It Happened Here | Episode 3

Summary

Podcast Summary: First America – "It Happened Here" | Episode 3

Release Date: July 6, 2026
Host: Rebecca Nagle
Produced by: Pushkin Industries & Critical Frequency

---

Episode Overview

This episode of First America, hosted by Rebecca Nagle, interrogates the overlooked role of Native American nations in the American Revolution and the founding of U.S. democracy. As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, Nagle and her guests challenge the traditional narrative that centers freedom and liberty, revealing how violence against Indigenous peoples—and the structures built to facilitate that violence—shaped the nation’s democratic and imperial character. Through field reporting, interviews with Native historians, and personal reflection, the episode questions the legitimacy of American democracy and emphasizes the persistence of colonial legacies in U.S. governance.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Revisiting the Land: The Trail of Tears and Collective Forgetting

[02:44–08:03]

• Rebecca visits a farm in eastern Tennessee, once the site of a concentration camp (Fort Cass) during Cherokee removal.
• Local farmer shares his long familiarity with Native artifacts and his awareness of the land’s tragic history.
• Nagle reflects on the “collective forgetting” that blankets these sites—as if the violence never happened:

  “If you ask like, the average American, has these United States ever had a concentration camp on US Soil? … In 1838, this was part of Fort Cass, which was a concentration camp where Cherokees were kept.” (Rebecca Nagle, 05:21)

• Personal family history: Nagle’s own ancestors participated in treaty negotiations; she details the U.S. military’s methods of forced removal, culminating in starvation and death in camps.

2. Native Peoples and U.S. Democracy: The Original Question

[08:05–08:46]

• Nagle poses a central question: “How do Native people fit in American democracy?” contrasting lived experience of subjugation against democracy’s promises.

3. The Revolutionary War: Haudenosaunee Confederacy and Genocidal Violence

[12:30–17:23]

• Fieldwork in New York with historian Scott Manning Stevens (Akwesasne Mohawk, Bear clan; Syracuse University).
• Stevens explains the Haudenosaunee Confederacy’s deep democratic roots (over 1,000 years old) and their role in the war.
• In 1779, as retribution for Indigenous and British attacks, Washington orders General Sullivan’s scorched-earth campaign—a third of the Continental Army destroys dozens of Haudenosaunee villages, food stores, and crops.
• Stevens is explicit:

  “If we assume that troops behaved the way that Washington urged them to behave… it had to be utterly terrifying. … They’re burning and laying waste to everything.” (Stevens, 15:11) “We do [consider Sullivan’s campaign an act of genocide].” (Stevens, 17:17)

• More than half the Haudenosaunee population perish by the following spring.

4. The Gnadenhutten Massacre: Genocide in the Name of War

[18:42–23:34]

• Nagle recounts the massacre of a Christian Lenape and Mohican congregation by Pennsylvania militia in 1782.
• Victims are murdered with a mallet and scalped—survivor testimony reveals horrifying details.
• The U.N.’s definition of genocide is invoked.
• Nagle reframes the Revolutionary War as less a fight for “liberty” than a contest for continental domination, with indigenous genocide at its heart:

  “The Revolutionary War was also a campaign of genocide.” (Rebecca Nagle, 22:54)

5. Interrogating the Meaning of U.S. Democracy: Conversation with Maggie Blackhawk

[25:05–33:54]

• Nagle interviews Maggie Blackhawk (Ojibwe, NYU Law), her mentor in understanding the U.S. governmental structure toward Native nations.
• Nagle struggles to define her tribe’s relationship with the U.S.; Blackhawk pushes her beyond terms like “nation-to-nation,” to “a relationship of the colonized and the colonizer.”
• Blackhawk reframes the U.S. founding myth:

  “The story we tell ourselves about the United States origins as throwing off a king, throwing off monarchy and establishing democracy leaves out empire.” (Blackhawk, 28:46) “So it’s kind of like democracy for us, colonialism for them.” (Nagle, 29:29)

• Blackhawk explains how, for most of U.S. history, the majority of land/many peoples were governed by authoritarian, unelected structures.
• The absence of constitutional amendments repudiating crimes against Indigenous people (unlike slavery/Jim Crow) means the apparatus is technically intact and available for future use.

6. The Continuing Legacy of Colonial Violence

[32:22–34:31]

• Blackhawk highlights how techniques and precedents of Native dispossession and confinement shaped future government actions, e.g., Japanese American incarceration in WWII.

