First America from Critical Frequency

Summary

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Drilled x First America: “First America” (with Rebecca Nagle & Nick Estes)

Episode Title: First America
Podcast: Drilled (from Pushkin Industries & Critical Frequency)
Date: June 30, 2026
Host(s): Rebecca Nagle (special episode featuring Nick Estes, Ned Blackhawk)
Theme: Re-examining U.S. origins by centering Native histories, exploring how violence against Indigenous people shaped American democracy and persists in present-day policy.

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Episode Overview

This special episode of Drilled features the first installment of “First America,” a new documentary podcast hosted by Rebecca Nagle. Timed for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the episode challenges foundational myths by restoring Native presence and agency to U.S. history. Through on-site reporting, interviews with Indigenous historians like Nick Estes and Ned Blackhawk, and vivid storytelling, Nagle argues that settler violence against Native peoples is not an aberration, but foundational to the United States — and directly relevant to current injustices, such as ICE's militarization at historic Native sites.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Modern Erasure and Historical Amnesia

• Setting at Fort Snelling (Minneapolis):

  • Nagle and historian Nick Estes visit Fort Snelling, a site of deep significance for the Dakota people but now mostly known as a recreational or educational attraction.
  • Despite being the site of a concentration camp for Dakota people in 1862, most visitors are unaware of this history, epitomizing the ongoing erasure of Indigenous trauma from national consciousness.
  • Quote: “This is a sacred site for Dakota people which was later appropriated by the US Military to build their fort. ...I wish the United States never appropriated the eagle.” – Nick Estes (05:23, 05:46)

• Metaphor for American Memory:

  • Nagle: “Walking around Fort Snelling with Nick, it felt like this perfect metaphor for our country, all our terrible history. It’s there. We just don’t know how to talk about it.” (08:20)

2. History Repeating in the Present

• ICE Killing & Protest at Fort Snelling:

  • Coinciding with the reporting, ICE agents kill Renee Nicole Good, a woman protesting deportations, at the very site where Dakota were once imprisoned and killed.

  • Nagle draws direct lines between historic and contemporary violence as state-sanctioned, targeted displacement — “The concentration camp was just one part of a broader campaign to expel all Dakota people from the state of Minnesota.” (07:22)

  • Quote: “People are being hunted in their neighborhoods and their schools. Places that were considered sanctuary sites, such as hospitals and churches are no longer off limits.” – Nick Estes (14:37)

3. U.S. Origin Myth and the Declaration of Independence

• Native Presence in the Declaration:
  • Contrary to popular belief, Indigenous people are explicitly referenced (as “merciless Indian savages”) in the founding document’s final and most significant complaint.
  • Nagle breaks down the rhetorical structure: the last and angriest grievance of the Declaration is hatred toward Native resistance.
  • Quote: “There’s a racial slur in the Declaration of Independence. Native people are called savages. Alongside those lofty ideals, our founders included their deep hatred for indigenous people.” – Rebecca Nagle (21:32)

4. Why the Colonists Rebelled: Land, Race, and Identity Formation

• Interview with Ned Blackhawk (Yale historian, Western Shoshone):

  • The drive to seize Indigenous land after the French and Indian (Seven Years’) War, and the British Crown’s attempts to restrain settler expansion (“Proclamation Line” 1763), are described as the true catalysts for Revolution.
  • “Land mania, we might say, overwhelms the colonial system. ...People like George Washington made money from this thing called land speculation. They’d buy up land that still belonged to indigenous nations to sell for profit.” – Ned Blackhawk (29:46–30:10)

• Colonists Fire First Shots not at Redcoats, but to defend Settler claims against British-Indigenous diplomacy:

  • Blackhawk recounts the “Black Boys” attacking a British supply convoy, marking the first shots of the Revolution as a reaction to peace with natives, not taxes or tyranny.
  • Quote: “The first shots of the American revolution are fired in March of 1765 when one of these backcountry militia groups... attacks a British force escorting trade goods to Pontiac.” – Ned Blackhawk (31:45)

• Language of Anti-Indigenous Hatred as Unifying Myth:

  • “The black boys create an anthem, and that anthem calls native peoples the enemies of mankind.” – Ned Blackhawk (32:31)
  • Blackhawk explains that concepts like “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for mankind” are first articulated in profoundly anti-indigenous settings.

