We must also admit the Indian-ness of some of our other wars. From 1600 to
1754 Europe was often at war, including three world wars—the War of the
League of Augsburg (1689-97), known in the United States as King William’s
War; the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-13), known here as Queen
Anne’s War; and the War of the Austrian Succession (1744-48), known here as
King George’s War. In North America the major European powers, England,
France, and Spain, buffered from each other by Indian land, fought mainly
through their Indian allies. Native Americans inadvertently provided a gift of
relative peace to the colonies by absorbing the shock of combat themselves.
Another world war, the Seven Years War (1754-63), in the United States
called the French and Indian War, was also fought in North America mostly by
Native Americans on both sides. Native Americans not only fought in the
American Revolution but were its first cause, for the Proclamation of 1763,
which placated Native American nations by forbidding the colonies from
making land grants beyond the Appalachian continental divide, enraged many
colonists. They saw themselves as paying to support a British army that only
obstructed them from seizing Indian lands on the western frontier. After
hostilities with Britain broke out, however, the fledgling United Colonies in
1775 were initially more concerned about relations with Indian nations than
with Europe, so they sent Benjamin Franklin first to the Iroquois, then to
France.^80 Native Americans also played a large role in the War of 1812 and
participated as well in the Mexican War and the Civil War.^81 In each war
Natives fought mostly against other Natives. In each, the larger number aligned
against the colonies, later the United States, correctly perceiving that, for
geopolitical reasons, opponents of the United States offered them better
chances of being accorded human rights and retaining their land.