The Origin of American Authoritarianism | Episode 6

Summary

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First America Podcast

Episode 6: The Origin of American Authoritarianism

Hosted by Rebecca Nagle
Release Date: July 27, 2026

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Overview

This episode of First America, hosted by Rebecca Nagle, challenges the dominant narrative of American democracy by exposing how colonialism and the treatment of Indigenous peoples shaped the structures and practices of U.S. government. Drawing on historical documents, expert interviews, and personal stories, Nagle unpacks how the constitutional architecture for authoritarianism—initially forged to subjugate Native nations—has resurfaced through American history, now impacting not only tribes but immigrants, citizens, and more. Rather than treating Indigenous history as a tragic footnote, the episode argues it is central to understanding the U.S. political present and future.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Modern Parallels of Colonial Practices

• ICE Detains U.S. Citizens:
  The episode opens with the story of Ryan Eklund, a white, suburban real estate agent and U.S. citizen, who is detained by ICE in Minneapolis simply for following and filming federal officers on a public road, an incident echoing the overreach and impunity once reserved for Native and marginalized communities.

  • “What ICE did to Ryan feels like it should be illegal... Isn't that the type of thing the Constitution is supposed to protect us all against?” — Rebecca Nagle [06:04]

• Connection Between Modern Immigration Policy and Indian Law:
  Maggie Blackhawk, NYU Law professor and Fond du Lac Ojibwe, explains that many of today’s authoritarian policies—such as family separation, indefinite detention, and unchecked executive power—derive directly from U.S. colonial systems first built to control Native peoples.

  • “Even the practices of detention, the precedent of detention, how to detain, how to detain families. These are things in which the US Government has had deep experience.” — Maggie Blackhawk [18:11]

The Two Blueprints: Democracy and Colonialism

• Northwest Ordinance:
  While the Founders drafted the Constitution (1787), Congress simultaneously passed the Northwest Ordinance, which created a system of undemocratic rule over new territories, governed by appointed officials—a “blueprint for colonialism.”

  • “The United States was founded and then it set up the Northwest Territory under the exact same system for British colonies... America’s first colony.” — Maggie Blackhawk [13:24]
  • New territories lacked representation and democracy until enough white men had settled them [14:12-14:30]

• Mistaken Belief in Parallel Systems:
  The episode emphasizes that the U.S. believed it could build a republic and empire side by side—a “fatal error” now coming home to roost as authoritarian practices spread beyond colonized peoples to the whole country.

  • “They thought they could have democracy over here and colonialism over there. Two centuries later, it turns out they were wrong.” — Rebecca Nagle [14:50]

• Authoritarianism Defined:
  Blackhawk defines modern U.S. authoritarianism not as an imported phenomenon, but as an expansion of the colonial methods invented and honed on Native nations:

  • “The boomerang of empire is when you develop a way of governing these other people that you then... bring the authoritarianism home with you.” — Maggie Blackhawk [20:13]
  • “If you have a government that is authoritarian, that is colonial to people over there, it can always do it to other people.” — Maggie Blackhawk [20:51]

Indigenous Leadership and the U.S. Constitution

• Native Delegates at the Constitutional Convention:
  Representatives from the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw were present at the Philadelphia convention, advocating for protection against white settlement and respect for treaties—directly influencing the insertion of the Supremacy Clause.

  • “Their demands, most importantly, is to stop white encroachment. To have their territorial boundaries respected.” — Mary Sarah Bilder [27:24]
  • Skkona Doya, a Cherokee delegate, meets George Washington demanding protection for Native lands. The Founders were compelled both by principle and by a tactical fear of military defeat. [29:15–30:14]

• Supremacy Clause and Treaty Rights:
  In response to Native demands, the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause made treaties (including those with Native nations) “the supreme law of the land.”

  • “What everybody at the time understood was that native nations were sovereign, that they were to be dealt with as sovereign nations.” — Mary Sarah Bilder [30:40]
  • “... they write the Supremacy clause... that state judges have to observe... treaties.” — Mary Sarah Bilder [31:01–31:21]

The Persistence and Cost of Erasure

• Invisible but Central:
  The show highlights how mainstream narratives erase not just what the U.S. government did to Natives, but the ways indigenous resistance shaped U.S. democracy. This erasure perpetuates the recurring “American nightmare”—the repeated use of colonial tactics domestically.

  • “What’s been erased... is not just what the US Government did to us, but how we pushed back, how our resistance shaped this democracy.” — Rebecca Nagle [31:51]
  • “The relationship between the US and Native nations and Native peoples... has shaped fundamentally the lives, experience, and governments of everyone else in North America as well.” — Maggie Blackhawk [22:23]

• Call to Recognize Shared Stakes:
  The lessons of Native experience are not just history—they illuminate how and why democratic protections are eroded for all Americans when colonial/authoritarian blueprints persist.

