Tavern Talk: The Indigenous American Revolution

Historian Kristofer Ray explores how Native Nations shaped the American Revolution and how the Revolution reshaped Indigenous futures.
About this Event

As we mark the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, join the Somerville Museum for a Tavern Talk with historian Kristofer Ray exploring a part of the Revolutionary story too often left out: the role of Indigenous peoples and Native Nations.

Popular narratives of the American Revolution often center the conflict between British colonists and the Crown, leaving Indigenous communities pushed to the margins or erased entirely. This presentation will place the Revolution within a broader Indigenous context, focusing on the critical years between 1763 and 1785. Ray will examine the events leading up to the Revolution and the ways Native Nations shaped, resisted, and responded to the conflict.

The talk will also take a closer look at George Rogers Clark’s expeditions to Vincennes and Kaskaskia in the Ohio River Valley, an often misunderstood military campaign with major implications for Indigenous sovereignty and the future of the continent.

Together, we will consider two essential questions: What impact did the Revolution have on Native Nations? And perhaps more fundamentally, what impact did Native Nations have on the Revolution?

This Tavern Talk invites audiences to reconsider familiar Revolutionary history through a wider and more accurate lens.