(upbeat music) - Oh!

Oh!

Hey, people!

I've been traveling to different revolutions through history, and let me tell you all, do not go to England in 1381.

Well, looks like you caught me just in time to visit the next revolution on my list.

The American Revolution.

History books tend to present this war as a battle between Redcoats and Patriots.

There were other nations involved.

I'm about to dive into the often untold story of the Haudenosaunee, and the complexities of military alliances, diplomacy, and survival during the revolution.

There's a really cool place not far from my hometown called Fort Niagara.

Come on, let's go!

Whoa!

(Cory laughing) It's the 1770s.

The air smells like wood smoke, gunpowder, and not enough deodorant.

The American colonies are buzzing with talks of freedom, rebellion, and how tight your breeches have to be before you officially lose circulation.

Tensions with Britain have boiled over.

Taxes, restrictions, and the king across the ocean calling all the shots.

The colonists finally say "Nah."

And in 1776, they declare independence.

Suddenly you've got Patriots fighting for a new nation.

Loyalists sticking with the crown, and entire families split down the middle.

Neighbors, cousins, and even brothers are on opposite sides.

Whoo!

Let's get into it.

- Well, you look ready for a fight, but there is no fighting here.

- Wait, no battle?

Then, what makes Fort Niagara so important?

- [Redcoat] It controls trade and supplies the British Army via the Great Lakes.

We also launched raids on the New York and Pennsylvania frontier.

- So all the fighting happened out there?

- Wait a sec, there was plenty of action right here.

Just not the kind you're picturing.

- Jordan, my guy!

Jordan here is a History-verse traveler, just like me.

Jordan, please enlighten us to what else was going on here at the fort?

- For the Haudenosaunee people, Fort Niagara was something more than a supply post.

Families came here when their homes were burned.

Refugees gathered outside these very walls.

And survival sometimes meant making impossible choices.

- I feel like that's a story we don't hear very often.

- Well take a walk with me.

Let me tell you more.

- Or we could try this new gadget.

History-verse 2.0, baby!

The fast pass.

Let's try it out.

- Cool.

I'm in.

- Confidence level, medium low.

You ready?

- Absolutely not.

- Here we go.

Bam!

Whoa, whoa!

That was like the world's worst Uber ride.

- Definitely not enough leg room.

Ah, where was I?

Ah, yes, yes.

When people think of the American Revolution, they imagine famous battles between the British and the Americans.

But for the Haudenosaunee, it was different.

This war came straight to our front door, right to our own territories, to our homelands.

It forced us to divide, to choose what felt like the lesser of two evils.

Back in 1763, the crown recognized Indigenous land rights, saying colonists couldn't expand past the Appalachian mountains.

But the American colonists, they ignored it.

For us, siding with the British looked like the best chance to really defend in our homeland.

Even so, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy split in 1777.

The Oneida, the Tuscarora, sided with the Americans.

The Mohawk, the Onondaga, the Cayuga, and the Seneca side with the British.

So you have blood relatives fighting each other on opposite sides of this conflict.

Many families who lost everything, villages, crops, they found shelter here at Fort Niagara.

But the fort wasn't only a refuge, it was also military hub.

And from here, John Butler, a loyalist from the Mohawk Valley, organized a regiment called the Butler's Rangers.

These were men loyal to the crown, and there are also men from our Native nations that carried out raids across New York and Pennsylvania.

- And those raids eventually pushed George Washington to respond.

- [Jordan] Yes, Washington was forced to dispatch one third of his army to the frontier.

- In 1779, the Sullivan-Clinton campaign was launched, and it was a scorched earth invasion of your homelands.

More than 40 villages were burned, crops destroyed, and food stores wiped out.

- That's why George Washington became known among our people as the Town Destroyer.

But even through all this devastation, our governance continued.

Our history wasn't written on paper.

It was woven into wampum.

The belts carry stories, treaties, and laws that still live well into the 21st century.

They remind us of the agreements that were honored, but also the many that were broken.

Beyond the raids and campaigns, families had to figure out how to live day-to-day.

So how about I introduce you to what life looked like for the Haudenosaunee?

- Round two?

- I guess so.

- Bam!

Whoa ho ho!

My mouth taste like gym socks and Goo Goo Clusters.

You taste that?

- Is that what the flavor of the day is?

- So anyway, can you tell us a little bit more about what some of the hardships were here at the fort?

- I think the main thing was that there was no way to know how many refugees were going to show up.

They really didn't have enough food or supplies to distribute to everybody.

The native population were not really allowed on the inside of the fort walls.

Some of these other people that really had to endure, they had a difficult task ahead of them just to survive.

- The Haudenosaunee people and the British soldiers, what was the relationship like between them?

- We see a lot of cultural exchange from the British soldiers to the Natives as far as survival skills.

How do you just live within the elements around us.

- Did any of the British soldiers break the rules to help any of the Haudenosaunee people?

- Well, it happens quite often when you are immersed in the culture of a people.

You meet friends, you make acquaintances, relationships.

- [Cory] Mm.

- So some of these British soldiers, in fact, married Native women, had children.

An example of that relationship would be Molly Branch.

She was a Mohawk woman.

She was a clan mother of the Bear clan.

But she also had a good relationship with Sir William Johnson.

And through that relationship, they were very, very powerful politically, and had a lot of influence.

- While no battle was fought here during the American Revolution, what happened inside, and around these walls shaped entire nations.

- I have to get back to my own History-verse mission.

See you in another time, brother.

- All right, my man.

(Cory laughing) Whoa!

Whoo!

Okay.

When the revolution ended in 1783, the Treaty of Paris redrew borders.

But here's the twist.

The British kept Fort Niagara long after they promised to leave it.

Whoa, Jordan, my guy!

The wardrobe change?

Pretty slick!

- Yes, sir.

So for our people, this place carries two legacies.

Loss and survival.

Refuge for families burned out of their homes and villages, but also a reminder of broken promises and forced migrations.

- By clinging to Fort Niagara after the war, the British kept Haudenosaunee families in limbo.

See, they were caught between two new powers, the young United States, and a British empire that refused to move.

- The new US government pushed many of our people on the reservations, breaking earlier agreements, and completely ignoring the royal proclamation.

What had been a vast connected homeland was suddenly cut into pieces controlled by other governments.

Fort Niagara became a crowded refuge for the Haudenosaunee people, and for loyalist settlers escaping the new United States.

- The Haudenosaunee were left the rebuild, while two nations argued over borders they had drawn without them.

- Exactly.

And there Fort Niagara still stands, watching as flags changed and treaties came and went, while our people held fast to our language, our laws, and our traditions.

- You know, I couldn't have done this mission without you, Jordan.

Thanks for stopping by and joining me, my friend.

- What can I say?

Right place, right century.

It's always a pleasure, and I'll catch you in another time.

- My brother.

(electronic sounds) During the American Revolution, the Haudenosaunee stood at a crossroads not of their making.

The fort still holds their voices.

This history shows us that identity and resilience can't be erased, and that each generation decides what the future will become, and that includes you.

Now, a wise man once said, "Remember, history surrounds you, and includes you."

So go ahead and make history.

Maybe someday I'll be telling your story, right here, on "Compact History."

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues)