Joseph Ellis' "Tragic Side"

Summary

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History As It Happens – "Joseph Ellis' 'Tragic Side'"

Host: Martin Di Caro
Guest: Joseph Ellis (Pulitzer Prize-winning historian)
Date: July 28, 2026
Theme: Examining the "tragic side" of the American founding, focusing on missed opportunities to end slavery and the dispossession of Native Americans.

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Episode Overview

This episode features a deep-dive conversation between Martin Di Caro and historian Joseph Ellis, exploring Ellis’s new book, The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding. The discussion centers on two critical failures of the Founders: the inability to end slavery during America’s formative years and the failed attempts to achieve a just accommodation with Native Americans. Ellis draws a distinction between the achievements and profound shortcomings of the Founding generation, arguing that understanding these failures is vital for a nuanced grasp of American history and its enduring legacies.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Focus on Founders’ Failures? (04:00)

• Ellis’s Motivation:
  Ellis wrote this book to address the “discontents” and failures of the American Revolution, having previously highlighted its successes. He emphasizes the humanity of the Founders—neither saints nor demons.
  • "They're not mythical figures. They are like us, imperfect human beings. And in this case, I'm going to show where they failed as well as where they succeeded." – Joseph Ellis (04:15)
• Unique Dilemma:
  In 1776, the true challenge was not just ending slavery, but creating a functioning biracial society—something unprecedented in world history.

2. Slavery and the Missed Window for Abolition (06:13–12:15)

• Northern and Southern Divides:
  • Vermont and Massachusetts led with immediate or gradual emancipation, but significant prejudice remained in the North, with freed Blacks denied rights and equality (05:58, 14:36).
• Revolutionary 'Time':
  • Ellis invokes the idea of the “perishability of revolutionary time”: if the momentum of the Revolution wasn’t harnessed for abolition, it would be lost (06:45).
• Washington’s Hidden Stance:
  • Lesser-known anecdote: Washington told his Cabinet he would side with the North if slavery precipitated a civil war. Jefferson saw this as betrayal (06:45).
• Dunmore’s Proclamation:
  • Both agree its impact on Virginians was overstated by some historians, but it did invoke real fear of insurrection among slave owners (09:39–11:15).
  • "Most of the slaves that fled to Dunmore died. Over half died of smallpox... There were 2,000 dying or dead African Americans there." – Ellis (10:31)

3. The Constitution and Slavery: Compromise or Capitulation? (12:15–15:56)

• Constitutional Dilemma:
  • The only path to a unified nation was postponing a national reckoning on slavery; otherwise, Southern states would not have joined (12:20, 13:47).
  • The three-fifths compromise, fugitive slave clause, and delay in abolishing the slave trade to 1807 were pragmatic, not idealistic decisions.
  • "If you had...formally end[ed] it, all the Northern states would have voted for it, all the Southern states would have voted against it...and they would have left the convention." – Ellis (13:15)
• Presentism Warning:
  • Ellis criticizes historians who judge the Founders solely by modern standards (14:10).

4. Post-Revolutionary Debates & the Final "Shut Door" (17:12–21:29)

• 1790–1792 Anti-Slavery Petitions:
  • Quaker and Franklin-led petitions to end the slave trade and abolish slavery nationwide were tabled, then procedurally silenced by Madison and others (17:48).
  • "Madison does his magic... The original view is that we say we're going to not discuss slavery until 1807 and he changes it to say we can never discuss it, it's off the agenda." – Ellis (17:48)
  • Quakers and abolitionists found the "window" closed for national action—future solutions would have to be moral or localized, not legislative.
• The "Federal Consensus":
  • Not written into the Constitution, but emerged as an unspoken rule: Congress would not interfere with slavery where it already existed (18:28).
• Inevitability of Civil War:
  • Ellis argues this procedural shut-down set America on the path to inevitable conflict (20:04).
  • "Once they make that decision, the Civil War becomes inevitable." – Ellis (20:04)

5. The Founders’ Mixed Legacies and Northern Prejudice (21:29–22:29)

• Northern States Not Off the Hook:
  • Free Black communities in the North faced legal and social discrimination; racism was deeply entrenched nationwide, not simply a Southern flaw.

