Malcolm X once said “We (African-Americans) didn't land on Plymouth Rock, the rock was landed on us.”1 While not comparing it as such, nor discounting in any way the tremendous suffering and struggle for equality African-Americans have endured, this work presents a very strong argument that the native peoples of North America, have suffered as much or arguably more so. Indeed several bands had already been obliterated by disease and war with the White invaders from the sea before most of the English colonies were even well established, a pattern which would only continue to get worse. For the Indians living in what is now the eastern United States in the 1770's, the revolution was merely the continuation of a generational war they had been steadily losing for over a century already. Native peoples all across the vast hinterlands had coped with the destruction of their lives and livelihoods as they always had, by adapting and evolving as their situations changed which continued through the revolutionary and beyond.
The prologue presents a sweeping, but well described overview of the complex network of interwoven societies that existed in North America on the eve of the American Revolution. America was already well on its way to becoming the great melting pot of societies and cultures by the mid-1700's. It had become a world where boundaries, bloodlines, and loyalties were all largely fluid and often blurred, with many of the key players being of mixed race of Indian, European, or African roots.
In the subsequent first chapter, the author says the revolution was a time of great alarm and confusion in Indian country, which encompassed most of the known part of the continent at that time. Dispelling the popular myth that all Native Americans sided with the British in the revolution, Calloway contends while the majority certainly did so eventually, the “Indians responded as individuals, not just as tribal units” in confronting the situation. Initially both sides encouraged the native population to remain detached from the conflict, which each described as a family quarrel and none of their concern.(28) Most Amerindians were inclined to agree at first, but as the crisis of disagreement between the colonies and the crown erupted into open hostilities, Indian society, like its White counterpart, became inevitably divided as differences in individual sympathies and loyalties tore apart families, villages, and ancient tribal alliances and ended badly for the Indians regardless of which side they took. This provides the requisite context necessary for the reader to...