  • “If you just think, oh, you know, poor Indian country... and you move on, feel a little guilt and move on ... that’s the opposite of what you should do ... the moment we are all better equipped and better positioned to deal with the government that we actually can control if we understand it, but if we don’t understand it, we will never control it.” — Maggie Blackhawk [23:21–24:18]

Personal and Poetic Reflections

• Visiting Cherokee Homeland:
  Nagle travels to Hiawassee, her ancestral homeland, evoking the personal cost of American expansion—loss, dispossession, and survival.

  • “For Ghana Da Tlegi. The United States was not some great democracy or even a flawed democracy. It was an invading army.” — Rebecca Nagle [38:41]
  • “We are not just haunted by this history, we’re stuck in it. And until we confront the truth of America’s past, we will keep living the same American nightmare.” — Rebecca Nagle [39:37]

• Indigenous Futurism:
  The episode closes with a speculative fiction reading by Indigenous youth, imagining a descendant returning to Earth after generations—a metaphor for healing, resilience, and hope.

  • “There is land in abundance approaching. I no longer have to put up a fight. ... Is this the end of the universe? No. This must be where it first began. This is where you get sent to feel everything.” — AJ LeBeau [46:05–47:01]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Not only do they feel allowed to act with impunity and do what they're doing, but they almost feel as though it's some sort of righteous calling. And that really made me more scared than anything else.”
  — Ryan Eklund on ICE, after witnessing agents say “God is on our side” at the sight of a bald eagle [03:24]

• “They thought they could have democracy over here and colonialism over there. Two centuries later, it turns out they were wrong.”
  — Rebecca Nagle [14:50]

• “The boomerang of empire is… you bring the violence home with you. You’re going to bring the authoritarianism home with you.”
  — Maggie Blackhawk [20:13]

• “As a Native person, you have more belief in America than Americans do, because you've known that's flawed all along and you've still fought for it and still wanted to be part of it.”
  — Maggie Blackhawk [21:30]

• “What’s been erased from the story of America is not just what the US Government did to us, but how we pushed back, how our resistance shaped this democracy.”
  — Rebecca Nagle [31:51]

• “If nothing else, I hope what people take from this is the idea that what our government did to Native Americans affects them.”
  — Rebecca Nagle [23:08]

• “We are not just haunted by this history, we're stuck in it. And until we confront the truth of America's past, we will keep living the same American nightmare.”
  — Rebecca Nagle [39:37]

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Important Timestamps

• 01:30–06:04: The story of Ryan Eklund’s ICE detention—modern illustration of unconstitutional, authoritarian practices
• 09:54–14:50: Early US government structure, Northwest Ordinance, and the dual blueprints for democracy/colonialism
• 17:13–22:23: Definitions of authoritarianism, its colonial roots, and the “boomerang” effect
• 27:24–31:50: Native nations at the Constitutional Convention; influence on the Supremacy Clause and federal treaty power
• 36:23–39:37: Personal reflection in Cherokee ancestral homelands; the emotional and physical cost of American expansion
• 43:01–48:47: Indigenous youth speculative fiction: “Doxi7TC” by AJ LeBeau—a poetic imagining of return and resilience

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Conclusion

Rebecca Nagle’s episode argues that to truly understand American authoritarianism—and to defend democracy—we must reckon with the nation's colonial roots and Indigenous resistance. The past isn't just a “blemish” but the blueprint for the present, underpinning how power is exercised and over whom. Real progress hinges not on guilt, but on honest recognition and shared commitment to a more just future—one informed by the lessons and leadership of Native people.

Listeners are left with the challenge: understanding and confronting this history is essential if we want to control, not be controlled by, the American government today.

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Further Resources

• From the Heart of Our Nations: Book of Indigenous youth futuristic stories (including AJ LeBeau’s story; [link in show notes])
• Live reading of these stories (details and virtual/in-person access in show notes)

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This summary covers all major narrative and thematic elements, leaving out ads and non-content sections as requested.

Transcript

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[Rebecca Nagle]

Ryan Eklund had just dropped his kids off at school outside Minneapolis last winter when he saw an unmarked vehicle full of ICE agents. He started following them. Then the ICE vehicle suddenly stopped

[Ryan Eklund]

and at that point about five different ICE agents approached my driver's side door and one of the ICE agents opened my door. Another ICE agent climbed into the back seat and put his arm around my neck and headrests and used his other hand to click my seatbelt.

[Rebecca Nagle]

To take my seatbelt off, Ryan had his phone out.

[Ryan Eklund]

We are on a public road. Get your hands off of me. I'm a U.S. citizen. Get your hands off of me.

[Rebecca Nagle]

I started texting him, you know, hey, can you let me know you're okay? Hey, I'm trying not to freak out here. And no response. This is Tamara, Ryan's wife. He called her when he'd first started following the ICE suv. So she was tracking his location. His pin wasn't moving anymore. And then I said, okay, you haven't answered and I'm freaking out, so I'm going to come find you. Like this is days after Renee Good lost her life. And I followed the map to his pen and I found his abandoned vehicle and his phone on the front seat. And I immediately looked in the Snow for blood. ICE agents detained Ryan and took him to the Whipple Building. ICE headquarters in Minneapolis. It's right next to the historic fort and former concentration camp I visited in our first episode. You may remember when I was there, I saw a bald eagle.