6. Native Americans: The 'Unavoidable' Tragedy (23:34–31:44)

• Washington and Indian Policy:
  • Washington prioritized just accommodation and avoiding Indian removal. Henry Knox’s plan sought to set a treaty-based, enclave model with the Creek Nation (24:59–26:57).
  • The resulting Treaty of New York was promising but ultimately unenforceable against the land-hungry tide of white settlers.
  • "They put 3,000 troops on the border of Georgia to stop the flow. The white settlers want land." – Ellis (26:57)
• Alexander McGillivray:
  • Highlighted as a key Creek leader: of mixed ancestry, multilingual, and politically sophisticated, he negotiated directly with federal officials (25:03, 29:52).
• Treaty Breakdown & Tragic Outcome:
  • The inability to enforce treaties and stop illegal settlement doomed Native societies east of the Mississippi; Ellis calls this a "Greek tragedy"—inevitable due to numbers and Western expansion ideology (28:31).
  • "Washington says it would have taken a Chinese wall to stop them... The thing that's really devastating about this, this was a plan to avoid Indian Removal that if it had succeeded, could have been a model..." – Ellis (26:59)
• Contrast with Slavery:
  • Ellis distinguishes the Native American tragedy as 'Greek' (inevitable) versus slavery as 'Shakespearean' (potentially avoidable with different leadership or resolve) (28:31).

7. Assessing the American Revolution and Historical Legacy (31:44–34:02)

• Revolution’s Two Sides:
  • Ellis acknowledges the brilliance of the Founding—the reversal of the idea that power comes from the people, not divine right—but stresses its catastrophic consequences for Native Americans.
  • "The great loser in the American Revolution was not the British...the big loser is the Native Americans." – Ellis (31:59)
• Present Challenges in Interpreting History:
  • The episode closes with contemporary reflections—cultural battles over the teaching of American history and concerns about democracy’s fragility.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "You've got to be able to hold two ideas in your mind simultaneously and still function." – Joseph Ellis (04:30)
• "If there are two great failures, failure to end slavery and the failure to reach a just accommodation with the Native Americans, Washington looks really good on both issues." – Joseph Ellis (07:12)
• "If you had done what many presentistic historians want, you would not get the Constitution, period." – Joseph Ellis (14:36)
• "The total white population, north and south in the United States was unprepared to accept African Americans as equal citizens... The northern states don't get off the hook on this." – Ellis (22:29)
• "Washington says it would have taken a Chinese wall to stop them. The thing that's really devastating about this, this was a plan to avoid Indian Removal..." – Ellis (26:59)
• "The failure to end Indian rule is, I think, a tragedy that couldn't have been avoided. It's a Greek tragedy... On the slavery side... that's a Shakespearean tragedy." – Ellis (28:31)
• "The great loser in the American Revolution was not the British... the big loser is the Native Americans." – Ellis (31:59)
• "None of them is perfect. If there had never been a war, you'd have never heard of George Washington." – Ellis (32:58)
• "The republic is on the ballot." – Ellis (33:30)
• "Madam, we've given you a republic, if you can keep it." (Franklin quote recalled by Ellis) (34:52)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Slavery and the Founding’s Contradiction – 04:00–14:10
• Dunmore's Proclamation & Revolutionary Dilemmas – 08:27–12:15
• Constitution and the Failure to End Slavery – 12:15–17:12
• Early Petitions and Congressional Shut-Down – 17:12–21:29
• Racism in North and South; Legacies of Slavery – 21:29–23:05
• Washington, Knox, & Creek Treaty – 24:34–27:22
• Tragedies: Greek vs. Shakespearean – 28:31–31:44
• Legacies and Today’s Debates – 31:44–34:52

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Final Reflection

Joseph Ellis and Martin Di Caro dissect the paradoxes of America's founding, punctuating a sweeping historical narrative with personal anecdotes, revisionist views, and vivid storytelling. The episode challenges listeners to appreciate both the radical achievements and devastating compromises of the nation's birth—reminding us that the story of the United States is both inspiring and deeply tragic, with consequences that echo today.