5. Systemic Erasure & Its Consequences

• Textbook Absence:

  • “That black boy’s history that we’ve been discussing has yet to appear in any US history textbook. Why we can’t tell that story is a mystery to me.” – Ned Blackhawk (34:29)

• Reflection on American Democracy:

  • Nagle draws unbroken lines from genocidal policies against Native nations to present-day authoritarian measures, arguing, “Violently rounding people up, putting people in detention, even shooting anyone who gets in the way. Our government has done this before. Not once, not twice. Many times. ...We don’t need to leave the United States to understand the horrors of authoritarianism. It’s right here in our own history.” (36:06+)

6. The Stakes for Truth and Reconciliation

• Nagle’s closing plea:
  • “I thought what was missing from the story of America was native people. But then I realized without us, that story is wrong. What’s missing from the story of America is the truth. ...Because without that, we will never find our way out.” (38:52)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Declaration’s “Savages” Clause:

  • “He has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontier the merciless Indian savages.” – Read by Revolutionary War reenactor (21:23)

• On the True Roots of U.S. Rebellion:

  • “Before the colonists are willing to die for lofty ideals like freedom and liberty and independence, they are willing to die to stop the Crown from making peace with indigenous nations.” – Rebecca Nagle (32:10)

• On American Amnesia:

  • “It’s not like you have to dig through the archives to find out that hunger for indigenous land drove the Revolution. It’s right there in the Declaration of Independence… but somehow no one knows about it. Feels like a magic trick.” – Rebecca Nagle (36:06)

• On the Urgency of Historical Reckoning:

  • “If we don’t understand the full context in which our nation was founded, we won’t understand the full context in which our nation now finds itself.” – Ned Blackhawk (35:52)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Visit to Fort Snelling & Dakota History: 04:36 – 09:00
• ICE Killing & Modern Echoes of Indigenous Displacement: 09:04 – 14:58
• Why ICE HQ is on Dakota Land (Colonial Legacy): 14:10 – 14:58
• Reflections on Historical Parallels: 15:00 – 16:00
• Native Presence in the Declaration of Independence: 18:25 – 21:32
• Interview with Ned Blackhawk (Colony-Britain-Indigenous Relations, Black Boys Rebellion): 23:33 – 34:41
• On Erasure from Textbooks and National Memory: 34:29 – 35:11
• Rebecca Nagle’s Powerful Closing Reflections: 36:06 – 38:52

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Episode Tone and Final Thoughts

“First America” is empathetic, unflinching, and meticulously researched. Nagle and her guests speak with clarity, urgency, and an undercurrent of sadness and anger at the persistence of erasure and violence. The tone is narrative, sometimes conversational, but always rooted in reclaiming history as a tool for present-day justice and understanding.

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For Listeners: Why This Episode Matters

Anyone interested in American history, Indigenous rights, or the roots of contemporary injustices will find “First America” unmissable. By reframing the country’s founding myth through Indigenous experience, Nagle compels us to confront the real story — not only for historical accuracy, but for the possibility of genuine democratic renewal.

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Memorable Closing Quote
“I want us to know how we got here. Because without that, we will never find our way out.” – Rebecca Nagle (38:52)

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Transcript

[Rebecca Nagle]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

[Jacob Goldstein]

Hey, it's Jacob Goldstein from Business History. In our new series American Genius, we tell the stories of three great writers who changed the way business works in America. Our first episode is about Benjamin Franklin, who among many other things was a best selling business writer. Take a listen. He's writing this much later in his life, consciously creating this image of himself. And I do want to emphasize how unusual this model is at the time, this self made man myth. Because you don't want to be self made. It's low class to be self made. You know this idea that we have today is the opposite, right? And it comes from Franklin. Today there is the derisive term Nepo baiting. Well, exactly right. And these days it's if you are a billionaire, you had better have a Benjamin Franklin story about starting in a garage, coming up with the idea from nothing. And here is Benjamin Franklin inventing it right before our eyes. This has been brought to you by Odoo to listen to more of our American Genius series. Listen to Business History. New episodes release every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Pushkin Industries Announcer]

Pushkin. Hey, Druid listeners, I hope you enjoyed Carbon Cowboys, our latest season on Bruce Rastetter, the corn ethanol kingpin turned global carbon entrepreneur and his escapades in Brazil. If you haven't listened yet, go check out that series now. Today, though, I'm excited to bring you another project I've been working on. It's a new show called First America, timed to the 250th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence. It tells the story of how Native Americans have been erased from the origin story of the country and how without them, the story is all wrong. Hosted and reported by Rebecca Nagel, an indigenous author and the former host of Crooked's this Land podcast and featuring leading Native historians, First America unveils how the founders treatment of indigenous nations and their resistance shaped U. S. Democracy. We've been told the Revolutionary War was fought over taxation and representation, but the last entry of the Declaration focuses on the Founding fathers contempt for, quote, merciless Indian savages. How did generations of Americans miss this? From land expansion to human rights issues, First America reveals the real story of why the colonists rebelled, what kind of government they actually created, and crucially, how our current political moment was 250 years in the making. Here's the first episode of First America.

