The American revolutionary war had the biggest impact on race relationships between the Colonists and Natives. Initially, when the colonists arrived in modern day America, they viewed the natives in a positive light owing to their hospitality and friendliness. By that time the issue of race had not taken shape. They even welcomed most of the natives to visit their settlements and initiated resourceful trade with them. Their main hope was that they would manage to transform natives to become civilized Christians. When the war was initiated, some of the native tribes even pondered on which side they would support owing to their well established relationships with the colonists.
This war, nevertheless, impacted on race relationships since the natives who had sought to side with the Colonists ended up losing their land. As a result of the strained relationship with the Colonists, many native lives were lost in the course of displacement and also due to the diseases these people suffered from as they were being forced to leave their homes. Besides, the Colonists now attached racial tags to the natives having initially viewed them only as Savages and uncivilized individuals.
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Another significant occurrence resulting from the war was the establishment of the Indian Removal Act. The Colonists singled out five Indian tribes: Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole and Creek ( Cook, 1973 ). These groups of individuals were to be exterminated and led to starve without any care being offered to them. Moreover, the Colonists now capitalized on killing the natives especially the Penobscot whereby if they killed one individual they were to be compensated up to fifty pounds for the male scalps. Besides, the female scalps fetched twenty five pounds. The message was clear, they were supposed to capture, captivate, kill and also destroy every native ( Price, 2015 ). Finally, Indians who had sided with the Colonists hoped that they could contain resettlement, however, the ended up losing even their ancestral lands.
References
Cook, S. F. (1973). Interracial warfare and population decline among the New England Indians. Ethnohistory , 1-24.
Price, A. G. (2015). White settlers and native peoples . Cambridge University Press.
