have been through some of this in my remarks earlier. The longterm cause is the massive growth in british settler colonization in the early 18th century. Also the maturation of the political system the settler colonists had created, their legislatures, sense of governing themselves, their developing sense thatveloping they own the land and they govern themselves, that this america. Ere their to those are longterm developments that have developed over more than a century of english colonization in north america. The short term causes, i think many historians would argue trace back to the seven years war, the war called pontiacs and the events of the 1750s and 1760s, and the transformation of the British Empire and the threeway relationship between empire, settlers and colonists after that war. We know what the axis of interpretation of causes are. And for any of the multiple peoples you are talking about, im going to place their sense of what is causing them to act along either a longterm set of grievances, longterm set of developments, or very shortterm kinds of things. For them, it may not be the proclamation of 1763. It may be the fact that some local landlord has kicked you off your land, and this is your opportunity to get back. Thinking in terms of causation as a spectrum or an axis might help us place various peoples and their decisions along the way. I also want to stress it is exactly the same set of longterm causes and shortterm causes, that lead to native americans wars for independence. They are also reacting to the large spansion of british settler colonization. They are trying to defend their land against the english. They too are reacting to events of the 1750s in 1760s and the seven years war. These same longterm causes are producing two different sets of american wars for independence. What do i mean by the nature of the struggle . Lets go back to some classic ways that historians of White America have tried to explain the American Revolution. There is a famous phrase by historian carl lotus becker in his boring book written in 1909 called the history of the Political Parties in the provence of new york. He said the American Revolution was two movements, the contest for home rule and independence, and the democratization of american politics and society. Of these movements, the latter was fundamental. It began before the contest of home rule and was not completed until the achievement of independence. He famously said that there were two questions that were equally prominent, the first question of home rule, the second question was of who should rule at home. Home rule, who should rule at home . A war for independence, yes, but for carl becker and most of us as history teachers and historians, the more interesting question is, once you achieve home rule, who gets to rule at home . That is the real revolution. Who within the british settler population was going to be the people who were going to rule . What kind of new way of thinking of political arrangements might be emerging . Or is it just the same old thing, meet the new boss, same as the old boss . A far more interesting struggle is often between different groups trying to answer the question of who should rule at home rather than the question of home rule. This is what i mean by the nature of the struggle, a spectrum of home rule on the one hand, and who should rule at home on the other. Are you following me . Again, the more interesting revolution is always the one about who should rule at home, not to the slightly more easily answered question of home rule. Once we achieve independence, what does that mean . Who is going to set the terms for the new political order, who is going to rule at home, who is making decisions . And there too, a lot of people are making different choices and alliances and about what they want to achieve and what the nature of that home rule is going to be. The third axis is the object of the struggle. I want to go to a late 19th century historian, one i would never otherwise quote or suggest you read, but sometimes a racist historian is on to some truth, or at least saying something out loud that we otherwise might not hear. Who am i talking about . Theodore roosevelt, who among many other things was a historian. He wrote a great work called the winning of the west. A settler Colonial Title if there ever was one. He talked about two American Revolutions, or we would say two usonian revolutions. The revolution is a twofold character, americans who struggle for independence in the east, and in the west, war of conquest, or rather a war to establish on behalf of all our people, the right of entry into the fertile and vacant regions beyond the alleghenies. Fertile and vacant regions beyond the alleghenies. He has already erased native people, except he has to explain you have to fight native people to get into that fertile and vacant region west of the appalachians. Here is where it gets really racist, but reveals something important. The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages, although it is apt to be the most terrible and inhuman. The rude settler who drives the savage from the land delays all civilized mankind under a debt to him. It is of incalculable importance that america, australian siberia should pass out of the hands of the red, black and yellow or aboriginal owners, and become the heritage of the dominant world races. Your put this in front of students directly, or at least make them think about it first. He is saying in stark terms this is about white people claiming land that belongs to them. [indiscernible] daniel i would argue the settlers want to be in power and their struggle against Great Britain is to make them in charge, not Great Britain. [indiscernible] why not invoke that language . Why not invoke that idea, whats wrong with that . Daniel there is nothing wrong with that, except the settlers are battling the existing imperial power to replace them on the continent, and because, back to our threeway struggle, what the British Empire has haltingly and racistly been trying to do is to mediate between native people whose lands they have reserved for themselves, and the settler colonists. This is a settler colonist perspective, who come to see themselves as the great, imperial civilizing power, as opposed to the nambypamby empire who believes that you need to protect natives, at least once in a while. [indiscernible] international imperialists came later, and they were doing imperialism internally. Daniel internally is such a usonian word. Native peoples would not say this was a struggle internally. The imperial contest was for control of the continent. Which