7. Erasure and Dangerous Myths

[34:31–35:20]

• Nagle and Blackhawk discuss why Native stories are excluded—even from revised critiques of the founders.
• Blackhawk:

  “…if you bring in Native people and American colonialism into the constitutional and national story that we hold, it pulls a thread that unravels the entire myth at once.” (Blackhawk, 35:04)

8. Memory and Resilience: The Onondaga and the Cicada

[36:00–40:42]

• Interview with Brad Powles (Tehoetati), Onondaga Nation.
• Following devastation, cicadas (ogwenota) emerged, providing food. Their cyclical appearance creates a living memory in the community.

  “Every 17 years, it means once every generation there’s this material way for the community to remember what their ancestors went through.” (Nagle, 39:30)

• Powles affirms the survival of his people despite attempted eradication:

  “We lost so many people, so that’s sad to think about. But no, we still stayed and we were able to come back home.” (Powles, 40:15)

9. Reflection and Challenge

• Nagle closes by arguing that both Indigenous and American identity require reckoning with collective violence:

  “Genocide shaped and changed our country. And until we process that violence, we won’t know who we are or how we got here.” (Nagle, 40:42)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On erasure:

  "It’s just a really heavy place. … I think what strikes me is just how deeply you can feel the collective forgetting of what happened here. That it’s just like a field and a subdivision." (Rebecca Nagle, 05:21–07:20)

• On the myth of democracy:

  “They wanted to be a, quote, empire for liberty from the beginning. So the break with Britain was less about throwing the colonialism behind and more about throwing the king behind.” (Maggie Blackhawk, 29:15)

• On genocide:

  “We do [consider Sullivan’s campaign an act of genocide].” (Scott Manning Stevens, 17:17)

• On sovereignty and colonization:

  “My relationship to the federal government is that it colonized me and my tribe. It’s hard to admit, but that’s how I fit into US Democracy.” (Rebecca Nagle, 27:39)

• On legal precedent:

  “A lot of what our government can and cannot do is based on precedent, which is a legal way of saying, if our country did something before, it can do it again.” (Nagle, 32:40)

• On omission from history:

  “…if you bring in Native people and American colonialism into the constitutional and national story that we hold, it pulls a thread that unravels the entire myth at once.” (Maggie Blackhawk, 35:04)

• On Indigenous survival:

  “We lost so many people, so that’s sad to think about. But no, we still stayed and we were able to come back home.” (Brad Powles, 40:15)

---

Important Segments & Timestamps

• Visit to former Trail of Tears site: 02:44–08:03
• Questioning Native identity in democracy: 08:05–08:46
• Haudenosaunee & Sullivan’s campaign: 12:30–17:23
• Gnadenhutten Massacre account: 18:42–23:34
• Constitutional scholar discussion (Maggie Blackhawk): 25:05–33:54
• Legacy of U.S. governance on Native lands: 32:22–34:31
• Brad Powles recounts Onondaga and the cicada: 36:00–40:42

---

Conclusion

This episode dismantles the “liberty and justice for all” narrative about the American Revolution, arguing that colonialism and Indigenous genocide were foundational to American state-building and persist in legal and political structures today. Nagle and her guests insist on recognition—not just of historical atrocities, but of Indigenous peoples’ central place in the story, influencing not only Native futures, but the ongoing contours of American democracy and power. The episode ends with a call for honest reckoning and remembrance as necessary steps toward understanding—and ultimately, toward a democracy worthy of the name.

Transcript

[J.R. Martinez]

Hey, this is J.R. martinez, host of Medal of Honor Stories of Courage. Navy Federal Credit Union is celebrating America's 250th anniversary with exclusive $250 offers for new members. After being approved for membership online, select the special cash rewards offer and earn a $50 bonus when you open a cash rewards credit card, plus an additional $250 when you spend $2,500 within 90 days of opening. And you can get another $250 when you refinance your auto loan from another lender. Learn more and join today@navy federal.org America 250 offer ends July 31, 2026. Excludes cash rewards, secured credit cards and applications submitted by mail, telephone or in person. Refinance auto loan must be at least $5,000 credit and collateral subject to approval. Additional terms and conditions apply for bonus offers subject to change or end at any time.

[CarMax Announcer]

Do you want to find a stress free way to buy your next car? Start at CarMax and shop your way. If you want to browse with confidence, get pre qualified online with no impact on your credit score and shop cars within your budget. From luxury cars to family rides, CarMax has options for almost every price range, including more than 25,000 cars priced under $25,000. So hey, want to get started? Just head to CarMax.com for details and get pre qualified today. Want to drive CarMax?

