Who Fought Whom?

During the American Revolution against England the colonists were not alone. We had help from the French and some Spanish seamen, but some of the American Indians joined us against the English, too.  The Oneida and Tuscarora most especially were on our side.

The British hired German soldiers to fight us, but they also had the Iroquois Confederacy against us.  May not sound like much, the Iroquois, but they were often known as the Romans of the New World.  Yikes!

The Iroquois Confederacy was made up of five nations: the Mohawks, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas and the Oneida.  (Oops.  The Oneida sided with the colonists!  Seems there were some internal disagreements, eh?)  These dudes, the Iroquois, terrorized all of the other Indian tribes they came into contact with.  They conquered them just in the fashion of Romans, and they took over their lands just like the Romans.  Had ol' Christopher Columbus not come a knockin' the Iroquois may have taken over the whole North American continent!  Why those four other tribes wanted to help the English is beyond me, but they did.  The Cherokee Indians were also part of the Iroquois Confederacy and fought with the British against the colonists.  (Maybe that's why, fifty years later in 1839, they were forced on the Trail of Tears by the U.S. government??)