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Transcript

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[Martin]

History as it happens, it's February 1790 and the house of Representatives is meeting in New York City. A group of Quakers submits a petition that ignites debate among that first class of US Legislators under the new Constitution, a petition to end the African slave trade. This scene is brought to life by the historian Joseph Ellis in his latest book, the Great the Tragic side of the American Founding. The next day that February, a second anti slavery petition arrived from the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, written by its president, Benjamin Franklin. Mankind are all formed by the same Almighty being, alike objects of his care, and equally designed for the enjoyment of happiness. All people were entitled to the blessings of liberty without distinction of color, the petition stated. It called on Congress to end slavery not at some distant point, but. As Ellis argues in his book, the outcome of the debates over those two petitions was the opposite of the one desired by the petitioners. Whatever window of opportunity had existed to complete the most glaring piece of unfinished business in the Revolutionary era was now closed, says Ellis. But the debate itself did not die. It moved from the political arena to the churches where slavery would come under scrutiny as a sin requiring a national purging, and where the oral debate would not be burdened by realistic political considerations about the possible dismemberment of the emerging American republic. From a purely moral perspective, if that was the price to pay for salvation, so be it. The failures to end slavery in the new Republic's early years and to reach a peaceful accommodation with native peoples east of the Mississippi river as land hungry white settlers invaded their lands. These are what Joseph Ellis says are the Founding's tragic side. But could history? Should history have been different? Joseph Ellis, welcome back to the podcast.

[Joseph Ellis]

Hey, it's always a pleasure to be with you, Martin.

[Martin]

You know, I did a series for the semi quincentennial birthday number 250. I wasn't able to get you on prior to July 4th to do that, but I had to read your book first. But you know, I intend to continue to do shows about the American Revolution and its enduring and contested meanings for the rest of the year. But let me start though, with this question. Why did you write this book, the Great Contradiction?

[Joseph Ellis]

Well, I had written a book previously called the Cause, and it had a subtitle, the American Revolution and Its Discontents. I hadn't really focused much on the discontents, the things we failed at. And in some of the published reviews of the book, people said, my God, Ellis is the historian of the Founders, and here he's talking about how they failed. But remember, all the work I've done on the founders, and I've obviously focused on them quite a bit, is that they're not mythical figures. They are like us, imperfect human beings. And in this case, I'm going to show where they failed as well as where they succeeded. They did both. You've got to be able to hold two ideas in your mind simultaneously and still funct. One of the things I want to let your viewers hear is that the United States faced a unique dilemma in 1776. Not only went into war against Great Britain, but also that if you own slaves anywhere in England, in Great Britain and France, and you were forced to free them, where were they? They were an ocean away in the Caribbean and Latin America. If you free them here, they're your neighbors and they're 20% of the total population. And so the issue at stake isn't just should we end slavery, the issue is should we become a biracial society? And the answer to that in both northern and Southern states, and we'll talk about that, is no, no nation in the world had ever done that, by the way, so that we faced a dilemma that was uniquely American. Dilemma. There's a split between the Northern states and the Southern states on this. In the Northern states, slavery gradually was

[Martin]

ended in some places immediately. Massachusetts, but yes, mostly gradual emancipation, although

[Joseph Ellis]

the first state to end slavery is the one I'm sitting in right now, Vermont. And not only ended slavery completely, it also ended the property qualification to vote and believe it or not, gave some consideration to allowing women to vote. That failed.

[Martin]

Northern emancipation is a very important and often under appreciated achievement on the road to getting rid of slavery entirely. We'll get into that. Your thesis that the two major failures coming out of the American Revolution was one, the failure to end slavery, when in your view, the best chance was available again, the people who were living in 1790 or 1788 could not see the Cotton Revolution. Your argument is, as it turned out, that was the best chance to try to do something nationally about slavery. Because it.

[Joseph Ellis]

Yeah, there's a British historian that wrote about this. The perishability of revolutionary time. If you don't act while the values of the American Revolution, which are declared in the Declaration are clearly anti slavery. Eve Jefferson acknowledged that Washington, oh, by the way, Washington, nobody knows this. When he was first elected president, he had a meeting of his Cabinet. As the Cabinet was getting ready to leave, he said, oh, by the way, I want you to know, if the current sectional argument becomes a war, a civil war, I want you to know that I will side with the North. As soon as he said this, Jefferson went back to Virginia and said, there's a traitor amongst us. But I've come out of this book thinking more highly of Washington than I did before. If there are two great failures, failure to end slavery and the failure to reach a just accommodation with the Native Americans, Washington looks really good on both issues.

