Introducing First America: “Merciless Indian Savages”

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Slow Burn – Introducing First America: “Merciless Indian Savages”

Date: July 8, 2026
Episode: First America, Episode 1
Host: Susan Matthews (Slow Burn) & Rebecca Nagle (First America)
Notable Guests: Nick Estes, Ned Blackhawk

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Overview

This special episode of Slate’s Slow Burn podcast features the premiere of First America, hosted by Indigenous author Rebecca Nagle. The series challenges the traditional narratives surrounding the American Revolution, revealing how the founders’ anger toward Native Americans and the struggle for Indigenous land helped shape US democracy and still resonates today. Through personal storytelling, on-location reporting, archival tape, and expert interviews, the show reframes foundational American history by centering Native perspectives.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Fort Snelling and Erased Histories

(02:45 – 06:12)

• Rebecca Nagle visits the historic Fort Snelling with Nick Estes, an Indigenous historian, to uncover how its dark history is hidden in plain sight and largely unknown to most Americans.
• Estes describes the site’s duality: a historical tourist attraction and a sacred memorial for Dakota people, acknowledging the atrocities—as a concentration camp for over 1600 Dakota in 1862—that occurred there.
  • Notable quote (05:49, Nick Estes):
    “There was a lot of malnutrition, purposeful starvation. There were reports of women being raped and violated. You know, it's a site of horrors.”
• They observe that most visitors are either unaware or uninterested in the site’s tragic past, using it for recreation instead of remembrance.

2. Present Echoes: ICE Violence and Protest

(07:13 – 13:07)

• While visiting, Nagle and Estes learn of a recent ICE shooting nearby, drawing a stark line between the violence Indigenous communities faced in the 19th century and contemporary state violence against marginalized groups.
• Nagle attends a protest at Fort Snelling (now also home to ICE’s Minneapolis headquarters), documenting public reactions and drawing parallels between historic and current government actions.
  • Notable quote (12:46, Nick Estes):
    “People are being hunted in their neighborhoods, in their schools. Places that were considered sanctuary sites, such as hospitals and churches are no longer off limits. 150 years ago, they were hunting us down to kill us, and now they're hunting down immigrants to deport them.”

3. Why Tell This Story?

(13:07 – 16:17)

• Nagle reflects on the cyclical nature of repression in America, noting that violence, authoritarianism, and the targeting of scapegoated groups are not new, but rooted in America’s very founding—something most Americans don’t recognize because of how history is taught and who it centers.

4. Re-examining the Declaration of Independence

(16:17 – 21:24)

• For the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Nagle scrutinizes its widely-celebrated principles and lesser-known vitriol, especially regarding Native Americans.
• She reveals the presence of a racial slur (“merciless Indian savages”) in the Declaration, demonstrating that hostility toward Indigenous people was a driving force for independence, not merely taxes and representation.
  • Notable quote (19:14, Ned Blackhawk reading Declaration):
    “He has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages...”

5. The Real Motive: Land and Indigenous Resistance

(21:24 – 32:19)

• Historian Ned Blackhawk explains how colonial grievances with the British were rooted in a desire for westward expansion onto Indigenous lands.

  • The Proclamation Line of 1763 (a result of Britain’s peace with Native nations after Pontiac’s Rebellion) infuriated colonists by limiting their western settlement, protecting Indigenous territory.
  • Both elites (e.g., George Washington, who profited from land speculation) and poorer settlers had strong economic motives for rebelling against Britain.
  • Colonists’ willingness to resort to violence over these land issues predated the familiar “taxation without representation” narrative.
  • The “Black Boys” militia’s attacks on British supply convoys intended for Native allies marked some of the first acts of armed rebellion—years before the events in Boston.

• Blackhawk notes how collective colonial identity—and the very language of liberty—was forged through a shared sense of opposition to Indigenous sovereignty.

  • Notable quote (31:23, Ned Blackhawk):
    “Hating indigenous people, seeing us as less than human helps the colonists come together and form a unified identity.”

6. Erasure and the Need for Truthful History

(32:19 – 35:03)

• Nagle points out that despite clear evidence, Indigenous people’s central role in early US history is missing from textbooks and public consciousness—a “magic trick” of erasure.
• Blackhawk stresses that true understanding of America’s present crisis requires reckoning with this complete history, not just the sanitized version.
  • Notable quote (33:43, Ned Blackhawk):
    “If we don't understand the full context in which our nation was founded, we won't understand the full context in which our nation now finds itself.”

