Difficult Choices.

With the outbreak of war between the colonists and the British, Indians once again had to choose sides or maintain a precarious neutrality. Many Indians took the British side in the Revolution, hoping to curtail rapacious settlers. A few tribes, living in close daily contact with frontier whites, cast their lot with the Patriot cause. But despite their affiliation in the Revolution, most Indian tribes retained a strong sense of physical and political boundaries and jealously guarded their independence. Indians and colonists burned each others' villages in a war of attrition, and with the Patriot victory pro-British tribes were driven out of their villages into defensive settlements under the protection of the Crown. The American victory brought further encroachments on Indian sovereignty. Indians could no longer play warring whites against one another to obtain concessions. They also could not...