Changes

===Ending the Indian threat===

===Ending the Indian threat===

The great majority of Indians sided with the British during the war.<ref>  The Oneida Indians split, with many supporting the American cause. Joseph T. Glatthaar and James Kirby Martin, '' Forgotten Allies: The Oneida Indians and the American Revolution'' (2007)  </ref>  The British provided arms for the Indians, under Loyalist leadership, to raid frontier settlements from the Carolinas to New York, massacring the settlers, especially in Pennsylvania. The most prominent was Mohawk chief Joseph Brant, who led a band of 300 Indian warriors and 100 white loyalists.<ref>see Barbara Graymont, "Thayendanegea," [http://www.biographi.ca/EN/ShowBio.asp?BioId=36808&query=joseph%20AND%20brant ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online'']  </ref>  In 1779 Washington sent General John Sullivan with four brigades of Continental soldiers to drive the Iroquois out of New York. There was little combat but Sullivan systematically burned the (empty) Indian villages and, most important, destroyed about 600,000 bushels of grain that comprised the winter food supply. Facing starvation the Iroquois permanently fled to Canada, where the British fed them.<ref> Joseph R. Fischer, ''Well-Executed Failure: The Sullivan Campaign against the Iroquois, July-September 1779'' (1997) </ref>  At the 1783 peace conference the British abandoned their Indian allies, and the Americans took the lands of the defeated tribes.

The great majority of the 200,000 Native Americans east of the Mississippi distrusted the colonists and supported the British cause.<ref> Greene and Pole (2004) chapters 19, 46 and 51; Colin G. Calloway, ''The American Revolution in Indian Country: Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities'' (1995)</ref> The British provided funding and guns to attack American outposts. Some Indians tried to remain neutral, seeing little value in participating yet again in a European conflict. A few supported the American cause.<ref>  The Oneida Indians split, with many supporting the American cause. Joseph T. Glatthaar and James Kirby Martin, '' Forgotten Allies: The Oneida Indians and the American Revolution'' (2007)  </ref>   

 

The British provided arms for the Indians, under Loyalist leadership, to raid frontier settlements from the Carolinas to New York, massacring the settlers, especially in Pennsylvania. The most prominent was Mohawk chief Joseph Brant, who led a band of 300 Indian warriors and 100 white loyalists.<ref>see Barbara Graymont, "Thayendanegea," [http://www.biographi.ca/EN/ShowBio.asp?BioId=36808&query=joseph%20AND%20brant ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online'']  </ref>  In 1779 Washington sent General John Sullivan with four brigades of Continental soldiers to drive the Iroquois out of New York. There was little combat but Sullivan systematically burned the (empty) Indian villages and, most important, destroyed about 600,000 bushels of grain that comprised the winter food supply. Facing starvation the Iroquois permanently fled to Canada, where the British fed them.<ref> Joseph R. Fischer, ''Well-Executed Failure: The Sullivan Campaign against the Iroquois, July-September 1779'' (1997) </ref>  At the peace conference the British abandoned their Indian allies, and the Americans took possession of all the land west of the Mississippi and north of Florida. The British, however, did not give up their forts in the west until 1796 and kept alive the dream of one day forming a satellite Indian nation in what is now the Ohio to Wisconsin part of the Midwest.  That hostile goal was one of the causes of the [[War of 1812]].<ref> Dwight L. Smith, "A North American Neutral Indian Zone: Persistence of a British Idea" ''Northwest Ohio Quarterly'' 1989 61(2-4): 46-63</ref><ref> Francis M. Carroll,  [http://books.google.com/books?id=1AjlS20Q5J8C&pg=PA24&dq=barrier+intitle:Good+intitle:and+intitle:Wise+intitle:Measure+intitle:The+intitle:Search+intitle:for+intitle:the+intitle:Canadian-American+inauthor:Francis+inauthor:M+inauthor:Carroll&lr=&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=1&as_miny_is=2009&as_maxm_is=12&as_maxy_is=2009&num=30&as_brr=0&as_pt=ALLTYPES  ''A Good and Wise Measure: The Search for the Canadian-American Boundary, 1783-1842''], 2001, page 23 </ref>

==The Southern Campaigns of 1778-81==

==The Southern Campaigns of 1778-81==