[Martin]

The other part of your thesis, yes. Was about Native Americans failure to reach a just accommodation. The Washington administration did try. I want to get to Native Americans second. I want to start with slavery first. So about your argument about the failure to end slavery, we have to say nationally. So I found myself in agreement with some parts of your book and I want to push back on a couple of items. Why don't we start with the Revolutionary War itself and your treatment of the Dunmore Proclamation. You do not make the mistake that some have made with Dunmore, although you did quote Woody Holton in the book, who made a preposterous statement. He's a demagogue on this issue. Maybe I'll find that quote.

[Joseph Ellis]

I try to be gentle with Woody. He's actually a good historian. But on this one, I said, you know what he said for your listeners or viewers? That Dunmore essentially invited all slaves in Virginia to flee to him and be

[Martin]

freed of the Patriot slave owners, not the Loyalist slave owners, only patriots.

[Joseph Ellis]

Right.

[Martin]

So, Joseph, you know that Dunmore himself reported back to London that many people stayed loyal, that it worked. Right. That his proclamation was designed to pressure people who may have been on the fence not to join the rebellion. The thing about Dunmore, Joseph, and then I'll give you the floor, he had already lost the colony. Virginia was already in open revolt. He was on a ship. He makes this proclamation. It is a desperate attempt to try to reestablish royal authority over a colony that had already gone the way of revolution. And again, it only applied to Patriots, not Loyalist slave owners. I think some people read too much into Dunmore as if it somehow rendered the American Revolution as a war for preserving the institution of slavery, when that was never a question because the British Empire was an enslaving empire. Go ahead.

[Joseph Ellis]

Okay, that's true. The reason Woody thinks about this the way he does is not irrational. Because when the slaves, so many slaves in Virginia fled to Dunmore and his ships, it looked like it could be a complete insurrection inside Virginia of the slaves and several not Washington, but Jefferson were terrified of this. That means the slaves you own could come and kill you. And it did have an impact on Virginia and white Virginians. What I say about this is that most of the slaves that fled to Dunmore died. Over half died of smallpox because they had no immunity. And when they did come upon this one island where he had kept them for many months, there were 2,000 dying or dead African Americans there.

[Martin]

Yeah, smallpox.

[Joseph Ellis]

Over half of the African Americans who fled to the British side during the war died of smallpox.

[Martin]

Well, I think your point that it exposed the contradiction within the cause is correct. No one would disagree with that. And of course, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, slave owners had no interest in seeing their slaves run away. That included George Washington as well. But this is what Holton said about this, and I want to move on to the Constitutional Convention. Some of your other arguments. Holton said no document, not even Thomas Paine's Common Sense or the Declaration of Independence, did more than Dunmore's proclamation to convert the white residents of Britain's most populous colony, American colony, to the cause of independence.

[Joseph Ellis]

It's an exaggeration.

[Martin]

Yes. That's a preposterous Statement. It's not just an ex. It's preposterous. But anyway.

[Joseph Ellis]

Well, it's not completely preposterous. And if Woody were here, he'd have to defend him himself. But it was true that the Virginians, Madison, Jefferson, were worried that this was the beginning of slave insurrections inside Virginia, and they were vulnerable to that, and it did scare them. If you were a slave in northern Carolinas or Virginia and you wanted to escape, where would you go? There was no place to go.

[Martin]

Yeah. The opportunity came when the British arrived in the South.

[Joseph Ellis]

That's right. That's right. It's the first opportunity to do that. There's one of Washington slaves who flees to Dunmore, ends up serving in the British army, ends up escaping eventually and living out his life in Africa. Some slaves did escape. The vast majority of slaves who then they brought their wives and their children. They all died. Disease was rampant.

[Martin]

So the Constitution in slavery, compromise or capitulation?

[Joseph Ellis]

All right, here's the dilemma. The only way to end slavery in the freed American colonies is to create a federal government capable of making domestic and foreign policy. Domestic policy includes slavery. Okay. That's the dilemma they have. If, however, they put slavery on the agenda during the convention, the Southern states will never approve ratification. Therefore, they have to find a way to postpone a decision. They say they'll Postpone it until 1787, when slavery, slave trade will end. The dilemma they faced. If they had decided to put slavery on the agenda and formally end it, all the Northern states would have voted for it, all the Southern states would have voted against it. And not only would they have voted against it, they would have left the convention.

[Martin]

But the four areas where they did have to deal with slavery in one form or another. The three fifths clause, fugitive slave clause, the slave trade, which they delayed. Right.