[Rebecca Nagle]

I hope you like it.

[Pushkin Industries Announcer]

Hear more episodes of First America on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also get episodes early and ad free with a Pushkin plus subscription. Sign up on the First America show page on Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin FM plus.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Where do you want us to park? Should we park right here?

[Nick Estes]

I think you have to park in here.

[Rebecca Nagle]

The fort is that way.

[Nick Estes]

Yeah, the fort's that way.

[Rebecca Nagle]

On a cold day in January, I visited Fort Snelling in Minneapolis. I was there with my friend Nick Estes. He's a history professor at the University of Minnesota and a citizen of the Lower Burl Sioux tribe.

[Nick Estes]

This is the historic Fort Snelling. You want to walk closer to it?

[Rebecca Nagle]

Can you just describe what the fort looks like?

[Nick Estes]

Well, the fort has a guard tower and then there's a wall that surrounds the entire fort. There's a series of barracks.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Next to the historic buildings are modern day trash cans. To let you know this is a tourist attraction. School kids come here on field trips.

[Nick Estes]

This is a sacred site for Dakota people which was later appropriated by the US Military to build their fort. So look at that bald eagle. Told you we're gonna see one. Yeah. I wish the United States never appropriated the eagle. Do you hear?

[Ned Blackhawk]

Look at him.

[Nick Estes]

He's coming right towards us. I mean, I don't know, man. I don't know how you can't believe in the power of this stuff because those things happen for a reason. Told you we were going to see one.

[Rebecca Nagle]

The history of what happened at Fort Snelling is significant to the Dakota people, and that history is acknowledged at the site. But you have to go and Find it.

[Nick Estes]

There's like a healing site right over here.

[Rebecca Nagle]

It's next to an underpass, down a long set of stairs on the edge of the woods. Can you describe what the memorial looks like?

[Nick Estes]

Yeah. So it's like a camp circle, but in the center, it looks like there's prayer ties, sage, tobacco, etcetera, Wrapped in cloth. And they're also prayer ties in the trees that surround us.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Who do you think left the prayer ties in the trees?

[Nick Estes]

I'm assuming it's the descendants of those who experienced that genocide.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Over 1600 Dakota people were held here during the winter of 1862.

[Nick Estes]

This is the area actually where the concentration camp was actually at Dakota. People, people who dared to stand up to the United States were put into a concentration camp and all kinds of atrocities happened.

[Rebecca Nagle]

The concentration camp was just one part of a broader campaign to expel all Dakota people from the state of Minnesota. The campaign also included death marches, massacres bounties placed on indigenous heads, open air prisons, and mass executions.

[Nick Estes]

There was a lot of malnutrition, purposeful starvation. There were reports of women being raped and violated. You know, it's a site of horrors.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Do you think most people who come to this spot, do you think that they come here to honor the atrocity that happened here?

[Jacob Goldstein]

No.

[Nick Estes]

They're doing winter sports, recreation. I mean, you can see right here, you can see these parallel tracks. People cross country ski through this area.

[Rebecca Nagle]

While we were standing there, some hikers walked by.

[Ned Blackhawk]

Hi. Hello.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Walking around Fort Snelling with Nick, it felt like this perfect metaphor for our country, all our terrible history. It's there. We just don't know how to talk about it. This all started as a conversation between Nick and me about four years ago. We were frustrated. Well, I was pissed at how native people are erased from the story of America. We wanted to tell the history of the United States with native people written back in. I wanted to correct the record. I should just go up here. Oh, okay. I need a birch. When we were in the car, Nick's phone rang. I'm gonna.

[Nick Estes]

My wife called me. Somebody got shot.

[Rebecca Nagle]

He pulled up the news on his phone.

[Nick Estes]

Breaking witnesses report a woman was shot in the face by ICE while trying to flee in central Minneapolis.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Earlier that day, a woman named Renee Nicole Good had tried to block ICE agents with her car. An agent had just shot and killed her.

