Eddie Moran says the American Revolution can’t be understood through 1776 alone.
As Ulster County’s first full-time historian, he’s working to expand how the nation’s founding is told ahead of the 250th anniversary—bringing attention to Indigenous nations, enslaved people, and local conflicts across the Catskills and Hudson Valley.
“1776 is… not the start of the process that leads to our independence,” Moran says. “But a lot of the most pivotal events… really come after that.”
In the Hudson Valley, he notes, the war’s most consequential years begin after 1777, when fighting intensifies across the region and reshapes local communities.
Rethinking familiar stories
Moran urges a return to primary sources and a broader view of well-known events like the burning of Kingston.
He points to a little-known “Western theater” of the war in Ulster County, where Patriot militias, Loyalists, and Indigenous communities clashed.
“A lot of the most pivotal events… take place between Patriot aligned militias… Native people… Loyalists and the Haudenosaunee,” he says.
Those conflicts, he adds, had lasting consequences, including the displacement of Indigenous communities who later resettled in Canada.
Expanding whose history is told
A central focus of Moran’s work is broadening the Revolutionary War narrative to include enslaved and free Black residents and Native nations.
“I shy away sometimes from the term revisionism,” he says. “We’re really completing a story that we’ve already told, but we’ve only partially told in the past.”
That includes people who fought in militias, as well as those who gained freedom by fleeing behind British lines.
Indigenous history as living history
Moran also emphasizes building relationships with federally recognized tribes descended from the Lenape and related nations.
“People need to be aware that the Lenape people still exist in a present tense,” he says. “They live in sovereign nations of their own.”
He adds that local institutions are only beginning to engage meaningfully with those communities, including through archaeological review and consultation.
A more local Revolution
Public response, Moran says, has been largely positive as audiences encounter more detailed local history.
“It’s been a really rewarding process,” he says, “getting to see folks gain a deeper understanding of the events of the Revolution on the local level.”
Image: Eddie Moran is the Ulster County Historian. (Ulster County Government)