7. Connecting Past and Present: What is “Un-American”?

(35:03 – 36:53)

• Nagle addresses popular claims that present-day abuses by the government are “un-American,” showing these practices are deeply rooted in American tradition.
  • Notable quote (35:03, Rebecca Nagle):
    “Violently rounding people up, putting people in detention, even shooting anyone who gets in the way. Our government has done this before. Not once, not twice. Many times. We just don't talk about that history because it happened to indigenous people.”
• She challenges listeners: American authoritarianism doesn’t need to be compared with other countries’ atrocities; understanding US history is essential to addressing the country’s ongoing injustices.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “There was a lot of malnutrition, purposeful starvation... It's a site of horrors.”

  • Nick Estes (05:49), on Fort Snelling’s history

• “He has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages...”

  • Ned Blackhawk reading the Declaration of Independence (19:14)

• “Hating indigenous people, seeing us as less than human, helps the colonists come together...”

  • Ned Blackhawk (31:23)

• “If we don't understand the full context in which our nation was founded, we won't understand the full context in which our nation now finds itself.”

  • Ned Blackhawk (33:43)

• “Our government has done this before... We just don't talk about that history because it happened to indigenous people.”

  • Rebecca Nagle (35:03)

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Timestamps of Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |--------------|--------------------------------------------------| | 02:45–06:12 | Visit to Fort Snelling; history and memorials | | 07:13–13:07 | ICE shooting, protest, and connecting past/present| | 16:17–21:24 | Declaration of Independence: re-examining motives| | 21:24–32:19 | Conversation with Ned Blackhawk; land, war, erasure| | 33:43–35:03 | Consequences of erasure and public memory | | 35:03–36:53 | Challenging the idea of “un-American” acts |

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Tone & Style

The episode’s tone is intimate, urgent, and unflinching—interweaving personal anecdotes, on-the-ground moments, emotional interviews, and scholarly analysis. Rebecca Nagle’s narration is deeply reflective, at times angry, but always focused on clarity and truth-telling.

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Conclusion

The introductory episode of First America compels listeners to reassess the origins of the United States by exposing the centrality of Indigenous land dispossession and violence in the country’s founding. By connecting hidden history with the current political moment, Rebecca Nagle and her guests urge Americans to confront uncomfortable truths in order to better understand, and perhaps change, the nation’s trajectory.

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Transcript

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[Susan Matthews]

Hi, Susan Matthews here, host of Slow Burn Becoming Justice Gorsuch. You know that here on Slow Burn, we explore the events and the people who have shaped America as we know it today. And now there's a new podcast that examines a very consequential moment from our past, one that's impacted the past 250 years. It's called First America, and it reveals the true story of why the colonists rebelled, what kind of government they created, and how it led to America's current political moment. We've been told the revolution was fought over taxation and representation, but what the founders were most angry about in the Declaration of Independence was Native Americans. First America host Rebecca Nagle, an Indigenous author and the former host of Crooked's this Land podcast, questions how an entire country missed the point of its own founding document. Rebecca, alongside leading Native historians, unveils how the Founders treatment of Indigenous nations and their resistance shaped US Democracy. Here's Episode one, where Rebecca sits down with historian Ned Blackhawk, Western Shoshone, to talk about how hunger for Indigenous land drove the American Revolution. You can find more episodes of First America wherever you get your podcasts.

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Nick Estes]

I think you have to park in here.

[Rebecca Nagle]

The fort is that way.

[Nick Estes]

Yeah, the fort's that way.

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Nick Estes]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

Can you just describe what the fort looks like?

[Nick Estes]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Nick Estes]

This is a sacred site for Dakora people, which was later appropriated by the US Military to build their fort. So look at that bald eagle. Told you we're gonna see one. Yeah. I wish the United States never appropriated the eagle. Do you hear? Look at him. He's coming right towards us. I mean, I don't know, man. I don't know how you can't believe in the power of this stuff. Because. Because those things happen for a reason. Told you we were going to see one.

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Nick Estes]

There's like a healing site right over here.

