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important villages. After looting the inhabitants’
homes, the troops set the village ablaze. The next
year, what little remains of Chillicothe will be de-
stroyed in a second attack by soldiers led by George
Rogers Clark.
1780A smallpox epidemic breaks out on the
Great Plains.
Smallpox spreading north from Mexico causes the
death of thousands of Indians on the Great Plains.
During the next two years many Plains groups—in-
cluding the Cree, Assiniboine, Chipewyan, Gros
Ventre (Atsina), and Shoshone—will lose as much
as half of their populations.
An Indian is used to represent
Massachusetts on its state seal.
Expecting victory in the American Revolution,
Massachusetts commissions Paul Revere to create
a state seal. The government instructs him to de-
pict “an Indian dressed in his shirt, moggosins [sic],
belted proper—in his right hand a bow—in his left,
an arrow, its point toward the base.” Through the
image of an Indian, Massachusetts officials identify
themselves as North Americans, free of and inde-
pendent from the English government they are
rebelling against.
1781The Articles of Confederation treat Indian
tribes as sovereign nations.
Based on the Albany Plan of Union (see entry for
JUNE TO JULY 1754), the Articles of Confedera-
tion establish the first national government of the
United States. In the articles, Congress continues
the British practice of assuming that Indian tribes
are sovereign nations, whose claims to their land
can be extinguished only by treaty. The document
also grants Congress the responsibility for “regu-
lating trade and managing all affairs with Indians,
not members of any of the states, provided that the
legislative right of any state within its own limits be
not infringed or violated.”JulyThe Quechan revolt against the Spanish.
Angered by the dominating Spaniards in their lands,
the Quechan of present-day Arizona rise up against
them, killing about 75 soldiers, settlers, and priests
and destroying two missions near the Indians’ vil-
lages. Although skirmishes between the Quechan and
Spanish continue for several years, the revolt succeeds
in effectively driving the Spanish out of the Quechan
lands along the lower Colorado River. The rebellion
will therefore greatly hinder Spanish colonization, by
cutting off the only convenient land route between
Spanish settlements in Alta California and Mexico.“[W]hite men would be always
telling us of their great Book
which God had given them. They
would persuade us that every
man was bad who did not be-
lieve in it. They told us a great
many things which they said was
written in the Book; and wanted
us to believe it. We would likely
have done so, if we had seen
them practice what they pre-
tended to believe—and acted
according to the good words
which they told us. But no!
While they held the Big Book in
one hand, in the other they held
murderous weapons—guns and
swords—wherewith to kill us
poor Indians.”
—Lenni Lenape (Delaware) leader
David Heckewelder on the
Gnaddenhutten Massacre