[American Military University Announcer]

When one person serves, the whole family supports the mission at American Military University. They honor that commitment with reduced tuition for military families. If someone in your family served in the military, you may qualify for this reduced tuition because service opens doors and your next opportunity could start today. American Military University is your path forward dedicated to serving those who have served? Contact them today and learn more at AMU APUS Edumilitary Rebecca Nagle here.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Before we get into this episode, I wanted to let you know that you can hear episodes of First America early and ad free by signing up for Pushkin Plus. You'll also get bonus episodes, full audiobooks and other binges from your favorite Pushkin hosts and authors. Find Pushkin plus on the First America show page on Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin FM plus. Let's get into it Just a heads up before we get started. This episode includes descriptions of violence against indigenous people. Please take care while you listen. Let me see if there's a spot to pull over. Like right here. I think I'm all the way off the road.

Yeah. All right.

This past fall I drove with my producer Jordan to a small town in eastern Tennessee.

[Local Farmer]

All Right.

[Rebecca Nagle]

So where are we right now? We are in a bend of the Hiawassee River. We're kind of in the middle of someone's farm. He's actually on the tractor right now farming. There's a horse and a donkey and a bunch of farm equipment, and you can see a really beautiful hill in the distance that I think is on the other side of the river. So we're, like, walking distance from the river. It is just kind of wild. Like, even the person is farming right now as we are talking may not know the history of this land. Yeah,

[Local Man on Tractor]

hi.

[Rebecca Nagle]

He yelled at us.

[Local Man on Tractor]

We're just recording some tape for a podcast. Huh.

[Rebecca Nagle]

A man in short sleeves, jeans, and a baseball cap climbed off his tractor to come and talk to us. He was friendly.

[Local Man on Tractor]

Yeah. We're talking about the history of the

[Rebecca Nagle]

Trail of Tears in the area.

We're recording a podcast.

[Local Man on Tractor]

Sorry to pull you off your tractor.

[Local Farmer]

Yeah, actually, where I live at, that's part of it up our tear. Trail of Tears up there. Right in on that river up in there.

[Rebecca Nagle]

He told me he knows this land was part of the Trail of Tears.

[Local Farmer]

Well, the Indians, they lived up there, too, because I've got a garden up there. And I pick up stuff up there all the time, too. Arrowheads and hatchets and mill rocks and stuff. You know, every time I pick up one, I think, my gosh, how many year ago?

[Local Man on Tractor]

Yeah, how long ago?

[Rebecca Nagle]

We're just recording about some of the history in the area.

[Local Farmer]

I've been picking up Indian arrow around here all my life.

[Local Man on Tractor]

Oh, really? How long have you lived here?

[Local Farmer]

Well, I'm 65, born, raised up here, working this farm. I actually live up on Upper River Road up there.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Okay. Yeah.

[Local Man on Tractor]

Well, I don't mean to take you away from plowing your field and bothering you, but. Yeah, we're just.

[Local Farmer]

She's talking about planting tulips.

[Local Man on Tractor]

Oh, that's all gonna be tulips. You guys are gonna do a little tulip farm.

[Local Farmer]

Spring 12 or 13 falcon.

[Local Man on Tractor]

Wow. That'll be really pretty. I'll come back in the.

[Rebecca Nagle]

What are your thoughts and feelings being here? It's like they're putting in a tulip.

[Local Farmer]

How.

[Rebecca Nagle]

How is this making you feel?

[Lady Luck (Spin Quest Announcer)]

I mean,

[Rebecca Nagle]

it's just a really heavy place. Yeah, it's just a really heavy place. If you ask like, the average American, has these United States ever had a concentration camp on US Soil? I don't think people would think of this place. In 1838, this was part of Fort Cass, which was a concentration camp where Cherokees were kept The United States federal government, and also the states here in the South. They wanted all indigenous people in the Southeast to be gone.