[Rebecca Nagle]

It's next to an underpass.

[Nick Estes]

Where is this one?

[Rebecca Nagle]

Down a long set of stairs on the edge of the woods. Can you describe what the memorial looks like?

[Ned Blackhawk]

Yeah.

[Nick Estes]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Nick Estes]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Nick Estes]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Nick Estes]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Nick Estes]

No. They're doing winter sports, recreation. I mean, you can See right here, you can see these parallel tracks. People cross country ski through this area.

[Rebecca Nagle]

While we were standing there, some hikers walked by.

[Ned Blackhawk]

Hi.

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Various Interviewees/Passersby]

I'm gonna.

[Nick Estes]

My wife called me. Somebody got shot.

[Rebecca Nagle]

He pulled up the news on his phone.

[Nick Estes]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

A woman named Renee Nicole Good had tried to block ICE agents with her car. An agent had just shot and killed her.

[Nick Estes]

Damn, the photos are really bad.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Oh, God.

[Nick Estes]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

We parked and watched the video.

[Ned Blackhawk]

Wow.

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[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Nick Estes]

It's in like a residential neighborhood.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Federal agents had been rounding people up, including children, and sending them to detention facilities. People were afraid to leave their homes. Parents stopped sending their kids to school. It's interesting, given what we were talking about this morning, of the history of Dakota. People being rounded up and violently forced out of Minnesota. When I started this project, I thought I was making a history podcast. I read books, I interviewed historians. I went to important sites. I traveled across the country. But then this thing kept happening. I would be in a place learning about America's past and then the same thing would happen right here in our present. You're listening to First America, the true story of how the United States came to be and how our current political moment is 250 years in the making. From Pushkin Industries and Critical Frequency, I'm your host, Rebecca Nagle. Gohin Daoudong Jaleka Yitli que en la citizen of Cherokee Nation. I didn't go to Minneapolis to report on ice. I had come to interview Nick. We just happened to be at Fort Snelling the day ICE shot and killed Renee Good. I don't know about you, but I don't believe in coincidences. I canceled my flight home and stayed to report on what was happening. The next morning, there was a protest back at Fort Snelling. I go home. I go home. Because Fort Snelling is also the site of ICE's headquarters in Minneapolis. I was curious why you guys came today. Cause, I mean, you know, someone was literally killed yesterday for standing up to ice. So is it skipped? Is it scary to be here today, knowing the violence? Yes, it's scary. And I'm angry. And the anger overcomes the fear. I have a good friend, and she lived in Denmark during the German occupation, and she has told me over and over again, you cannot be quiet. You must stand up. Because silence is what allowed this to happen in the Second World War. How far are we from the historic Fort Snelling?

[Ned Blackhawk]

Just right across the street. Highway 62 here.

[Rebecca Nagle]

And do you know what happened there?

[Various Interviewees/Passersby]

Oh, now, no.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Don't ask me those kinds of questions. I'm not good with history. It's a historic fort. It's historic.

[Nick Estes]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Sorry to put you on the spot.

[Various Interviewees/Passersby]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

Oh.

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Various Interviewees/Passersby]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Nick Estes]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Nick Estes]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

And why is it federal land?

[Nick Estes]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Nick Estes]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

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[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

taxes on us without our consent.

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

He has plundered our seed, and that

[Rebecca Nagle]

list has an order ravaged our coast. It starts with smaller grievances, burnt our towels, and ends with the biggest ones

[Ned Blackhawk]

and destroy the lives of our people.

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

Hi, I'm Ned Blackhawk.

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

I'm Western Shoshone.

[Rebecca Nagle]

And what do you do, Ned?

[Ned Blackhawk]

I teach history.

[Various Interviewees/Passersby]

Where?

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

No, it is the first World War.

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

Have you ever been to India?

[Various Interviewees/Passersby]

No.

[Ned Blackhawk]

Have you heard of the Caribbean?

[Rebecca Nagle]

Yes.

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

Is that because Barbados makes the Crown more money?

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

The Crown promises to keep settlers off their land.

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

Because the fields are so depleted.

[Ned Blackhawk]

Because the fields have become so depleted,

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

I asked Ned to read part of it for me.

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

What does that line mean?

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

Before I left Yale, I gave Ned a present.