[Nick Estes]

Damn. The photos are really bad.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Oh, God.

[Nick Estes]

It looks like a deployed airbag is just covered in blood.

[Rebecca Nagle]

We parked and watched the video.

[Tony Ayo]

Wow.

[American Military University Announcer]

Wow.

[Rebecca Nagle]

That's awful. That's awful. When I was in Minneapolis last January, thousands of ICE agents were on the ground.

[Nick Estes]

It's in, like, a residential neighborhood.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Federal agents had been rounding people up, including children, and sending them to detention facilities. People were afraid to leave their homes. Parents stopped sending their kids to school. Interesting, given what we were talking about this morning, of the history of Dakota. People being rounded up and violently forced out of Minnesota. When I started this project, I thought I was making a history podcast. I read books, I interviewed historians. I went to important sites. I traveled across the country. But then this thing kept happening. I would be in a place learning about America's past, and then the same thing would happen right here in our present. You're listening to First America, the true story of how the United States came to be and how our current political moment is 250 years in the making. From Pushkin Industries and Critical Frequency, I'm your host, Rebecca Nagle. Gohin Dao Duleka Yatli Gen Leave citizen of Cherokee Nation. I didn't go to Minneapolis to report on ice. I had come to interview Nick. We just happened to be at Fort Snelling the day ICE shot and killed Renee Goode. I don't know about you, but I don't believe in coincidences. I canceled my flight home and stayed to report on what was happening. The next morning, there was a protest back at Fort Snelling.

[American Military University Announcer]

I go home.

[Rebecca Nagle]

I go home. Because Fort Snelling is also the site of ICE's headquarters in Minneapolis. I was curious why you guys came today, because, I mean, you know, someone was literally killed yesterday for standing up to ice. So is it scary to be here today, knowing the violence? Yes, it's scary. And I'm angry, and the anger overcomes the. I have a good friend, and she lived in Denmark during the German occupation, and she has told me over and over again, you cannot be quiet. You must stand up. Because silence is what allowed this to happen in the Second World War. How far are we from the historic Fort Snelling?

[Revolutionary War Reenactor]

Just right across Highway 62 here.

[Rebecca Nagle]

And do you know what happened there?

[Random Interviewee]

Oh, no, no. Don't ask me those kinds of questions.

[Rebecca Nagle]

I'm not good with history. It's a historic fort. It's historic. Yeah, sorry to put you on the spot.

[Random Interviewee]

I mean, the reason this is all happening here is because of the ICE offices that are there, not because of the historic fort, but

[Rebecca Nagle]

in 1860s was actually a concentration camp for Dakota people.

[Revolutionary War Reenactor]

Oh.

[Rebecca Nagle]

I'm just curious if any of that history feels relevant to what's happening now.

[Random Interviewee]

Yes. Clearly, you know, But I mean, our state. I mean, just. I. Yeah, I mean, what's. I mean, you watched that video. Thank God that person was there taking the video on their cell phone yesterday so everyone can see what happened. You know,

[Rebecca Nagle]

after leaving the protest, I went back to see Nick Estes at his office.

[Nick Estes]

The murder of Renee Good and the history of Fort Snelling are actually inseparable. First of all, ICE is headquartered on the Fort Snelling area campus.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Do you know if that's because it's federal land?

[Nick Estes]

Yeah, it's headquartered there because it's federal land.

[Rebecca Nagle]

And why is it federal land?

[Nick Estes]

It's federal land because it was once a military reservation from the Zebulun pike treaty of 1805. And that was a treaty signed between some Dakota leaders and the United States government to create a military outpost.

[Rebecca Nagle]

It's not just the same place. The same thing is happening.

[Nick Estes]

People are being hunted in their neighborhoods and their schools. Places that were considered sanctuary sites, such as hospitals and churches are no longer off limits. 150 years ago, they were hunting us down to kill us. And now they're hunting down immigrants to deport them.

[Rebecca Nagle]

While I was out reporting this project, a lot happened. ICE killed people in the streets. I watched a kid in bunny ears get detained. Our government abducted the leader of Venezuela and started a war with Iran. Analysts kept talking about the stages of authoritarianism, and I found myself asking this question. I think a lot of people are asking, how is this happening? How is all this happening in the United States? The answers I kept hearing YouTube. Lonely white men, the economy didn't feel like enough. I started to wonder if maybe the explanation was deeper than all that, deeper than anything going on right now. I'm still trying to figure it out, but the more time I spend in the past, the more the present makes sense. Maybe the answer is in that history we don't know how to talk about.