[Malcolm Gladwell / American Military University Advertiser]

Look at him.

[Rebecca Nagle]

He's coming right towards us.

[Ryan Eklund]

Told you we were going to see one.

[Rebecca Nagle]

They nest near the river.

[Ryan Eklund]

As we were getting on the freeway to go to the federal building, a bald eagle flew over the overpass. And the ICE agent in this passenger van said to the driver, hey, look, see that? It's a bald eagle. And he said, do you know what that means? And the driver responded and said, God is on our side. And what that said to me was that not only do they feel allowed to act with impunity and do what they're doing, but they almost feel as though it's some sort of righteous calling. And that really made me more scared than anything else.

[Rebecca Nagle]

What happened after you got to the Whipple Building?

[Ryan Eklund]

I was brought into a large loading dock area. As I walked in, a number of tables were set up along the left hand side of the wall, and on a piece of cardboard was written with, like, black marker, like the way that you would make a garage sale sign. It said USC111. And what I realize now is that 18 USC111 is the code that a lot of ICE agents will use when they feel as though they have somebody who is impeding an investigation.

[Rebecca Nagle]

That table with the cardboard sign was set up to process the U. S. Citizens ICE was detaining. After processing him, agents took Ryan to a holding cell.

[Ryan Eklund]

I was in detention for approximately nine hours. That room had filled up with eight other individuals, all of whom were U.S. citizens, all of whom had been detained by ICE.

[Rebecca Nagle]

One of the people in the cell with Ryan said he had been detained by ICE for cussing and refusing to shake an officer's hand. Another person had been delivering groceries to an immigrant family. Were you surprised that to be detained as a U.S. citizen?

[Ryan Eklund]

Yeah, yeah, very much so. Mostly because what I was doing, according to myself and a number of other legal authorities, was well within the bounds of my constitutional rights.

[Rebecca Nagle]

And do you have any legal recourse, like, can you file a lawsuit? What's the follow up?

[Ryan Eklund]

Been there is not really a good mechanism, a good legal mechanism for an individual who has had their constitutional rights violated by a law enforcement officer, specifically a federal officer.

[Rebecca Nagle]

During the ICE surge in Minneapolis, the Trump administration claimed it was targeting undocumented immigrants. Ryan is a US Citizen, he's white. He Lives in the suburbs. He sells real estate. He is one of the last people you think ICE would round up, but they did. What ICE did to Ryan feels like it should be illegal. Detaining a US Citizen, shoving him to the ground, all because he followed and filmed a federal officer on a public street. Isn't that the type of thing the Constitution is supposed to protect us all against? But there's this other part of our Constitution, one a lot of people don't know about. It explains why ICE could do what they did to Ryan, why he still has no legal recourse, and why the Trump administration keeps getting away with it. You're listening to Free 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 Dawatan. Jeleca Yeri Keila, citizen of Cherokee Nation. As I've talked about before, I was in Minneapolis during the ICE surge. It was only a few days, but it was real. We might get tear gas. We might need to be really careful right now. I saw border patrol, tear gas, protesters, military planes flying overhead. I saw Renee Good's blood in the snow. Oh, I think that's the brief of the car and pieces of her broken car. People are gathered around the light pole, leaving flowers. Can I ask you a quick question? Sure.

[Stacy Saru St. Croix / AJ LeBeau]

My name is Stacy Saru St. Croix, Ojibwe Nation.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Can you explain why you put tobacco down? Just for a prayer. Prayer for her family.

[Stacy Saru St. Croix / AJ LeBeau]

Because a lady lost her life. And that's what we do in our culture.

[Rebecca Nagle]

It's a sad day for Minneapolis today. I started this season with one big question. How is this happening? How is all this happening in the United States? I think I figured it out. Everything we've covered so far, the building of the military, the theft of native land, the real reasons for the American Revolution, genocide. These weren't isolated events. They weren't one off bugs. Together, they built a system. So when people look at current events and say, the Constitution doesn't allow this, the reality is more complicated. In many ways, it does. And today I'm going to explain how the Constitution we live under now is actually not what the US started off with. Our first constitution, ratified in 1781, was called the Articles of Confederation. Under it, there was not a Supreme Court. There wasn't even a president.

[CarMax Advertiser / Mary Sarah Bilder]

Technically, there's a person who gets called president, but they're the chairperson of the committee of Congress. And it Rotates. So there is no strong executive power under the Articles of Confederation.

[Rebecca Nagle]

This is Mary Sarah Bilder.

[CarMax Advertiser / Mary Sarah Bilder]

I teach at Boston College Law School, and I'm the founder's professor.