[Ned Blackhawk]

You want me to open this?

[Rebecca Nagle]

You may or may not want it.

[Ned Blackhawk]

Declaration of Independence shot glass. Thank you so much.

[Rebecca Nagle]

What does it say?

[Ned Blackhawk]

We the people.

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

I'm mad that Native people have been written out of the story of the Revolution, but I'm also baffled by it. I mean, it's kind of wild, right? It's not like you have to Dig through the archives to find out that hunger for indigenous land drove the revolution. It's right there in the Declaration of Independence, in one of our country's most famous documents, in one of the most famous documents in all of human history, but somehow no one knows about. Feels like a magic trick, like making a rabbit disappear into a hat. And when I started this project, that's what I thought. I was up against the pervasive and systemic erasure of native people from US history. I thought the thing people couldn't see was me, my community. And then I started to realize what's missing from the story of America. It's bigger than that. After I left Minneapolis, I kept hearing politicians say the same thing. What is happening right now in America

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is fundamentally un American.

[Ned Blackhawk]

This is just so un American.

[Rebecca Nagle]

I understand where this comes from. It comes from the part of the Declaration of Independence we were taught the all men are created equal life, liberty and happiness part. But when we tell the whole story, the truth of how and why our country was founded, the present moment doesn't feel like a contradiction. Violently rounding people up, putting people in detention, even shooting anyone who gets in the way. Our government has done this before. Not once, not twice. Many times. We just don't talk about that history because it happened to indigenous people. I keep hearing people go to Nazi Germany or Putin's Russia to try and understand the rise of fascism. We don't need to leave the United States to understand the horrors of authoritarianism. It's right here in our own history. And if we want to root that authoritarianism out, we have to know where and how it started. If we think we can win by defeating one leader, it will be like pruning a weed. It will only come back stronger. I thought what was missing from the story of America was native people. But then I realized without us, that story is wrong. What's missing from the story of America is the truth. I want us to know how we got here. Because without that, we will never find our way out.

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[Rebecca Nagle]

My champions, I have sold my chariot on Carvana. Twas a lovely suv, an inexplicably queenly offer. They're even coming to the castle to collect it. Tonight we feast.

[Susan Matthews]

An offer you can feast on.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Sell your car today on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply. Coming up on this season of First America. Are you guys big Chiefs fans?

[Ned Blackhawk]

Hell, yeah.

Yes.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Chiefs on three.

[Ned Blackhawk]

One, two, three.

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

Maybe.

[Rebecca Nagle]

I don't really think so.

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Various Interviewees/Passersby]

It's not.

[Rebecca Nagle]

It's not a new thing. This is what we've done. We're good at this. If you like what you're hearing, please leave a review. It's one of the best ways to help listeners find this show. You can also support First America by subscribing or sharing episodes with your friends. First America was made possible by the generous support of the Henry Luce foundation and the NYU Yale American Indian Sovereignty Project. Additional support came from Indian Collective, First Nations Development Institute, 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, Fonda 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 Burl Sioux Tribe. I, Rebecca Nagle, citizen of Cherokee Nation, also reported, wrote, hosted and executive produced the show. First America is produced by Critical Frequency and distributed by Pushkin Industries. Our managing producer is Amy Westervelt. Senior producer and sound designer is Brendan Baker. Our story editor is Audrey Quinn. Jules Bradley. Kim Naderve Petersa and Jordan Gas Poor are our producers. Our editorial consultant is Connie Walker, citizen of the Ookanese First Nation. Fact checking by Naomi Barr. Our partnership's director is Lindsey Crowder. Our theme song is by Raven Chukan, who is Danae scoring by Laura Ortman, citizen of the White Mountain Apache Tribe and Raven Chukan artwork by Kelly Gonzalez, citizen of Cherokee Nation. The team at Pushkin is Greta Cohn, CEO Eric Sandler, Chief Strategy Officer Grace Ross, VP of Business Development Morgan Ratner, Director, Director of Marketing Owen Miller, Content Delivery Associate Kyra Posey, Creative partnerships manager Jordan McMillan, social media manager Brian Strabinik, Senior Analytics Manager and Jake Flanagan, Production Counsel.

[Susan Matthews]

That was the first episode from the new podcast First America. Find more episodes of First America wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Rebecca Nagle]

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