[American Military University Announcer]

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[Rebecca Nagle]

The first place I went on my quest to put Native people back in the story of America was the Declaration of Independence. This year is the 250th anniversary of the signing of that famous document, and it made sense to me as a starting place. I mean, it's the most popular origin story of our country, right? But it turns out what I thought I knew about the Declaration was wrong. Native people aren't missing. We're there. We're one of the most important lines in the document, but somehow no one knows about it.

[Revolutionary War Reenactor]

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another.

[Rebecca Nagle]

A couple of summers ago, on a hot July day, this man in a large coat and a feathered hat walked up a small set of stairs surrounded by Revolutionary War reenactors, bayonets, and the twin speakers of the Park Services PA system. He began reading the Declaration of Independence.

[Revolutionary War Reenactor]

We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

[Rebecca Nagle]

At the time of the document's creation, a lot of people were illiterate and printing stuff was slow and expensive. So word spread through public readings like this one.

[Revolutionary War Reenactor]

The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpation.

[Rebecca Nagle]

I think of the Declaration of Independence like a breakup letter. Our founders are breaking up with George iii, King of England. And the Declaration is at part of every breakup, or at least every. Every bad breakup, where you tell the other person everything they did wrong. If Thomas Jefferson and King George were having it out on the front lawn, Jefferson would have his finger in George's face, yelling, and another thing, for imposing

[Revolutionary War Reenactor]

taxes on us without our consent.

[Rebecca Nagle]

And so the Declaration is basically this long list of complaints.

[Revolutionary War Reenactor]

He has plundered our seed.

[Rebecca Nagle]

A lot of historians say that list

[Revolutionary War Reenactor]

has an order ravaged our coast.

[Rebecca Nagle]

It starts with smaller grievances, burnt our towels, and ends with the biggest ones

[Revolutionary War Reenactor]

and destroy the lives of our people.

[Rebecca Nagle]

We've been told the American Revolution was fought over taxes and representation. But the last complaint, the thing our founders were most angry about, goes like this.

[Revolutionary War Reenactor]

He has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontier the merciless Indian savages.

[Rebecca Nagle]

There's a racial slur in the Declaration of Independence. Native people are called savages. Alongside those lofty ideals, our founders included their deep hatred for indigenous people, the

[Revolutionary War Reenactor]

merciless Indian savages, whose no rule of warfare is an undistinguished distinction, destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

[Rebecca Nagle]

In case you need a refresher, the popular story of the American Revolution goes like this. Britain unjustly imposed taxes on the colonists and they got mad. But every time they protested, like when they threw tea into the Boston harbor, the key king just imposed harsher laws. The colonists started to see their king as a tyrant. Some started talking about independence. Late one night, Paul Revere rode his horse to warn militias waiting outside Boston that the British were coming. The next morning, the militia squared off against the Brits and the Revolutionary War began. A year later, our Founding fathers gathered in Philadelphia to write the Declaration of Independence. But for two and a half centuries, that document has been telling a different story. Story. According to our founders, in their own words, what they were most angry about was Indians. How did we all miss that? Can you please introduce yourself?

[Ned Blackhawk]

Hi, I'm Ned Blackhawk.

[Rebecca Nagle]

I went to Connecticut to find out and what's your tribal affiliation?

[Ned Blackhawk]

I'm Western Shoshani.

[Rebecca Nagle]

And what do you do, Ned?

[Ned Blackhawk]

I teach history. Where? Yale University. I was the first tenured American Indian to teach at Yale.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Wait, I just kind of want to back up, like, in the entire history of Yale. You're the first native person to get tenure here?

[Ned Blackhawk]

Yes. And I'm still the first. Still the only tenure faculty member. Yes.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Is it ever lonely? Ned wears a long ponytail and the kind of sweater you imagine a professor would wear. Ned and I have been talking about this history for years. He, along with Nick Estes and some other indigenous scholars, helped shape the idea for this podcast. I wanted Ned to tell me the story of why the founders hated indigenous people so much they put it in the Declaration of Independence. Ned says that story starts a couple decades earlier with this big, big war. Was it kind of like World War zero?

[American Military University Announcer]

No.

[Ned Blackhawk]

It is the first World War.

