User talk:MariahRossi

Welcome!
Hello, MariahRossi, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Shalor and I work with the Wiki Education Foundation; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.

I hope you enjoy editing here. If you haven't already done so, please check out the student training library, which introduces you to editing and Wikipedia's core principles. You may also want to check out the Teahouse, a community of Wikipedia editors dedicated to helping new users. Below are some resources to help you get started editing. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:39, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Currently there is very little about what the Native Americans actually did during the siege, or who they were, not even clarification on why they fought. Rather, they have one or two shrewd lines in the post and that is it. There have been quite a few sources that pertain to Native Americans in the Great Lakes Region During the War of 1812. I plan to use a few, if not all of these sources to make the wikipedia entry more complete. I seek to give the Native Americans who fought on Mackinac Island a title, a motive, and possibly a strategy. I understand the limitations to these sources as most of the primary sources rely on British Accounts, however I will add as much detail as I can offer on this page.

Barrle of Mackinac Island (1812) - proposed changes
I read with interest your recent additions to this article. Regretfully, I have some concerns with it:

As the section currently stands:


 * Native Americans played an important role during the siege of Mackinac Island, and the subsequent battle. This is an unnecessary restatement of the obvious.
 * The size of the Native American force as well as their intimidation of the Americans made them a formidable foe. Also a bit obvious.
 * There were Native Americans from the Sioux, Winnebagoes, Menomonie, Chippewas, and Ottawa tribes.  The source is interesting. but the information is already in the article, in the more recent Hitsman source.
 * While Native Americans aligned with both British and American forces, the British had more Indian support during the siege of Mackinac. Confusing, and unsourced. Whst evidence is there that the Americans enjoyed any Native support at all during the brief siege?
 * After the American Revolutionary War, the British continued to trade in American territory and maintained strong alliances with the tribesmen there, adding to their incentive to join British forces.  Good and well sourced, but could possibly belong in a Background section rather than being stated after the action.
 * The British had about 300 Indian warriors under their command when taking the Island.  Contradicted by more recent sources.
 * Mackinac Island held importance for Native Americans as a prominent trading post.  Again, a restatement of the obvious
 * While Britain’s Native American allies contributed numbers to the siege, they also hastened the attack, as they were anxious to attack Mackinac with or without the British. Already mentioned, in slightly more elegant form, in the article.
 * Native Americans were under British command, but the Native Americans did give input on how to execute the attack. Restatement of the obvious
 * The British believed that if the Native Americans were not reined in that there would have been much more bloodshed. Source? and probably superfluus
 * Rather, the sheer size of the Native American and British forces dissuaded the Americans from engaging.  Again, a restatement of the obvious.

In short, rather than inserting a large section which merely repeats or confuses text which already exists, or adds unnecessary "filler" sentences, it would be better to incorporate the pre-war close relationship between the Native Americans and the (Anglo-Canadian) North-West Company and the British Government's Indian Department in the background or introduction, and let the facts of the engagement speak for themselves. The sources of course can stand, though they could also benefit from use of citation names.

I will wait a few more hours before making changes. HLGallon (talk) 16:21, 13 May 2018 (UTC)