Historiography · Episodes 1–2–3–4–5–6 · published

How does Native sovereignty change the Revolution's geography?

Should Native nations appear as imperial allies and obstacles, or as governments whose own continental histories reorganize the period?

Blackhawk, Calloway, DuVal, and Anderson work at different scales but collectively displace the thirteen-colony frame.

Ned Blackhawk’s continental approach is not interchangeable with Colin Calloway’s Indian-country history or Kathleen DuVal’s borderlands analysis, but all require nations, towns, diplomacy, and territory to remain specific. Fred Anderson supplies the imperial-war scale that helps connect 1754 to postwar reform. The disagreement concerns center, periodization, survival, and the relation between imperial collapse and settler expansion.

Works in the debate

blackhawk-rediscovery-americacalloway-american-revolution-indian-countryduval-independence-lostanderson-crucible-of-war