CHAPTER III 



THE APPALACHIAN CONFEDERACIES, 1765-1775 



WHEN we declared ourselves an independent 

 nation there were on our borders three 

 groups of Indian peoples. The northernmost were 

 the Iroquois or Six Nations, who dwelt in New 

 York, and stretched down into Pennsylvania. They 

 had been for two centuries the terror of every other 

 Indian tribe east of the Mississippi, as well as of the 

 whites; but their strength had already departed. 

 They numbered only some ten or twelve thousand 

 all told, and though they played a bloody part in 

 the Revolutionary struggle, it was merely as sub- 

 ordinate allies of the British. It did not lie in their 

 power to strike a really decisive blow. Their chas- 

 tisement did not result in our gaining new territory ; 

 nor would a failure to chastise them -have affected 

 the outcome of the war nor the terms of peace. 

 Their fate was bound up with that of the king's 

 cause in America and was decided wholly by events 

 unconnected with their own success or defeat. 



The very reverse was the case with the Indians, 

 tenfold more numerous, who lived along our west- 

 ern frontier. There they were themselves our main 

 opponents, the British simply acting as their sup- 



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