is what, again Theodore Roosevelt got it, and he said it in the most stark and revealing terms, there are two revolutions going on, one is a struggle for independence, the other is a war on conquest. That is what i mean by three axis of interpretation for the usonian revolution. We can think about a variety of people along the spectrum. We can talk about the nature of the struggle between who should rule at home and home rule. It might be interesting if you want to think about individual stories, how you place them in the graph of what their position is on home rule as opposed to who should rule at home, whether that comes out of a shortterm set of circumstances or longterm development culturally, and then, to make it three dimensional, this other thing about the spectrum between the war for independence and the war of conquest. We might want to replace those words with liberty and land, because land is the object of much of this controversy. The object of the struggle is who is going to control the land, and whose definition it means to be liberty and free and independent is going to prevail. And here too, it is not as simple as settler colonists replacing indigenous people. The who should rule at home question comes in there. Which particular colonists should control this land everybody is struggling over . [indiscernible] i wonder if the object of the struggle also contains the bifurcation of the subject. In the previous quote by roosevelt, the advancement of civilized man, the ruling class, as i read it, is predicated on the labor of the other man, so even within that imperative, there is tension. Daniel which is why i put this on the spectrum, a different way of saying there are tensions involved. And while these things may appear to be ways of using a threepart model to simplify what is going on, they actually allow us to think in very complicated ways about what this means, and to think through what somebody like Theodore Roosevelt is saying, and what somebody like John Dickinson is saying, somebody like Thomas Jefferson is saying. Where are these mixes of factors figuring in to their view of what they think they are trying to create in the u. S. During this period . I see how these three axes are used in terms of the three groups you are talking about, empire, native peoples and settlers. But if we look at just one of them, settler colonists, couldnt this also be their narrative, in the sense that every history book i have read that doesnt take into consideration what we are taking in this class, our story is independence to conquest, 17761890. So instead of it being a spectrum, it is just a continuous line. Not continuous, but certainly line. Ective daniel independence and conquest always go together. It is not from independence to conquest. The definition of independence for settler colonists is conquest. I agree and i think history books have celebrated that, because we say fantastic, 1776, we kicked out the british and we achieved independence. And by 1890, we conquered the west. Daniel two ways of complicating that. Who is this we . Usonians kicked out the indians, kicked out the british, and that process continues to the 1890s and continues on a global stage from that time forward, perhaps continues right through the period of manifest destiny, in which usonians have their eyes on both native peoples in the British Empire. The other way of complicating this is to keep telling the story that there is two sets of revolutions going on, and that for native people too, the same set of longterm causes is producing the same kind of nature of the struggle, and producing the same kind of struggle over liberty and land and independence, and ultimately those two revolutions cant coexist, because they are fundamentally products of the same historical circumstances but utterly incompatible in their goals, because one person needs to get that land on the other people need to lose it. Can you give me a date for the idea of the indians completely conquered . I have heard 1890. Daniel the idea, or the historical reality . The reality. Daniel i would hope the historical reality is never, although certainly the balance of power shifts in major ways. In terms of the United States government, the president could sit down and say, it is time to change policy, the warring period, the conflict period of military entanglement has ended. 1890, the u. S. Census says the frontier is closed . Daniel there is no frontier anymore. [indiscernible] daniel here is what i would say. That is why i distinguish between the idea and the historical reality. The historical reality is always complicated. And we know that the settlercolonial political regime becomes triumphant over time, native people themselves arent really conquered. That is an ideological construct. But at various points you can say that both imperial and fantasieslonistss think they have actually done the job. One of those points was 1763. The british thought they conquered the empire and suddenly have a war on their hands, from native people who see things differently. Another point where that happens is about 1783, when the United States comes to the same erroneous conclusion, all this territory now belongs to us because we have the treaty of paris that says it does. Unsurprisingly, the u. S. Finds itself with a major set of wars on its hands by native people rebelling against that idea, or maybe rebelling isnt the best word, because that implies a sense of that regime being illegitimate. We can point to other points, jacksonian removal. The end of the treaty era, the civil war era, 1890. We could point us to the termination policy in the 1950s. So here again, settler colonists are always trying to convince themselves they really do control things and the land really does belong to them, and that america is the u. S. One way of thinking of American History is that is always a n ideological construct, and one that we have to think through and how people resist those interpretations and how people embrace those interpretations. Im interested in your response, that roosevelt quote. [indiscernible] it seems it is the usonians adopting the imperial narrative and taking it over, so the empire doesnt have a narrative anymore because they have lost it to the usonians, who have kind of turned it into something that they own now. Does that make sense . Daniel john adams famously asked the question several times in old age, what do we mean by the American Revolution . This is not the answer he would have come up with, but i might say, the answer to john adams question is just what you said. How did usonians come to think they are the Great Imperial