My family has a complicated relationship to this place. Some of my ancestors signed Cherokee Nation's removal treaty. They thought it was the tribe's best chance at survival, but most Cherokees didn't agree. The treaty set a deadline for Cherokees to leave their homeland, and so the

US Military rounded them all up at gunpoint. Seven thousand soldiers and militiamen, like one went out into all of the Cherokee towns, and it took 25 days for them to round everybody up and put them into concentration camps. People weren't allowed to collect possessions, so people weren't allowed to even, like, find loved ones. There was a pregnant woman who was actually in labor, so they drove her from one of the remote valley towns in North Carolina and forced her to walk. And she gave birth and they would still not let her rest. And then close to this place, she died. That's horrifying. Yeah. I think when people think about the Trail of Tears, they're like, oh, it was violent because people had to walk a long distance. But actually the most violent part of our removal was in the camps. Disease was really rampant. And I think disease is this stand in for, like, why Native people died in a way that lets you, the United States, off the hook. But often it was the violence and the disease worked hand in hand. Yeah, I don't know. It's really heavy. Yeah. I think what strikes me is just how deeply you can feel the collective forgetting of what happened here. That it's just like a field and a subdivision.

[Capella University Announcer]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Yeah.

When I started this project, I was on a quest of sorts. I wanted to answer a question. It's a big question, but also kind of simple. How do I fit? How do Native people fit in American democracy?

You know, like, what democracy rounds an entire ethnic group up at gunpoint and puts them into a concentration camp.

You're listening.

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. Gohi Dao Dong Jaleca Yetli Que la citizen of Cherokee Nation. Before I made this history podcast, I reported on the Supreme Court. I followed one case where my tribe could have lost our reservation and another one where all tribes could have lost the special legal status that protects everything from our land to our kids. During that reporting, I traveled to D.C. to attend oral arguments. It was the first time I stepped inside the Supreme Court building. The room was full of Native people who traveled thousands of miles to come watch. They had lined up before dawn to get a seat. To enter the courtroom, we had to go through security twice. A guard made one Native woman put a T shirt over her traditional clothes. Otherwise she'd have to leave.

[Capella University Announcer]

One of the guards, she was like, listen, like, political attire isn't allowed. And I told her, I was like, this is my culture. This is my religious practice. This is my traditional attire.

[Rebecca Nagle]

I sat behind more senior white smoke Supreme Court reporters. I watched two of them walk past a security guard yelling at them to stop. They just ignored her. Before the proceedings started, I stood up to get a look around the room. I was told to sit down. When the white reporters stood up. No one said anything. A big part of our democracy, and especially our courts, is this idea of fairness. In this case, about Native rights. It felt like the perfect example of how the rules aren't the same for everyone. We will hear argument this morning in

[Brad Powles / Tehoetati]

Collin versus Brackeen and the consolidated cases.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Mr. McGill. That day of oral arguments was one of those 14 hour days that started before the sun came up and ended after it went down. When I was finally walking back to my hotel, I got lost. I was too tired to navigate the maze of D.C. streets. I sat down on the steps of a manicured office building and cried. I had thought my job was to fix the inaccurate and let's be real, racist media narrative around these important cases. I wanted the Supreme Court to not harm my community, or at least harm it less. But what I felt in those sobs was powerless. As Native people, we were still defending such basic things. Power over our land, over our children. And we had to jump through so many hoops to even do that. And that question of how Native people fit into US Democracy, I didn't have the words for exactly what. But I knew something was wrong. The past two episodes, we talked about the lead up to the Revolutionary War. We talked about the Boston Tea Party, the Declaration of Independence, and why the colonists rebelled. In this episode, we are looking at the war itself as a country. We talk about the war as if it was fought between England and the colonies. It's a story of David standing up to Goliath. And we get to be David like everyone else. That's the story I learned in school. But as an adult, I found out that story was wrong. Turn left onto Great Gully Road.

So it's supposed to be at this corner.

[Scott Manning Stevens]

See anything there? Look up here.

[Rebecca Nagle]

That's the Site of Cayuga Castle, NY

90 and Great Gully Road. I was looking for a historical marker. We didn't see the marker from the car, so we got out and walked around. What's the weather like today?

[Scott Manning Stevens]

Balmy, beautiful upstate New York day. It is heavy and gray, as it usually is this time in November.

[Rebecca Nagle]

This is Scott Manning Stevens, which is my settler name.

[Scott Manning Stevens]

Golonjoc Dace is my Mohawk name. I'm a citizen of the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation and a member of the Bear clan.

[Rebecca Nagle]

He's the director of Native American and Indigenous Studies at Syracuse University in New York. Scott's tribe, the Mohawk, is part of a larger Indigenous confederacy. And that confederacy played a big role in the Revolutionary War. You've probably heard of them as the Eastern Iroquois, but that's just what the French called them.

[Scott Manning Stevens]

We call ourselves collectively the Haudenosaunee, which means People of the Long House.