[Joseph Ellis]

A bunch of historical. I don't know whether we put Woody in this category or not. They've said they should have taken a stand, that the Southern states, especially North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, Virginia sort of splits on this. They basically are saying, look, if you want us in the Union, the only way we're coming is if you give us certain guarantees.

[Martin]

Sure.

[Joseph Ellis]

And if you don't make those guarantees, we're leaving.

[Martin]

This issue gets to the heart of your thesis about whether it was possible to end slavery nationally, because we already discussed how northern abolition or northern emancipation was underway at the state level. Some have interpreted the Constitution as a capitulation to the slave power. Although it wasn't called the slave power then.

[Joseph Ellis]

The Only thing I will tell him is if this is a version of history that I very much oppose. Presentism. Yeah, I think you're bringing your own values to a moment that's different.

[Martin]

So what's your view on that? I don't think it was capitulation. I think it's a contested document and it was an actual compromise.

[Joseph Ellis]

Washington believed, and he was chairing a convention, that they basically decided that they were going to postpone the ending of slavery until 1787.

[Martin]

You mean 1807.

[Joseph Ellis]

That will allow us to pass the Constitution and allow time for the new American republic to get stable. That they want to postpone ending slavery until they also end the slave trade. And of course, when they get to that moment, it doesn't happen that if you had done what many presentistic historians want, you would not get the Constitution, period. All the northern states ended slavery. It was gradual. The first to go was Vermont. Second was Massachusetts. The last one is New Jersey. When they ended slavery, what did they do? All the freed slaves could not vote. They could not live with whites. Most textbooks say that racial prejudice or not, what is it was created. Came about after the Civil War. No.

[Martin]

Kate Mazur's book Until Justice Be Done does a great job of charting all the state by state battles for civil rights that were initiated largely by these free black communities. Free black communities that were created by northern emancipation. So I guess I disagree with you a little bit when you talk about the failure of the founding generation to end slavery.

[Joseph Ellis]

In other words, it depends on who you're talking about. I think Jefferson is going to fail you. Washington's not going to fail you. Madison's going to fail you.

[Martin]

Jefferson's views were really. I was disappointed anew reading the end of your book about Jefferson. As he got older and older, he became more strident and, well, it's just disappointing, given the quality of that man's mind, that he didn't.

[Joseph Ellis]

You know, I don't call for the. The destruction of the Jefferson Memorial. I've written a book about him. It was a good book. And he wrote the magic words in American history. But the thing that's really off putting about Jefferson is that Jefferson believed that blacks and whites could not live together, that the interaction of the race would create an inferior race. Yet even though he is living, he is living at Monticello and producing children. Monticello is a. Is a laboratory for racial interaction. Jefferson's the Mona Lisa of American history. And he's like the dirigible above the super bowl, flashing inspirational messages to both sides. But I can tell you, if you go out there in the, in the world and you say something very critical about Jefferson, a lot of people are going to start screaming at you. And so, because I've had that happen.

[Martin]

So let's go from your treatment of the Constitutional Convention, which takes up a good chapter of the book, to the first Congress, because this is really where you say the opportunity was missed. Quakers. Quakers made a couple of petitions. The first one was to end the slave trade. Now, even though it's plain inside the Constitution that Congress would not have that authority until 1807. And then the Quakers made another petition saying Congress should abolish slavery nationwide. Now it has the power to do this. Well, what was the outcome and how does that outcome support your thesis?

[Joseph Ellis]

Well, there is a petition to the Congress. The Southern states go nuts with this, say, I thought we agreed at the Constitution and essentially they put it into a committee. Then Madison does his magic. The original view is that we say we're going to not discuss slavery until 1807 and he changes it to say we can never discuss it, it's off the agenda. If God were in the details, Madison would be there to greet him upon arrival. And he's the kind of guy that works wonderfully in these moments. Madison goes from being an American to being a Virginian.

[Martin]

So that's the so called federal consensus. So these petitions come up in the early Congress, 1790. There's another one in 1792 that gets withdrawn because the Congress agrees, as you write here, that at the Constitutional Convention it was agreed the federal government cannot interfere with slavery in the states where it already existed. That so called federal consensus is not explicit in the Constitution.

[Joseph Ellis]

No, it's not.

[Martin]

That winds up being slavery's most powerful defense.

[Joseph Ellis]

Especially the South Carolina delegate says, we would have never signed if we didn't feel we'd gotten this agreement.

[Martin]

So it was an understanding, but it wasn't put in writing.

