Why would indigenous peoples ally themselves with an empire fashionably demonized as a colonizing oppressor? Its a divisive question, and it continues to haunt those who live in Britains former imperial outposts, from Calcutta to Nairobi. Of course there were always practical reasons to fight alongside the British. But there were also intimate ones that defy easy categorization. Few military policies in the history of the British Empire incited greater outrage than George IIIs deployment of Indian warriors against rebelling colonists during the American Revolution. And few martial alliances depended so visibly and heavily on the influence of a single familythe biracial dynasty of Sir William Johnson, an Irish imigri and adopted Mohawk who emerged as one of the eighteenth centurys most colorful and divisive political figures. In his lecture, Professor Swinehart suggests how the remarkable story of Johnsons ill-fated clan contains a larger story about elusive forces that would bring indigenous peoples into British service well into the twentieth century.
