About the Author:
Celia Barnes was born in Coventry, England. She received a 1st Class B.A. (Honors) degree in History and Politics at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. She went on to complete her Ph.D. there in 1996.

As the United States took its faltering steps as an independent republic, the Native Americans who occupied vast areas of the newly formed nation devised strategies to defend their own independence. The implications of the diverse and pervasive power of Native Americans during this period were far-reaching. The United States was based on a precarious political structure, its central government facing widespread distrust and even hostility, and its integrity threatened by both foreign interference and domestic fragmentation. Its inability to resolve the problems in the West served to undermine its already tenuous credibility, and the Native American presence thus contributed significantly to the fragility of the union. This study shows the Native Americans to have influenced the development of the United States so widely as to deserve a central place in early United States history.