[Joseph Ellis]

That's correct. Remember at the Constitutional Convention there was no record and most of the conversations on slavery occurred out of doors in restaurants and hotels. So people who had been there said, we know that. We thought we got this commitment from you not to raise this issue.

[Martin]

You write here the final report passed by the House placed any congressional debate over slavery in the Southern states out of bounds forever. What had begun as an initiative to put slavery on the road to extinction had been transformed into a decision to extinguish all federal plans for emancipation. You go on to say when another Quaker petition came forward in 1792 William Lawton Smith referred his colleagues to the debate of 1790, observing that the House had then decided never again to allow itself to become inflamed by the mere rant and rhapsody of a meddling fanatic and concluding the subject would never be stirred again. So that was the big missed opportunity.

[Joseph Ellis]

I'm being a little bit melodramatic here, but once they make that decision, the Civil War becomes inevitable. So that my thing about the failure of this generation, it has huge consequences.

[Martin]

I'm wondering what they might have done differently considering as you said before accurately, had the anti slavery people taken a more forceful position or pushed their cause harder, the Southern states would not have agreed to the Constitution at all. So that's right, they were in a bind.

[Joseph Ellis]

That's the Ellis position. I think it's pretty clearly true.

[Martin]

One more thing about slavery and then we'll move on to Native Americans, the fascinating story of Alexander MacGillivray. Last thing about slavery. I just discussed this with Sean Wilentz recently. Joseph, our friend Sean, I know that you guys have different views on some of this. He said to me that it is more interesting to understand how this institution of slavery, human chattel slavery, racial slavery in the British colonies of North America that had been around for centuries in one long lifetime, from the Founding era to the 1860s, how this institution in just one long lifetime became discredited and then abolished. That story is more interesting than the story of how slavery had been around for centuries beforehand. I guess the point is the American Revolution gave rise to organized anti slavery politics.

[Joseph Ellis]

I hear him on that and he, he's really focused a lot on the early 19th century. And the way I put it as a historian of the founding is more negative or more critical. Again, the dilemma the Americans faced is distinctive because they forced a decision not just to end slavery but to create a biracial society. And the white population as a whole in both north and south were unprepared for that. The book on the Northern states that I really like, this book called Bind Us Apart. Okay. That the total white population, north and south in the United States was unprepared to accept African Americans as equal citizens and the notion of living alongside them on equal terms was unacceptable to both northern whites and Southern whites. And I speak as a Virginian here, you know who, and my wife is from, believe it or not Mississippi, but that the Northern states don't get off the hook on this.

[Martin]

In the lsu, William Freeling called Jefferson a conditional terminationist. He wanted to terminate slavery provided the Right. Conditions would come about, and they never could come about in his mind.

[Joseph Ellis]

That's correct.

[Martin]

The conversation with Joseph Ellis continues in a moment. Tap subscribe now in the show Notes to skip ads or go to historyasithappens.com to sign up, support the podcast cast and never listen to ads again.

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[Martin]

Americans I know historians don't like to use the word inevitable, right? Or to believe there's an inevitability to events. However, I think there was an inevitability here, a clash, an irreconcilable clash between European settlers and the Indians because they had fundamentally incompatible ways of understanding land and property. Would you agree with that?

[Joseph Ellis]

I don't disagree, though I think I put it a little bit differently. Namely that the Native Americans occupy land, that the white residents in states like Georgia want to. They want to pursue their happiness. Pursuing their happiness means getting land. Well, the Native Americans are on the land. The thing that comes out strong to me is that Washington, as president, makes this a priority. He says that if we don't do something, the last Indian NBA scene east of the Mississippi will be in the history books. We must avoid Indian removal. He makes it a big priority.

[Martin]

You point out in your book that Washington had a lot on his plate, but he had to prioritize this. And it dealt with the Creek Nation in the South. And Henry Knox, his secretary of War, came up with a plan. This was supposed to maybe be a template for how to deal with all the Native Americans east of the Mississippi. Tell us about what Knox's plan was and whether the Creeks, the Native peoples, were interested in it.

