The point is driven home not just by the texts but also by subtler details, from the accents in the audio pieces (which slowly shift from British to period-correct American) to the evolving flag designs.

“The idea is that you enter as a subject, but leave as a citizen,” Mr. Stephenson said.

But there are also repeated reminders that not all citizens were equal, and that “liberty” hardly meant the same thing to everyone. One tableau depicts some of the thousands of enslaved people who fought for the British. “Sometimes,” as a large wall text bluntly puts it, “freedom wore a red coat.”

Another gallery uses life-cast figures and a six-minute film to recreate a debate among the Oneida nation about which side to take. The Oneida sided with the Revolution, but wall text makes the quandary of Native Americans plain: “How could they preserve their independence in the midst of this vicious civil war”? (The Oneida donated $10 million to the museum.)

Throughout, similar panels explore the meaning of events for Native Americans, enslaved African-Americans and other marginalized people. “We call these our ‘wait just a damn minute’ panels,” Mr. Stephenson said. “Every time the language gets really lofty, we counter it.”

Image A depiction of a black soldier in a British uniform. Blacks fought in greater numbers for the Royal cause than for the Patriots. Credit Mark Makela for The New York Times

Visitors can easily float through on the immersive effects and clever set pieces. But there are constant invitations to dig deeper into objects, documents and complex ideas.

The Declaration of Independence gallery — influenced, Mr. Stephenson said, by the scholarship of the historian Pauline Maier — focuses not on the soaring rhetoric of Thomas Jefferson but on the raucous dialogue of independent people, who generated more than 80 local declarations. An interactive panel explores the perspectives of 10 individuals: men and women, free and enslaved, enthusiastic and ambivalent.