[Rebecca Nagle]

The confederacy was originally made up of five tribes.

[Scott Manning Stevens]

So starting with the Mohawk, then the Oneida, the Onondaga in the center, the Cayuga, and then the Seneca.

[Rebecca Nagle]

The tribes came together under a peace agreement around a thousand years ago. Many consider the Haudenosaunee one of the oldest democracies on earth. It's four times older than the United

[Scott Manning Stevens]

States, certainly popular with the pigeons.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Scott and I were standing on the side of a two lane highway. We still hadn't found the marker, but from Google Maps we knew we were close. This place that's now fields and farmland and highway was once the capital of Cayuga Nation, one of the tribes in the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. So if you were to like close

your eyes and like, imagine what this would have looked like in 1778. Like, can you describe it?

[Scott Manning Stevens]

Beautiful. I love the Finger Lakes. They're these really, you know, they're quite long, but thin, so you can see across them easily. And I find them kind of serene. It would have been forested in some places and farmland and others there'd be a number of large traditional style longhouses.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Can you describe what would have happened here in 1779?

[Scott Manning Stevens]

I imagine just chaos. If we assume that troops behaved the way that Washington urged them to behave, to come shrieking in with bayonets drawn into a village to terrify the population, it had to be utterly terrifying. And they're, you know, they're burning and laying waste to everything.

[Rebecca Nagle]

During the Revolutionary War, part of the Haudenosaunee confederacy sided with the Americans, but a bigger part sided with the British. A few years into the war, a Group of British troops and Mohawk warriors attacked colonists. George Washington ordered a scorched earth campaign as retribution. General John Sullivan led the campaign. He used an entire third of Washington's army to destroy dozens of Haudenosaunee towns. His men targeted food so that the people would starve. The army would spend days slashing and burning acres of corn. Then they would pile the bushels into houses and set it all on fire. They destroyed over 11 million pounds of corn this way. The army also killed hundreds of civilians. In one early massacre, militiamen speared children with bayonets.

[Scott Manning Stevens]

So you were running for your lives, and you saw behind you everything you knew being burned down.

[Rebecca Nagle]

More than 5,000 refugees of Sullivan's campaign made it to Fort Niagara, which was still controlled by the British. The British wouldn't let the refugees inside the fort, and so they camped around it. The British gave them food, but not enough for people to survive.

[Scott Manning Stevens]

And probably, you know, 500 or more are dead by the spring.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Some historians estimate that during Sullivan's campaign, between direct killing, exposure, and malnutrition, half of all Haudenosaunee people died.

Do historians consider Sullivan's campaign an act of genocide?

[Scott Manning Stevens]

I mean, we. We do.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Scott and I got back in his car and kept looking for that historical marker. Like often happens, we were close. It was a few hundred yards down the road. We pulled over on a little patch

of dirt and got out.

Can you describe what it looks like?

[Scott Manning Stevens]

So it's almost six foot tall, upright stone, and it has a bronze plaque. But there's a map of this region of central New York and the various routes that the soldiers took in attacking the different Haudenosaunee communities across the region.

[Rebecca Nagle]

What does it feel like to see a monument celebrating that?

[Scott Manning Stevens]