[Rebecca Nagle]

It started as a fight over who would control North America, and it eventually covered the globe. Great Britain won, and they got a bunch of land from France. This land spans from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and from present day New York to Minnesota. The colonists are thrilled.

[Ned Blackhawk]

All across British North America, colonists are rejoicing. Sermons are being offered in Sundays. Pamphlets and almanacs are being written about land possibilities in the interior. And there's this kind of growing sense of shared kind of euphoria that the British government and the British Empire are not just the largest in world history, but also the most virtuous and or free.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Those celebrations come to a halt in the summer of 1763, when news spreads of an indigenous uprising. The land England took over from France is still controlled by indigenous nations. What England actually wins in the war in real terms IS forts. About 13 forts stationed around the Great Lakes. As a new Fort Boston town, England thinks it can push native nations around.

[Ned Blackhawk]

They don't listen to the native peoples. They don't trade with them adequately.

[Rebecca Nagle]

And that angers indigenous leaders. An Odawa chief named Pontiac forms a multinational indigenous military alliance to push back. But could you just tell me a little bit more about who Pontiac is?

[Ned Blackhawk]

Pontiac is an Adowa leader, and he's fallen into close affinity with a preacher who's Delaware or Lenape named Nyolon. Neolin is the Delaware Prophet. Pontiac is the political leader. And together they start articulating a vision for the future. The that is transformative. They decide that they no longer want their followers to rely upon the goods of Europeans. And it's a process kind of similar to what the colonists are Going through. Because once they start reimagining themselves in these ways, they decide that they're going to drive the English out.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Pontiac and his soldiers go around and attack British forts. One of those attacks was particularly brilliant. Some Anishinaabe warriors go to this fort in northern Michigan, as they often did, to trade. But while they're there, they pretend to play a game of lacrosse right outside the fort.

[Ned Blackhawk]

And one ball makes it over the fence. And so they ask if they could kind of get their ball returned. And so the fort officials are opening the doors to return the fence, the ball that's been taken, and flood of warriors come in and destroy the fort.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Pontiac's military alliance attacks forts all over the Great Lakes region. Remember, England took over about 13 forts, while Pontiac and his alliance destroy eight.

[Ned Blackhawk]

They signal to the English that peace is going to be more costly than war has been for you.

[Rebecca Nagle]

And another costly war for the Crown is a big problem. England is broke. Like, broke broke. That global war England spent almost a decade fighting. It was expensive. The Crown doesn't want to pay for another one.

[Ned Blackhawk]

And they decide, okay, we'll make peace with Pontiac.

[Rebecca Nagle]

And why would the King do that? Because, like, England is a global empire. So why wouldn't the King of England want more land in North America?

[Ned Blackhawk]

Have you ever been to India?

[American Military University Announcer]

No.

[Ned Blackhawk]

Have you heard of the Caribbean?

[Rebecca Nagle]

Yes.

[Ned Blackhawk]

Okay. The English Crown governs millions of people around the world. The British colonists in North America are a small percentage of that. The overwhelming economic priorities that the British Empire has in the Western hemisphere revolve around places like Jamaica and Barbados, not Virginia or Massachusetts.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Is that because Barbados makes the Crown more money?

[Ned Blackhawk]

Correct, Because Barbados produces large quantities of slave produce, alcohol and sugar that can be consumed across the British Empire.

[Rebecca Nagle]

So in the interests of Britain, this global empire, peace with indigenous nations makes the most sense. It saves the Crown money. It serves the Crown's interests to preserve peace. The King of England gives Pontiac and his Confederacy what they want.

[Ned Blackhawk]

The proclamation line of October 1763 draws this perimeter along the crests of the Appalachian Mountains.

[Rebecca Nagle]

The Crown promises to keep settlers off their land.

[Ned Blackhawk]

So everything east is British North America. Everything to the west is to be reserved for the Indians.

[Rebecca Nagle]

While peace with indigenous nations serves the Crown's global interests, it angers the colonists because it takes from them what they want. More land.

[Ned Blackhawk]

Land mania, we might say, overwhelms the colonial system. Gentry leaders, people like George Washington understood that their lands were becoming increasingly less valuable. People like Washington and commanding their enslaved populations to help bring nutrient rich soils from the Bottom of riverbeds.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Because the fields are so depleted.

[Ned Blackhawk]

Because the fields have become so depleted,

[Rebecca Nagle]

People like George Washington made money from this thing called land speculation. They'd buy up land that still belonged to indigenous nations to sell for profit. Once indigenous people were pushed out the king's new boundary, it messed up their whole scheme. The boundary line angered regular and poor people, too. People who couldn't afford to buy private property often squatted on indigenous land. Pioneers, frontiersmen, settlers, whatever you want to call them, who are already living west of the king's line.