[Rebecca Nagle]

States had a lot of power, and the federal government was weak. Often not enough congressional members showed up for the body to even have a quorum. It was a hot mess.

[CarMax Advertiser / Mary Sarah Bilder]

And so people who want a stronger government decide that the Articles of Confederation needs to be rewritten.

[Rebecca Nagle]

And so in 1787, about a decade into this great experiment called the United States Congress called for a Constitutional Convention. For the people who gathered to write the convention. What was their charge like? What did they gather in Philadelphia to do?

[CarMax Advertiser / Mary Sarah Bilder]

Yeah, they were supposed to take what was called the old federal Constitution and in fancy words, render it sufficient for the exigencies, Basically make it work and fix all sorts of things that people complained about.

[Rebecca Nagle]

The Constitutional Convention took place in hot and muggy Philadelphia.

[CarMax Advertiser / Mary Sarah Bilder]

They begin in May. They have to wait around for a while because nobody shows up when they're supposed to. Everybody's late. There's then a committee to write a first draft. They debate that plan all through August.

[Rebecca Nagle]

So in the summer of 1787, our founders are in the State House, now known as Independence hall, hashing it all out. They're debating how to structure the Senate and the Supreme Court. They debate how much power little states should get versus big ones. And they're building the government we all still live under. And then in the middle of this historic, monumental summer, a surprising thing happens.

[CarMax Advertiser / Mary Sarah Bilder]

A bunch of people leave in July. Basically, members of the convention who are also congressional members, go to New York.

[Rebecca Nagle]

At the time Congress met in New York, the Constitutional Convention is in Philadelphia. Most people assume Congress is going to take the summer off, but lawmakers have important business to attend to.

[CarMax Advertiser / Mary Sarah Bilder]

And the major piece of business that that Congress does is it passes the Northwest Ordinance. And the Northwest Ordinance creates a sort of blueprint for imagining the lands to the Mississippi as white states.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Congress was desperate to pass this bill because the United States needed more land. As we've talked about before, that need was driven by money. This land is the same land the Myaamia and the Tawawa Sepiwe alliance were fighting to protect. It's also the land speculators like the Ohio Company were buying up. For that land to be valuable and profitable, there needed to be a roadmap for how the US Would govern it. Otherwise, who would want to move there? And so this bill is that roadmap. Unsurprisingly, members of the Ohio Company had A hand in drafting it. Here is how that map worked. The new territory would be governed differently than the original 13 states.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

The United States was founded and then it set up the Northwest Territory under the exact same system for British colonies.

[Rebecca Nagle]

This is Maggie Blackhawk again. She's a law professor at NYU and Fond du Lac, Ojibwe.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

The Northwest Territory was called explicitly by the founders, America's first colony. And that colony would be governed by a unitary governor.

[Rebecca Nagle]

That governor, a secretary and a few judges ruled the whole thing. Those folks were all appointed. Most ended up being land speculators.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

Oh yeah. No. No voting, no elections.

[Rebecca Nagle]

The territory didn't even have a representative

[Maggie Blackhawk]

in Congress until there was enough settlement by mostly white male settlers to be able to pet for more forms of representation in the central United States government.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Once enough free white men moved there, then the territory could become a state and they could have elections and representation. Our founding fathers decided an area of the United States wouldn't have the most basic features of democracy. Instead, they looked at the Northwest Territory

[Maggie Blackhawk]

and thought, what we need to do is to break down and move and fight and go to war with and massacre this other group of people because we don't want to understand them. We don't want to build a government that could govern them too.

[Rebecca Nagle]

And so these two things were written at the exact same the U.S. constitution and the Northwest Ordinance. The blueprint for U.S. democracy and the blueprint for U.S. colonialism. That summer in 1787, when our founders were writing the Constitution and the Northwest Ordinance, they made a fatal error, one we almost never talk about. They thought they could have both. They thought they could build a constitutional republic and an empire at the same time. They thought they could have democracy over here and colonialism over there. Two centuries later, it turns out they were wrong. The Constitution, we all know that blueprint for democracy had some flaws, of course, but through the abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, the civil rights movement, the gay rights movement and more, it got better. While still far from equal. We got closer to the founding ideals of this country. The opposite happened with the blueprint for colonialism. It grew. After the Louisiana Purchase, that territory got the same kind of top down, no elections government. As the US expanded from sea to shining sea, more land was controlled that way. Then the blueprint for colonialism got applied to places like Hawaii, Guam and Puerto Rico. A generation of US lawmakers liked the top down way they governed those places. It was so much more efficient than democracy. And so they applied the blueprint for colonialism to immigration. It even Got applied to things you wouldn't think of, like Social Security. At the same time generations of Americans fought for US Democracy, they also built and expanded US Colonialism. Could you actually just define what authoritarianism is?

