“I every day curse Columbus and all the discoverers of this diabolical country.” The fifth episode of The American Revolution, “The Soul of All America,” opens with this acidic quote from loyalist officer Major John Bowater. Both quote and title are interesting choices given that this episode provides some of the most sustained, in-depth coverage of Native Americans’ involvement in the war. About midway through, a segment on U.S. campaigns against the Haudenosaunee Confederacy concludes by noting that the war proved to be just one of many chapters in Haudenosaunees’ struggle to maintain their independence. This is but one story in an expansive series of Revolutionary War tales centering Native nations.

“The Soul of All America” covers roughly 1777 to 1780. Although the Haudenosaunees receive the majority of the runtime provided for Native history, some key events run parallel in other corners. The bulk of the “Southern Strategy” initiated in 1778 receives a quick summary, highlighting the major activities of loyalist forces. However, there is a Native dimension to these stories, too, that the documentary barely mentions if it is mentioned at all.

This campaign belatedly arrived after years of cries for aid from administrators of Britain’s Southern Indian Department. From the fall of 1776 forward, members of the Muscogee Confederacy, a vast network of peoples sprawling across Alabama, Georgia, and Florida, formally joined hands with their loyalist friends in taking offensive action against rebels.[1] Together, they launched numerous attacks into South Carolina and Georgia long before Henry Clinton’s winter 1778 invasion of Georgia. By the war’s end, the combination of Native, loyalist, and rebel campaigns devastated both colonies with little reciprocal damage to Muscogee towns.

Map ornament showing a Native family and a large bison, a pelican perched on a rock below, and above, two Natives pour water from a cornucopia, an opossum hangs by its tail from the border, between 1759 and 1781, Library of Congress: Geography and Maps Division, https://www.loc.gov/item/2004673415/.

Early in the war, trading paths between Muscogees, Georgia, and South Carolina closed due to the dangers presented by the conflict even before Muscogees chose friends and enemies among loyalists and rebels. Trade re-routed to Pensacola, the capital of loyalist-controlled West Florida. In the spring of 1776, Cherokees and Muscogees created a new path binding their economies together. Pensacola became the entrepot for virtually all Anglo trade with Native nations south of the Ohio River. West Florida’s governor, Peter Chester, claimed that southern Indians “must receive almost their whole Supplies thro’ this province.”[2] Cherokees and Muscogees became gatekeepers to other nation’s participation in the trade.

However, as chronicled in Episode 3, “The Times That Try Men’s Souls,” rebels invaded the Cherokee Nation in late 1776, resulting in the destruction of many Cherokee towns. Among them was Chota, the Cherokee town that acted as one of the major centers of this new trading path. As the rebel invasion raged on, many Cherokees sought shelter within Muscogee towns and in Pensacola.[3] As Cherokees returned home, those who did not join Dragging Canoe’s campaigns set about rebuilding their towns and recovering. Later, the war’s destructiveness afflicted Pensacola, too.

Although The American Revolution broadens the story considerably compared with previous Revolution-centered media, some of the key events in the southern colonies receive short shrift. Kathleen DuVal, a recurring narrator for The American Revolution, argues in her book about the war that “the siege of Pensacola has not taken its place alongside Yorktown in the written histories of the American Revolution’s weighty events.”[4] When Episode 6, “The Most Sacred Thing,” discusses the siege of the city in the early months of 1781, the script neglects to mention that this had not been Bernardo de Gálvez’s first attempt to take the city. Gálvez had launched earlier attempts in 1780 during the summer—when 1,400 Muscogees marched to Pensacola and scared him away—and the fall, when a hurricane scattered his ships.[5] Pensacola became part of the Spanish Empire and remained a key entrepot for Anglo and Spanish traders, sustaining an alternative economic network for the region’s Native nations during the coming decades. The city remained a key trade center, invigorating Native communities as they resisted U.S. expansion.

Muscogees’ stories stand apart from the experiences of the Cherokee Nation and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy since their towns largely evaded the destruction brought to so many others by the Revolutionary War. As the Revolutionary War drew to a close between European participants, a Muscogee leader, Okaiegigie, expressed his consternation at rumors of abandonment by the British Crown. He lamented that “We took up the Hatchet for the English, at a time when we could scarce distinguish our friends from our foes.”[6]

George Gauld, A view of Pensacola, in West Florida, London: T. Jefferys in the Strand, 177?, Library of Congress: Prints and Photographs Division (Washington, DC), https://www.loc.gov/item/2004672419/.

The war presented many questions beyond that difficult task of choosing whether to get involved or whom to support. After the fall of Pensacola, the nations sharing the American Southeast asked questions about the creation of a new order, evaluating their place among a new cast of friends and foes. The American Revolution demonstrates that even with twelve hours of video, it’s difficult to give full coverage to every member of that cast and the many fascinating dimensions of the Revolutionary War. A host of Native figures remains unacknowledged by The American Revolution despite their important roles guiding and protecting their communities as the United States took its first shaky steps. The series may serve as an invitation to future scholars, readers, and filmmakers interested in exploring the histories connected to the birth of the United States. Many more historical figures and communities await their due.

Endnotes

[1] The documentary refers to their nation as the “Muscogee Creek.” However, in 2021 the Muscogee Nation dropped the “Creek” appellation, given that it had been a misnomer applied by British colonists. “Muscogee Nation drops ‘Creek’ from its name in rebrand,” Associated Press, May 4, 2021, accessed Dec. 8, 2025, https://apnews.com/article/oklahoma-20784cb3da6668943e29fc27cc55345e.

[2] Governor Chester’s letter to Lord Germain (no.12) relaying intelligence of Henry Stuart relative to discussion held with Cherokee Chief Little Carpenter, that Northern Nations intend to make war upon frontier settlers, and remarking upon rebel attempts to gain Indian alliances, September 1, 1776, CO 5/592, America and West Indies, Original Correspondence, 1606–1757, the National Archives, Kew (hereafter TNA), accessed Dec. 8, 2025, https://www-colonialamerica-amdigital-co-uk.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/Documents/Details/CO_5_592_037?SessionExpired=True#.

[3] A Talk from Emistisiguo, in John Stuart’s letter to George Germain (no. 13), referring to permission given to John Thomas to draw bills on behalf of the department and enclosing a talk from Emistesego at Little Tallassee that discusses rebel attacks on Indian towns, November 19, 1776–January 23, 1777, CO 5/78, TNA, accessed Dec. 8, 2025,  https://www-colonialamerica-amdigital-co-uk.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/Documents/Details/CO_5_78_012.

[4] Kathleen DuVal, Independence Lost: Lives On the Edge of the American Revolution (New York 2016), 218.

[5] June 9, 1780, in Charles Shaw’s letter to the Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs, discussing Indian forces and Spanish governor Bernardo de Galvez, with three related enclosures, May 5, 1780–June 9, 1780, CO

5/81, TNA, accessed Dec. 8, 2025, https://www-colonialamerica-amdigital-co-uk.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/Documents/SearchDetails/CO_5_81_054. Alexander McGillivray to Colonel Brown, May 13, 1780, in Charles Shaw’s letter to the Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs, CO 5/81, TNA.

[6] Colonel Brown’s letter to Thomas Townshend, reporting upon rumours circulating that Creek chiefs have held peace talks with Virginias and Spanish rebels, including four original and related enclosures [sic], April 14, 1783–June 1, 1783, CO 5/82, TNA, accessed Dec. 8, 2025, https://www-colonialamerica-amdigital-co-uk.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/Documents/SearchDetails/CO_5_82_066.