[Ned Blackhawk]

And there are numbers of settlers who are forced back east and they don't like it.

[Rebecca Nagle]

And there's this other thing about the king's concession to Pontiac. The colonists don't like peace. You have to understand that the colonists have been at war with indigenous nations for most of their lives. And now the king wants to make peace with their enemies.

[Ned Blackhawk]

In fact, the British are going to give them ammunition. They're going to trade with them. They're going to recognize them. Hey, wait a minute. Didn't we just fight with you to control this world?

[Rebecca Nagle]

To help cement peace with Pontiac, England arranges to bring gifts and supplies. This was how diplomacy between indigenous nations and European powers worked back then.

[Ned Blackhawk]

80 supply of mule trains are coming. Massive, actually logistical undertaking if you think about it. At Pittsburgh awaits these traitors who are going to take these goods to Pontiac's confederate.

[Rebecca Nagle]

The colonists organize a militia, basically a band of angry white men with guns, and attack the convoy.

[Ned Blackhawk]

The first shots of the American revolution are fired in March of 1765 when one of these backcountry militia groups, known as the Black Boys attacks a British force escorting trade goods to Pontiac.

[Rebecca Nagle]

They're not attacking indigenous people. The black boys are attacking British troops.

[Ned Blackhawk]

They say things like, we are willing to die to disrupt and destroy these relationships.

[Rebecca Nagle]

So before the colonists are willing to die for lofty ideals like freedom and liberty and independence, they are willing to die to stop the Crown for making peace with with indigenous nations. And we know why they are willing to die for this cause because they wrote a song about it.

[Ned Blackhawk]

The black boys create an anthem, and that anthem calls native peoples the enemies of mankind.

[Rebecca Nagle]

I asked Ned to read part of it for me.

[Ned Blackhawk]

On March 5, in 65, their Indian presence did arrive. But when this property is designed to serve the enemy of mankind, it's high treason in the amount.

[Rebecca Nagle]

What does that line mean?

[Ned Blackhawk]

It means that the British trading policies of supplying native peoples are supporting the enemies of not just settler society, but mankind more broadly. The Britain is committing treason not to the Crown, but to humanity as a whole. And so this vision of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for mankind, the first time mankind is being articulated, that I'm aware of, is in deeply anti indigenous settings.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Hating indigenous people. Seeing us as less than human helps the colonists come together and form a unified identity. It helped them come together to. To fight for independence.

[Ned Blackhawk]

I do believe the start of the fall of the British Empire in North America began on the Pennsylvania frontier. The sense of lawlessness or essentially fashioning one's own self governing principles and practices. This is happening before in Pennsylvania, before it's happening in Massachusetts.

[Rebecca Nagle]

We teach the origins of the American Revolution. And as this drumbeat of violence and protest happening in Boston over taxes, but years before any of that, colonists are firing guns at British troops over native land.

[Ned Blackhawk]

And to my knowledge, that black boy's history that we've been discussing has yet to appear in any US history textbook. Why we can't tell that story is a mystery to me.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Before I left Yale, I gave Ned a present.

[Ned Blackhawk]

You want me to open this? Yeah.

[Rebecca Nagle]

You may or may not want it.

[Ned Blackhawk]

Declaration of Independence shot glass. Thank you so much.

[Rebecca Nagle]

What does it say?

[Ned Blackhawk]

We the people.

[Rebecca Nagle]

What to you does that shot glass represent? If we think about how Americans think about their history.

[Ned Blackhawk]

I wanted to say something that it's easily digestible, goes down smooth. I think we as a country are losing a real sense of understanding about our nation's past. The Declaration, which is full of these beautiful, beautifully rendered, you know, sentences and paragraphs about Enlightenment ideals, does also have this darker history to it.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Why is it important for the darker part of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution, why is it important that Americans know about it?

[Ned Blackhawk]

Well, if we don't understand the full context in which our nation was founded, we won't understand the full context in which our nation now finds itself.