[Maggie Blackhawk]

I think the word authoritarianism is sort of the shorthand word that we use for government that isn't representative, that's top down, that is not responsive to the groups that it exercises its power over. They often govern through force, through violence, but they definitely don't govern through consent. I prefer the term colonialism in the US Context because it taps us into the history.

[Rebecca Nagle]

What we're seeing today is that the colonial system our founders created is taking over the democracy. I'm going to name things that are part of our current politics, and I want you to tell me yes or no, if they tie back to federal Indian law. Separating migrant families at the border.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

Yes.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Detaining migrants in detention camps.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

Yes. Even the practices of detention, the precedent of detention, how to detain, how to detain families. These are things in which the US Government has had deep experience.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Bombing boats in the Caribbean Sea.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

Yes. We just don't have the same kinds of limits in these areas. Why do we not have the same kinds of limits? Because we didn't want limits in the 19th century. We wanted a machine that would build and expand and dispossess the challenge to birthright citizenship. Yes. The knee jerk reaction to that executive order was, this is unconstitutional. It's un American. The Trump administration came back very quickly and accurately with the exception from constitutional birthright citizenship that applied to native people. But at the time that the 14th Amendment was drafted, the US did not have control of the center of North America.

[Rebecca Nagle]

The 14th Amendment, where birthright citizenship comes from, was passed at the end of the Civil War. It granted citizenship to formerly enslaved people.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

And they explicitly discussed the idea that if we extended birthright citizenship to native people, then Colorado would have more native citizen voters than it would non native.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Threatening to annex Greenland, Panama, Gaza and Canada.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

I mean. Yes. Thank you. It's not. It's not a new thing. This is what we've done. We're good at this.

[Rebecca Nagle]

A president having unchecked or unbridled power in certain arenas. Yes. Deploying the national guard in U.S. cities and the military.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

Yeah. Yes.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Maggie has an explanation for why authoritarianism is taking over the US Right now. It goes like this. Imagine a boomerang. When you throw it away from you, it comes back. Colonialism works the same way.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

The boomerang of empire is when you develop a way of governing these other People that you then, because of habit, because you think it's a good idea, you want to continue to do it when you get home. And so you're going to bring the violence home with you. You're going to bring the authoritarianism home with you.

[Rebecca Nagle]

The boomerang of empire is actually how a lot of experts explain where authoritarianism comes from in the first place. It's just colonial governments taking what they did to the people they colonized and applying it to their own citizens.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

If you have a government that is authoritarian, that is colonial to people over there, it can always do it to other people.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Maggie says once those authoritarian systems are in place, they don't stay limited to certain groups of people.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

They could be applied to your neighbor, they could be applied to your university, they could be applied to your newspaper, and frankly, they could be applied to you.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Something I've been wondering about is like, where does that understanding get us? How? How does it help us?

[Maggie Blackhawk]

The inevitable question I get asked as a scholar of constitutional law is, well, how do we even uphold a constitution that was capable of this? No one wants to, especially when the house is on fire, to take the house apart and build it back together again because you're afraid if you take it apart, it's never going to come back together again. And I think that's the deep irony of growing up in America. As a Native person, you have more belief in America than Americans do, because you've known that's flawed all along and you've still fought for it and still wanted to be part of it.

[Rebecca Nagle]

I feel like, as a Native person, our history is often treated as niche, as this tragic, distant thing that happened in the past. And the assumption is that it's not relevant to the American present.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

The relationship between the US and Native nations and Native peoples has shaped not only the lives and experiences and governments of Native peoples, but has shaped fundamentally the lives, experience, and governments of everyone else in North America as well. We just don't think about it and don't talk about it, but it's part of who we are. It's always been part of who we are. And that's not a condemnatory statement. It really is a scholar's plea of if you want to understand the truth of what America is and the best way to solve the problems that America faces, you have to look at truly what the government has done.

[Rebecca Nagle]

I think if nothing else. If nothing else, I hope what people take from this is the idea that what our government did to Native Americans affects them.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

Of course, it's their government. It's our government. Of course, it's not like it was really something about Native people that made Native people subject to violence. But the reality is that if you just think, oh, you know, poor Indian country, those, those Native people, I wish we hadn't dispossessed them, and we move on, feel a little guilt and move on from that. That's the opposite of what you should do in response to this information. The hope is that you really let it settle in, not out of guilt, but out of complete, pure reason, the idea of reality. Because the moment that happens, the moment we are all better equipped and better positioned to deal with the government that we actually can control if we understand it, but if we don't understand it, we will never control it,

[Rebecca Nagle]

a lot of what the Trump administration is doing feels like it should be unconstitutional. The problem is that for a long time we've let US Presidents do such things to indigenous people, to people in Puerto Rico, to immigrants. What is is new about what Trump's doing is that he's taking the blueprint for colonialism and trying to apply it to everyone.

[Malcolm Gladwell / American Military University Advertiser]

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[Rebecca Nagle]

Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile.