power, and erase native American People from their landscape. That is vastly oversimplified, not everybody sees it that way, but that is a narrative one could tell about this period, and about much of u. S. History. I want to talk about how we might begin to think about these same, threeaxis model talking about native peoples. The same basic historical causes, same basic historical events, are leading to native people having to engage in their series of wars for independence at the same time settlercolonists are doing it, always within the threepart framework of the British Empire, but during these wars for independence, certainly the french and spanish empires get back involved. That odd alliance between the french empire and the settlercolonists and the spanish, always trying to figure out how they can get back into the game somehow as well. But in any event, certainly the same shortterm causes. The object of the struggle is in many respects obvious, everybody is fighting over liberty, independence and who gets to control the land. That is the one that is incompatible. Somebodys going to win that war for independence and somebody is going to lose it, except no one ever clearly wins or loses because native americans continue to control their land somewhere in different places, even within the regime the United States claims. But i want to think about how we apply the idea of home rule and who should rule at home to native americans revolutions in this period as well. Because this is a period of great political change among native peoples, and i think many of us know the cherokees during the long American Revolution are reinventing their government. They are establishing courts, changing gender relations. By the 1820s they have come up with a written constitution, all of which is interesting to put in parallel with what usonians are doing, moving through the articles of confederation, redefining what republicanism means, creating the United States, thinking over who should rule at home but how we should rule at home. It is a familiar story and i hope we can at least point to the cherokee people and say they are having that same debate over who should rule at home, how we should rule at home, how we are going to create a political system in this new world while trying to preserve our independence. This may be a less familiar story, the shoshone or iroquois people have their own civil war in many respects around this period, have to reinvent themselves as the six nations in the late 18th, early 19th century, doing so in various locations but most profoundly in what we today call canada. Again, it is perhaps useful to think about that parallel to moving through the articles of confederation to the u. S. Constitution, reinventing the nature of their political system after a divisive civil war, which is what the usonians went through as well. We can point to a lot of different parallel developments throughout eastern north america, but another thing is involved in this struggle over who should rule at home. This goes back to the war called pontiacs. During that period, native american political and spiritual leaders begin to develop the idea that all native peoples have to unite in a common cause against their common enemy, whether that is the British Empire or the settlercolonists. That was controversial in 1763. That debate continues throughout the wars of independence as various native leaders try to create larger confederacies, get native groups together to decide to put aside their common enmities, aim their energies against a common enemy. This is always controversial, and sets up attention which is sets up a tension which is still there in native americans today. Note also like all these other spectrums, people are sharing time opinions at the same in different contexts and different ways. There is that famous ben franklin cartoon, unite or die, the snake that is divided up into the different colonies. We can see native people making the same argument during these period, maybe with the same metaphor, unite or die, and the struggle over who should rule at home in the struggle for independence. It might be useful to think once in a while about these questions that if we have a way of thinking about one set of american wars for independence, we can also talk about a variety of those wars, and complicate our narratives about how all that works, and get our students to think about a much more comprehensive and multivalent way of thinking about this period. For native people, i think carl beckers question, it would never occur to him this applies to native americans, but it is just as true for native peoples throughout this period as it is for usonians, that there is a dual struggle over home rule and who should rule at home. That is one way to think about native American History during this period, as we think about native people trying to figure out how to conduct their wars of independence, it invariably involves the question of who should rule at home and why and how. Finally, do we really want to collapse our three axes of interpretation into one . For everybody in this period, land is the key to liberty. And it is finally putting together becker and roosevelt, we have a set of conflicts over the question of how does one achieve liberty through control of the land, a struggle for the continent that involves struggles over who is going to become a free people. Independence, land and liberty all go together. And to get back to your point earlier, it is a narrative we would hear, daniel boone with his coonskin cap fighting for liberty by conquering the land, but lets think about that as something that goes in multiple directions, that involves all these different kinds of contests we have talked about, and that also involves very practical ways in which the control of land is the key to political regimes that people are creating. Here is a picture we have seen in our books. The northwest ordinance, which lays out this nice, gridded landscape in the ohio country, the place people had been fighting over for a generation or two. I like to point out, we know now why midwesterners are square. Im looking at you, kid. [laughter] daniel but how many times do we think about this, which is so crucial in our personal stories, if we ever tell a story about the northwest ordinance anymore . I dont know how many of you get a chance to teach about it. What an amazing assertion of settler colonial ideology the northwest ordinance is. We can completely rearrange the landscape, put it in nice, square townships and pretends native people arent there
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