How Indigenous Americans and colonial settlers negotiated the meaning of independence in the Revolutionary era
On July 4, 1776, two hundred miles northwest of Philadelphia, on Indigenous land along the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, a group of colonial squatters declared their independence. They were not alone in their efforts. This bold symbolic gesture was just a small part of a much broader and longer struggle in the Northern Susquehanna River Valley, where diverse peoples, especially Indigenous nations, fought tenaciously to safeguard their lands, sovereignty, and survival.
This book immerses readers in that intense, decades-long struggle. By intertwining the experiences of Indigenous Americans, rebellious colonial squatters, opportunistic land speculators, and imperial government agents, Christopher Pearl reveals how conflicts within and between them all set the terms and ultimately shaped the meaning of the American Revolution. In the crucible of this conflict, memories, histories, and animosities collided and converged with tremendous consequences. Declarations of Independence delves into the racial violence over land and sovereignty that suffused the Revolutionary Age and helps restore Indigenous peoples to their central position at the founding of the United States.
About the Author :
Christopher R. Pearl is Associate Professor of History at Lycoming College and the author of Conceived in Crisis: The Revolutionary Creation of an American State.
Review :
Declarations of Independence draws attention to a region rarely included in histories of the American Revolution.
--Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies
As Pearl tells the tale, this "long forgotten" (275) experiment in popular democracy and racial dispossession holds the key to new understandings of the American founding, in all of its violently democratic, openly imperialistic, and deeply racist dimensions.
--William and Mary Quarterly
Published in the University of Virginia's The Revolutionary Age series, Christopher R. Pearl's new book frames the struggle for the Susquehanna Valley in the second half of the eighteenth century as a many-sided fight over independence. Declarations of Independence tells a multi-perspectival story, tracing the actions and motivations of many different Native and non-Native peoples with interests in the region, recognizing that differences within large categories such as Haudenosaunee, Susquehanna, and European American could be as important as those across categories.
--Journal of the Early Republic
By sustaining a clear focus on the northern Susquehanna Valley, an area often overshadowed by events elsewhere, and by providing clear depictions of the region's confusion and complexity, Declarations of Independence significantly adds to newer work. Pearl's effort is part of the careful, responsible scholarship demonstrating that independence in revolutionary America held different meanings for different peoples, and that the 250th anniversary should be an occasion to understand the past, not simply to celebrate it.
--The New England Quarterly
An important, multifaceted historical work. Pearl is neither dismissive of Indigenous struggles, nor scathing in his assessment of squatters' motives for encroaching on the former's lands. Rather, he offers a holistic understanding of human beings who found themselves in precarious situations and devised varying logics and strategies to survive.
--North Carolina Historical Review
Reveals the pluralization of the United States' supposedly singular founding moment.
--Early American Literature
