The British, as it were, attempted to rein in the parade of westward colonial expansion in America, much to colonists' displeasure; and compounding the pressures leading to the Revolution.
Historian, Wilcomb E. Washburn, wrote extensively on Indian Country issues, including land allotments, cultural repression, and colonial settlement into Indian Country, restricted under English Rule, as a causative factor in colonial rebellion against Britain. He gave a presentation, while Director of American Studies at the Smithsonian Institute, on the less celebrated origins of July 4th festivities. The content of this piece is little more than a synopsis, with some editorializing from me, of Washburn's extensive presentation "Indians and the American Revolution," which should really be read in its unadulterated entirety.
The role of the American Indian during the American Revolution was a shadowy and tragic one...because the Indian was present also in the subconscious mind of the colonists as a central ingredient in the conflict with the Mother Country.
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