The American Revolution is often examined through the lives of towering figures such as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. But as the United States marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, RFI uncovers the stories of an enslaved spy, a woman who fought disguised as a man and an Oneida healer, all of whom helped shape the fight. Their stories begin long before 1776, with European colonisation, the dispossession of indigenous people and the labour of enslaved Africans.
The United States' journey to independence began almost three centuries before the declaration of 1776, as European powers competed for North America's east coast and English settlements grew into the Thirteen Colonies.