[Joseph Ellis]

The plan was to sign a treaty with a dominant tribe in the Southeast, and that was the Creeks. The Creeks commanded control over other tribes as well, and they had control over what was now what we would now say, Alabama, Mississippi, and a little bit of Georgia. The plan was to get the Creek Nation to agree. And the head of this Creek Nation is this guy called Alexander McGillivray. He's named after his Scottish father. He's got a Scottish father and a mother who's half French. But he's still the guy ahead of the Creek Nation. He's literate in three languages. Eventually, they bring him all the way to the capital in New York then along with 28 other Indian chiefs. And they stay there for a month. Somebody needs to make a movie about this baby. Yeah.

[Martin]

The way you described the scene was really something. Resplendent attire of the native chiefs. People out on the streets of New York welcoming them.

[Joseph Ellis]

They housed most of the chiefs next to the Adams House. Adams was vice president. And they make friends with Abigail and they make a song up to her. And they do dances with Abigail around the fire. And then when she comes to the Senate to watch the debate, they sing songs to her. She's up in the balcony. And it looks like this is the moment in American history when we're going to avoid Indian Removal. It really looks good.

[Martin]

But the idea was to have the Creeks live in enclaves.

[Joseph Ellis]

The Creek Nation, as defined in the treaty of. The treaty that signed is most of what is current Alabama. It goes into a little bit of Mississippi. It depends on how you define it. It goes into a little bit of Mississippi, too. The Creek signed this. Okay. The problem is it's unenforceable. The total continental army at that time is 7,000 troops. They put 3,000 troops on the border of Georgia to stop the flow. The white settlers want land.

[Martin]

And so it seemed to never happen.

[Joseph Ellis]

I mean, Washington says it would have taken a Chinese wall to stop them. The thing that's really devastating about this, this was a plan to avoid Indian Removal that if it had succeeded, could have been a model for the movement west of the Mississippi, too. A way of avoiding the kind of Indian Removal that's one of the great tragedies of American history, no question about it.

[Martin]

And genocide, wars and genocidal conquest.

[Joseph Ellis]

Yeah.

[Martin]

It just seems, Joseph. It just seems, though, as you say, the flood of settlers was impossible to stop. So then it was, in fact inevitable. Of course, race racism played a big part here. Not just different cultures.

[Joseph Ellis]

The perception of Native American is different from the possession of African Americans. A lot of people who are captured by Native Americans decide to live with them. Jefferson claims that they are. You can intermarry with Native Americans and that would not destroy the bloodline of the Anglo Saxon race.

[Martin]

You know, the settler colonialism, which is what this was. Replacement settler colonies. I look back on it, though, and I say, okay, this might sound naive. Get this massive continent. There's more than enough land for everybody who wants it. But again, there's an incompatible way of Viewing the land, Native Americans did not own property and close it off to other people.

[Joseph Ellis]

Oh, they knew that they'd been on this land for several thousand years, and all of a sudden these people, these white people are coming in and claiming they own it.

[Martin]

So an assimilation then seemed impossible. Yeah.

[Joseph Ellis]

I think that you're pointing to something that I agree with, and I think I say this in the preface of the book, namely the failure to end Indian rule is, I think, a tragedy that couldn't have been avoided. It's a Greek tragedy. Sic valvere parcas. Tis the will of the gods. I don't see any way it could have worked. The best way it could have worked is what Washington tried, and that didn't work. On the other side, on the slavery side, I think that that's a Shakespearean tragedy. The leadership doesn't come to the fore as much as it could have and should have. There are reasons it's not going to be easy or it's not going to be natural. But if I were arguing with students in a class or trying to teach them, I'd say, how do you vote on this and that? I think the failure to end slavery is not a Greek tragedy, but a Shakespearean tragedy.

[Martin]

Can I ask you another question about the Native American issue, though? Because I know that even at this point, their numbers had been dramatically reduced from disease. Right. But they still had.

[Joseph Ellis]

Well, not down there. I mean, the Creek nation was flourishing,

[Martin]

so they had formidable numbers. They were good war. Was it an issue of not being able to unite with other Native American tribes to fight a war against white settlements?

[Joseph Ellis]

There's some of that. The Native tribes didn't always agree. The guy who you had never heard of before, what's his name?

[Martin]

McGillivray.

[Joseph Ellis]

McGillivray was capable of uniting multiple tribes as a leader. And he didn't do that because he didn't think he needed to, because he thought he'd signed a treaty assuring him control over the land that he owned.

[Martin]

So the government signs a treaty, but the settlers don't honor it. You know, there was something else going on here, too. In the early 1790s, the Battle of the Wabash, also known as St. Clair's Defeat. To my point about the Native Americans ability to violently resist settlement on their land.