[Malcolm Gladwell / American Military University Advertiser]

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[Rebecca Nagle]

to tell you that Mint's offer of

[Ryan Eklund]

unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back.

[Rebecca Nagle]

So I thought it would be fun

[Stacy Saru St. Croix / AJ LeBeau]

if we made $15 bills, but it

[Rebecca Nagle]

turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment

[CarMax Advertiser / Mary Sarah Bilder]

of $45 for three months, $90 for

[Rebecca Nagle]

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[Maggie Blackhawk]

See terms.

[Rebecca Nagle]

There's a part of the Constitutional Convention I haven't told you about yet. It's something most historians don't talk about. But that summer in Philadelphia, Native people were there.

[CarMax Advertiser / Mary Sarah Bilder]

The Choctaw Nation, the Chickasaw Nation and the Cherokee Nation all send a member of the nation. And the job of that person is to go to Philadelphia and show up and basically try and talk to people. And that showing up and talking, I believe, mattered enormously. And it's just like it is today. Like, we know perfectly well that everything that happens in Congress isn't just because the people inside the room are just sitting around by themselves thinking of things. They're always reflecting pressures and concerns that are brought to them by people outside of the room.

[Rebecca Nagle]

The representatives from Native nations had a specific goal.

[CarMax Advertiser / Mary Sarah Bilder]

Their demands, most importantly, is to stop white encroachment. To have their territorial boundaries respected.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Illegal and often violent white squatters were invading tribal land. Tribes wanted the US Government to hold those squatters back. Recent treaties outlined the boundaries of Chickasaw, Choctaw and Cherokee Nations. But Georgia and North Carolina didn't want to follow those treaties.

[CarMax Advertiser / Mary Sarah Bilder]

They actually just believed they were, they were void.

[Rebecca Nagle]

So basically Georgia and North Carolina were saying, we don't have to respect what the general government agreed to with the Cherokees or the Choctaws. We can do whatever we want, right?

[CarMax Advertiser / Mary Sarah Bilder]

Not only can we do whatever we want, but we can take all the land. We don't have to respect the boundaries. We don't have to respect any agreements.

[Rebecca Nagle]

So Native leaders show up to Philadelphia to try and make the federal government enforce their treaty rights against those rebellious Southern states. And they're not just fighting for those few treaties. They want to structure the US Government so states can't violate any treaties. The delegate from Cherokee Nation is a man named Shkona Doya. He's young, but he's the son of an important political leader, the tribe's beloved woman.

[CarMax Advertiser / Mary Sarah Bilder]

The white press around Scontoya is really fascinating because they describe him in exceptionally positive ways, but using very racist imagery. So they say he's civilized in these ways that imply surprise.

[Rebecca Nagle]

After Skonadoya arrived in Philadelphia, he went to Independence hall where the Constitutional Convention was meeting.

[CarMax Advertiser / Mary Sarah Bilder]

And he meets with George Washington in a very public manner. It's not quite clear whether they're inside Independence hall or outside. George Washington says he's Glad to see him. Asks what's his business? And Scontoya says, my business is I'm here about white people encroaching on our lands. And so it's very explicit what the problem is. And then George Washington takes him by the hand, shakes his hand, wishes him success in his venture. The whole meeting with George Washington is written about in the paper and then spreads across the United States, kind of goes viral.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Washington has a reason to give Shkonen Doye what he wants.

[CarMax Advertiser / Mary Sarah Bilder]

This is a time when the US Government would lose to Navy Nation military force. So they're also buying themselves time in a way they know if they fight right now, they're going to lose.

[Rebecca Nagle]

The young United States is very worried that indigenous nations might band together to fight back. That 15 year war with the Tawa Sipewe alliance has already started, and US leaders are worried more tribes might join. So it's not from pure altruism, but the founders see that they're going to need to negotiate with indigenous nations. And that's because indigenous nations are powerful.

[CarMax Advertiser / Mary Sarah Bilder]

What everybody at the time understood was that native nations were sovereign, that they were to be dealt with as sovereign nations. And this moment where Washington shakes hands with Skontoya really embodies that space.

[Rebecca Nagle]

One of the committees drafting the Constitution

[CarMax Advertiser / Mary Sarah Bilder]

creates a list of things that states are prohibited from doing. And it moves to the very top of the list. States are prohibited from basically signing treaties or interfering with treaties.

[Rebecca Nagle]

And what eventually happens is that the drafters write the Supremacy clause of the U.S. constitution.

[CarMax Advertiser / Mary Sarah Bilder]

The supremacy Clause says that state judges have to observe not just federal statutes, not just the US Constitution, but they also have to observe treaties.

[Rebecca Nagle]

The Supremacy Clause says that federal law, the Constitution itself, and treaties are the supreme law of the land. This clause is still cited in treaty rights cases

[Malcolm Gladwell / American Military University Advertiser]

today.