[Rebecca Nagle]

I'm mad that native people have been written out of the story of the Revolution, but I'm also baffled by it. I mean, it's kind of wild, right? It's not like you have to dig through the archives to find out that hunger for indigenous land drove the Revolution. It's right there in the Declaration of Independence, in one of our country's most famous documents, in one of the most famous documents in all of human history, but somehow no one knows about. Feels like a magic trick, like making a rabbit disappear into a hat. And when I started this project, that's what I thought I was up against the pervasive and systemic erasure of Native people from US History. I thought the thing people couldn't see was was me, my community. And then I started to realize what's missing from the story of America. It's bigger than that. After I left Minneapolis, I kept hearing politicians say the same thing. What is happening right now in America is fundamentally un American. This is just so un American. I understand where this comes from. It comes from the part of the Declaration of Independence. We were taught the all men are created equal life, liberty, and happiness part. But when we tell the whole story, the truth of how and why our country was founded, the present moment doesn't feel like a contradiction. Violently rounding people up, putting people in detention, even shooting anyone who gets in the way. Our government has done this before. Not once, not twice. Many times. We just don't talk about that history because it happened to indigenous people. I keep hearing people go to Nazi Germany or Putin's Russia to try and understand the rise of fascism. We don't need to leave the United States to understand the horrors of authoritarianism. It's right here in our own history. And if we want to root that authoritarianism out, we have to know where and how it started. If we think we can win by defeating one leader, it will be like pruning a weed. It will only come back stronger. I thought what was missing from the story of America was native people. But then I realized without us, that story is wrong. What's missing from the story of America is the truth. I want us to know how we got here. Because without that, we will never find our way out. Coming up on this season of First America. Are you guys big Chiefs fans? Hell, yeah.

[Revolutionary War Reenactor]

Yes.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Chiefs on three.

[Ned Blackhawk]

One, two, three.

[Random Interviewee]

Chief.

[Rebecca Nagle]

I feel like that's gonna happen a lot. Do Native Americans still exist?

[Ned Blackhawk]

Maybe.

[Rebecca Nagle]

I don't really think so.

[Ned Blackhawk]

So the entire plan for funding the federal government was acquiring indigenous land and selling it. You were running for your lives, and you saw behind you everything you knew being burned down.

[Rebecca Nagle]

What? Democracy rounds an entire ethnic group up at gunpoint and puts them into a concentration camp? Like, not a strong democracy, not a durable democracy. I would say not even a democracy.

[Random Interviewee]

It's not.

[Rebecca Nagle]

It's not a new thing. This is what we've done. We're good at this. If you like what you're hearing, please leave a review. It's one of the best ways to help listeners find this show. You can also support First America by subscribing or sharing episodes with your friends. First America was made possible by the generous support of the Henry Luce foundation and the NYU Yale American Indian Sovereignty Project. Additional support came from Indian Collective, First Nations Development Institute, Yahavia Tom of San Manuel Nation Borealis Philanthropy and Black Liberation Indigenous Sovereignty Collective. Our fiscal sponsor is Red Media. I dreamed this project into the world in collaboration with an amazing group of Indigenous scholars including Maggie Blackhawk, Fond du Lac Ojibwe Ned Blackhawk, citizen of the Timok Tribe of Western Shoshone Phil Deloria, descendant of the Standing Rock and Yankton Sioux tribes and Nick Estes, citizen of the Lower Barol Sioux Tribe. I Rebecca Nagle, citizen of Cherokee Nation, also reported, wrote, hosted and executive produced the show. First America is produced by Critical Frequency and distributed by Pushkin Industries. Our managing producer is Amy Westervelt. Senior producer and Sound designer is Brendan Baker. Our story editor is Audrey Quinn. Jules Bradley, Kim Netter, V. Petersa and Jordan Gas Pore are our producers. Our editorial consultant is Connie Walker, citizen of the Ookanese First Nation. Fact checking by Naomi Barr. Our partnership's director is Lindsey Crowder. Our development consultant is Jenny Lawton. Our theme song is by Raven Chukan, who is Danae scoring by Laura Ortman, citizen of the White Mountain Apache Tribe and Raven Chacon. Artwork by Kelly Gonzalez, citizen of Cherokee Nation. The team at Pushkin is Greta Cohn, C CEO Eric Sandler, Chief Strategy Officer Grace Ross, VP of Business Development Morgan Ratner, Director of Marketing Owen Miller, Content Delivery Associate Kyra Posey, Creative partnerships manager Jordan McMillan, social media manager Brian Strabinik, Senior Analytics Manager and Jake Flanagan, Production Counsel.

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[Rebecca Nagle]

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[Revolutionary War Reenactor]

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[Rebecca Nagle]

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