[Joseph Ellis]

It's a massacre. It's a massacre.

[Martin]

Yeah. It's one of the worst defeats the U.S. military ever suffered. Their casualty rate was enormous. General Arthur St. Clair, he led 1400 exhausted troops and militia into, well, what is now present day western Ohio to fight A battle, but a confederacy of Native American tribes routed his force. I mean, that may have been, would you agree, the high water mark of Indian resistance to white salt.

[Joseph Ellis]

That's a way to put it. I think that it was a slaughter, but that it was temporary. And it ultimately is a matter of numbers that there's thousands of white Americans that want to move west. There's no precedent in place as there would have been if the Creek precedent had set. I wonder about that. I mean, suppose the Treaty of New York that gave the Creeks their land, Suppose that had been enforced. It could have been a model for the way we deal with the Native Americans west of the Mississippi. That's pretty optimistic and I'd like to believe it, and I'm not sure it's true, but a precedent was being set. But that might have been. That didn't happen. And it fits into the Ellis argument that there are two great tragedies. One here is a Greek tragedy and that's the Native American tragedy.

[Martin]

You know, in all these episodes I've done Joseph, about the semi quincentennial, I tend to take a positive historical view of the American Revolution, but I don't think any Native American tribe could see that as a positive development in history.

[Joseph Ellis]

Yeah, the great loser in the American Revolution was not the British. The British go on to become the dominant empire in the world. The big loser is the Native Americans. Two things are true. The American Revolution was an extraordinarily successful movement. Not only militarily, a miracle. I mean, how can 14 colonies come together who never cooperate to defeat the dominant military and economic power in the world? And secondly, argument for independence. Why is the American Revolution a revolution? He says it's a revolution because power, it reverses the tectonic plates of Western political thought. Power does not flow downward from God to kings, but upward from that mythical group called the people to their elected representatives. That's Jefferson's second paragraph in the declaration. That is huge. And a group of leaders emerges. None of them is perfect. If there had never been a war, you'd have never heard of George Washington.

[Martin]

Imagine that.

[Joseph Ellis]

And yeah, they rise to the occasion. They win this war and then they create a nation state. Remember, it takes 11 years. There's two foundings. One is when we declare independence and the other is when we declare nationhood. And it defines the republic as the dominant. Over the next century, all the Western European countries become republics. It defines the republic. And by the way, in this upcoming elections, the midterm elections, the republic is on the ballot.

[Martin]

I Want to close by asking you a question about what is happening now, if you don't mind. And it deals with history and the teaching and understanding of history. Your book is meant to challenge Americans to. To look differently at our past, to deal with the legacies of slavery and native dispossession. Just the other day, the Trump administration announced they're gonna put signs up on National Park Service property outside the Smithsonian Museum of American History saying that the exhibits are inaccurate.

[Joseph Ellis]

Yeah, I know. I am obviously a liberal, and I believe that it's gonna take a very long time for the United States to recover from the damage that's been done and is being done to both its government, its economy, and its world reputation. I've done several zooms with foreign countries, Germany and Italy, most especially Germany, three of them. And in each case, I asked them, how long is it going to take for you to recover your opinion of the United States as a worthy ally? You know what they all said?

[Martin]

Never.

[Joseph Ellis]

Never, Never, never. That's damage that's being done, and we have a chance in these upcoming elections to put a halt to it.

[Martin]

I would politely disagree with them. I don't think it'll be never, but,

[Joseph Ellis]

you know, it'll be not in their lifetime. That's all they mean by never, I think. But the republic is on the ballot. And remember when Benjamin Franklin's leaving the Constitutional Convention and a woman in Philadelphia greets him, stops him and says, what are you? You done? And he says, madam, we've given you a republic if you can keep it.

[Martin]

Coming up this week on History as it Happens, we're going to have two bonus episodes about the Iran war and the Saudi nuclear program, such as it is, plus a regular episode on the ongoing horrors in Sudan civil war. So allow me to take this opportunity to gently remind you that if you want to listen to the entirety of those bonus episodes, please become a subscriber today. Tap subscribe now in the show Notes or go to history as it happens.com for $5 a month, you'll get ad free listening all of our bonus episodes and early access to every new episode of History As It Happens. The podcast needs your support to survive, and it only takes a couple of minutes to sign up.

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