[Rebecca Nagle]

People are rightfully worried about threats to free and fair elections, the rule of law, even our courts. At a time when Native people didn't have access to any of that, when we weren't even citizens of the United States, our ancestors helped shape the U.S. constitution. What's been erased from the story of America is not just what the US Government did to us, but how we pushed back, how our resistance shaped this democracy. The Constitution is the first chapter in a long history of indigenous resistance. Sometimes that resistance looked like warfare, sometimes diplomacy. Other times it was simply taking care of our tribes and communities. We didn't win every battle or stop every stage of violence, but in the shadows of empire, we have kept safe our languages, our children, our governments, and our ways of life. We know how American authoritarianism was built, and we know how to survive it.

[Malcolm Gladwell / American Military University Advertiser]

This is Malcolm Gladwell from Revisionist History. Life moves fast at American Military University. They're ready to help you keep up. AMU's flexible, affordable online programs in cybersecurity. It's space studies and more are designed for service members, veterans and their families. AMU provides the support you need to take the next step wherever life takes you. American Military University made for what's next. Learn more at AMU Apus Edu before

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[Maggie Blackhawk]

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[Rebecca Nagle]

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[Maggie Blackhawk]

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[Maggie Blackhawk]

And

[Rebecca Nagle]

it's nighttime. There's a full moon, so it's bright. And where we are is flat. But when you look to the east, you can see the Appalachian Mountains. From where I was standing, I could see the ridgeline of the Appalachian crest in the light of the moon. It was dramatic. It dipped where three mountains met, one set further back. It was like they were calling to me, inviting me to come through this sweet gully they made together. I imagined my ancestors standing in the same place and looking at the same mountains. That's what they would have seen every day. It's gorgeous. Like, it's just breathtaking. What would it have looked like? There would have been a central field of corn. Those existed so, like, nobody would go hungry. And then houses would kind of fan out from there. And then families had, like, smaller individual plots. And so there would be, like a stickball pool and like a council house and some other, I guess, like community buildings. And you can just imagine what it be would have been like to live here. It would have been idyllic. During the Revolutionary War, colonial militias burned Hiawassee to the ground. The fire was so hot that glass beads fused together. Ganadatlegi and his family escaped in a dugout canoe. When most people think about the birth of the United States States, they think about the Declaration of Independence. I think about my ancestor Ganadatlegi. He was about 7 years old then and fleeing for his life. Standing in the place he once stood, I felt what the birth of the United States must have meant to him. The view of the mountains is such a small scrap of what my family had before the US Expanded. But seeing just that scrap filled me with a deep sadness. We lost. So much. For Ghana Da Tlegi. The United States was not some great democracy or even a flawed democracy. It was an invading army. And that government that burned Cherokee villages to the ground so we would starve is still our government today. While I was writing this, Trump gave a speech about American history. In it, he said that people who teach our children that America was built on stolen land are attacking our country's future. I agree with him on one point. The fight over how we, the American public, understand our past is a fight about our future. It's a fight over what kind of country we will become as Americans. We've done a lot in the last 250 years. We added more states, conquered the west, fought a civil war, defeated Hitler put a man on the moon. But one thing we've never done is reckon with this history. We've never told a version of the American story that includes one of the most basic things about our government, what it did to Native nations. We are not just haunted by this history, we're stuck in it. And until we confront the truth of America's past, we will keep living the same American nightmare. After walking around Hiawassee, we found our way back to the car.

[Stacy Saru St. Croix / AJ LeBeau]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Do you want to walk across the field? I'll do it. Yeah. Here we are. Wow.

[Stacy Saru St. Croix / AJ LeBeau]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Nagle]

The sewers are really pretty. The moon is amazing. The mountains were a few shades darker than the night sky, but my eyes had adjusted and I could see them clearly. There's a Cheyenne and Muscogee elder named Suzanne Harjo. She told me this thing that I've never forgotten. Indigenous people in this country operate on a longer timeline, and that timeline is longer going backwards, but it's also longer going forwards. And even when things feel impossible, that's why you never give up. As indigenous people, I think we know this instinctively. I think if our ancestors had not understood this, if they had fought for themselves instead of future generations, I don't think we would be here. The moment we're living through feels urgent. It is urgent. The stakes are so high. But also, this moment was centuries in the making. It didn't come from one election or one leader or one new technology. It took a long time for us to get here, and it will take a long time for us to find our way out. I've been talking to indigenous scholars like Maggie and Nick about our nation's past. But as we look to what's next, I also wanted to hear from indigenous youth about their ideas for the future. In Tulsa, we hosted a writing workshop, and some young people wrote short stories imagining indigenous people 250 years from now. And so, for one last story, here's Doxi7TC by AJ LeBeau.

[Stacy Saru St. Croix / AJ LeBeau]

I sneak through the depths, depths of the docking bay into forgotten corners where broken ships lie dormant and in disarray. I'm searching on a hunch fueled by a pressing need to get to Earth. Finally, I find the last ship that remains intact. Dakshi7TC. It looks like a sleeping turtle shell turned into a spaceship. How did Noisy tell me to wake up the ship up again? Noisey was the last elder from my tribe. She was a part of the Tribal Space Council fleet. They flew these ships in their prime, back when tribes worked with the founders of the colony, back before the Colony was taken over by a board of scientists. The scientists were driven by their fear of death. They were so scared of Earth. They forbid tribes from returning to land. They said there wasn't any left. They were afraid of a lot of things. They destroyed anything that was a threat to their existence. Over time, people in the colony became naturally apathetic. And they forgot how to feel noisy. Our last elder had started acting unusual before she died, asking if she could feel the sun on her skin skin or the grass beneath her feet. I held her hand and saw her chest rise and fall for the last time. Then it released her whole life in one pure breath. I knew then what I had to do. I don't care to look back, only forward and step foot onto the spacecraft. I feel its weight drop gently, like a paper boat floating in water. I get to my seat in one step and prepare to take off. I soon notice there are scriptures written on her interior ceiling. I am your guide. I use my finger to write an old phrase that Noisey told me. She used to say, dakshi, time to sunbathe. I have been waiting my whole life for this. Soon we're buoyant in the air as Dakshi shifts into hyper speed. I see the colony disappear. I feel things now, which is something I'm not accustomed to. I can't help but feel connected. Dakshi, I feel alive. I say alive. The words appear across her interior dome and keep fizzling in and out. Dakshi, are you alive? Gnoda Alive. It's like I am inside a turtle inside a riverbed. And the animal is echoing things throughout its shell to my skin. I wonder who made Dakshi what they were like. Maybe it was noisy. She would be capable of such a thing. She was supposed to be here with me. We were supposed to find land together in floating letters next to the controls. The dashboard lights up, approaching Earth. Is this the end of the universe? No. This must be where it first began. This is where you get sent to feel everything. I'm overcome with an overwhelming sense of clarity. Something that's been disconnected for centuries. As the clouds form around me, loud claps in the sky startle my attention towards my dashboard sensors pinging. I'm given an electrical storm warning. I'm trying to get a hold of my ship. Rains drill into the glass and sirens cry in my head. Sharp light penetrates the cabin, then shoots out of my view like a camera flash. I smile for the picture. The cabin swelters in thick, hot air. I look through the shattered windshield. Shapes form beneath me. All this time I knew Noisy was right. There is land in abundance approaching. I no longer have to put up a fight. My throat begins to swell from the pressure of the heat. I'm overcome with a multitude of feelings. They couldn't explain this up in the colony if they tried. I swear I can hear singing, and I'm sure it's Noisy calling out to me. I see her now as she extends out a hand. I feel the weight of the world pressing against the my chest. Bound by gravity, I manage to lift my arm as my hand connects to her palm. In my final attempts to grasp this world, something comes over me and the pressure is gone. I've died. But death is not what they said it would be. Hand in hand with Noisey, who acted as my guide, we finally made it to land, just like she asked. We get to feel the grass beneath our feet in a breeze that whispers with sweet winds.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Aj LeBeau wrote this story as part of an Indigenous Future Writing workshop led by Kishona Nota, who is an Inupiaq tribal citizen. All the stories from this workshop, including AJ's are in a new book called from the Heart of Our Nations. If you want to read more stories like hers, there's a link to buy a copy in the show Notes. There will also be a live reading of the stories this Friday, July 31st. You can join in person in Tulsa or virtually from anywhere. That link is also in the show Notes. If you like what you've heard, please leave a review. It's one of the best ways to help more 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, Yahavya 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 Baral 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. Our producers are Jules Bradley, Sarah Ventri, Kim Netter, V. Petersa and Jordan Goss Perret. Our editorial consultant is Connie Walker, citizen of the Onese First Nations Fact checking by Naomi Barr. Our partnership's director is Lindsey Crowder. Our Development consultant is Jenny Lawton. Our theme song is by Raven Chacon, 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. Special thanks this episode to James Anthony Owen, Constance Owl, citizen of Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Barnes Powell, citizen of Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and Sarah Hopkins for tracking down the pronunciation of Shkona Doya. The team at Pushkin is Greta Cohn, CEO Eric Sandler, Chief Strategy Officer Grace Ross, VP of Business Development Morgan Ratner, Director of Marketing Owen Miller, Content Delivery Associate Kira Posey, Creative partnerships manager Jordan McMillan, social media manager Brian Strabanek, Senior Analytics Manager and Jake Flanagan, Production Council.

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[Malcolm Gladwell / American Military University Advertiser]

This is Malcolm Gladwell from Revisionist History. Life moves fast at American Military University. They're ready to help you keep up AMU's flexible, affordable online programs in cybersecurity. It's space studies and more are designed for service members, veterans and their families. AMU provides the support you need to take the next step wherever life takes you. American Military University Made for what's next. Learn more at AMU apus Edu I

[Rebecca Nagle]

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