Well, it's a bitter thing. And, you know, it would be hard to imagine this in a country like Germany today because it would be read as genocidal and like, oh, we should take that down. This kind of desire to utterly destroy a people is something that wouldn't think would be easily celebrated.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Some people might say what happened to the Haudenosaunee during the Revolutionary War, while horrific and tragic, is just part of what happens during war. After all, they attacked colonial settlements, too. But during this period, colonial militias attacked Native communities that were neutral or allied with the United States. Communities that were peaceful. One of those communities was called Nadenhutten. It was a congregation of Lenapes and Mohicans who had converted to Christianity through German missionaries in 1782, after warriors from a different tribe killed and captured Some colonists, the militia of Washington County, Pennsylvania, went to investigate Nadenhutten. When the militiamen reached the area, they told the congregation they just wanted to take them to a nearby fort where they would be safe from the British. The congregation was cautious, but eventually opened their doors and even offered the militia food. The militia separated the men and women into two buildings and tied everyone up. And then they took a vote. Would they take the captives to the fort, or would they kill them? The militiamen chose slaughter, knowing they would die the next day. The Christian natives spent the night singing hymns. Both this German sect of Christianity and Lenape and Mohican cultures had songs for death and believed that singing them aided spirits in their passage. The militiamen spent the night drinking communion wine and preparing two killing houses, one for men and one for women and children. In the morning, the militia took congregation members into the killing houses, two at a time. They used a large wooden and metal mallet made to pound iron to kill each person with a blow to the head. Then they scalped and piled the bodies. We know what happened, thanks in part to two children who survived. One named Thomas was knocked unconscious and scalped by the militia members. He awoke to dead friends and family members being stacked around him. He didn't move. As it got dark, he hid behind the house and then escaped to another village. Before the militiamen left, they burned the bodies of all the townspeople in the buildings they had killed and stacked them in. They looted and ransacked the town, and then they left with what they had taken. Horses, blankets, food, and the scalps of 30 men, 32 women, and 34 children. Congress and the state of Pennsylvania ordered an investigation, but no one was ever held account. The UN defines genocide as the intent to destroy a group of people in whole or in part. The term was coined in the 1940s, but has been applied to historical events. The popular story of the Revolutionary War is wrong. It wasn't just a fight for liberty and freedom, or even independence. It was also a sprawling conflict over who would control the continent of North America. And to stake out their claim, the United States was willing to commit unspeakable acts of violence. It's a big shift in how we talk about this war and how we think about it and how we teach it to our children. The Revolutionary War was also a campaign of genocide. When I started seeing the revolution this way, I stopped asking, how do I fit into this democracy? And started asking a different question, one that has broader implications and higher stakes and is, frankly, just scary. Is this even a democracy? Was it ever that answer after the break.

[American Military University Announcer]

When one person serves, the whole family supports the mission. At American Military University, they honor that commitment with reduced tuition for military families. If someone in your family served in the military, you may qualify for this reduced tuition because service opens doors and your next opportunity could start today. American Military University is your path forward dedicated to serving those who have served. Contact them today and learn more @amuapus.edu Military.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my biggest idea for the commercial. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment

[Lady Luck (Spin Quest Announcer)]

of 45 for 3 months, $90 for 6 months or $180 for 12 month plan required. $15 per month equivalent to taxes and fees. Extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes. Me slow when network is busy. See terms.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Hey everybody.

[Lady Luck (Spin Quest Announcer)]

Lady luck here and we're celebrating America's 250th birthday. Now all summer long I'm going to be celebrating by playing on finquest.com which is an American owned social casino. It operates obviously features over a thousand slot games and live blackjack, live craps, live bubble craps. Head on over to spinquest.com get yourself a 30 coin pack for just 10 bucks.

[CarMax Announcer]

Spin Quest is a free to play social casino, Boyd. Where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

[Rebecca Nagle]

In this quest to figure out U. S democracy, I decided I needed to talk to an expert. The first thing we're going to do is just get your level. Someone who understands the structure of our government better than I do. Could you just tell me what you had for breakfast?

[Maggie Blackhawk]

The awkward thing is I haven't yet had breakfast. I had coffee. It's been that kind of a day.

[Rebecca Nagle]

And so I sat down with a constitutional law professor.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

Yes, I am Maggie Blackhawk. I teach law at NYU Law school and I'm fond du lac band Ojibwe. Should I say my formal title? I'm Maggie Blackhawk and the Moses Grossman professor of law at NYU Law School.

[Rebecca Nagle]

I've known Maggie for years. She's really helped me shape how I think about these issues. And so first I wanted to get her take on my original question. How do native people fit into US Democracy? I'm a citizen of the United States, but I'm also A citizen of Cherokee Nation and my tribe has a nation to nation relationship with the federal government that's based on the treaties that we signed.

I feel like I've had as like a Native person, when I think about my relationship to the government, like I

have that relationship as an individual, but then I also have a relationship through my tribal nation.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

But what relationship is that,

[Rebecca Nagle]

like between

Cherokee Nation, between you and your tribal

[Maggie Blackhawk]

nation and the United States? What is that relationship? If you had to put a word on it?

[Rebecca Nagle]

Oh, God. I mean, old.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

What about now?

[Rebecca Nagle]

I mean, I guess it would be nation to nation.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

I mean, it's like France to the

[Rebecca Nagle]

United States, but we're subordinated like you are.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

And it's a big word, subordinated. You're unequal. You're, you know. But what would you call it? I know you wanna call it government to government and, you know, but when I press on that, it doesn't quite fit.

[Rebecca Nagle]

I mean, it's, you know, it's a

relationship of like, the people who've been

colonized, the people who colonized.

[Brad Powles / Tehoetati]

There you go.

[Rebecca Nagle]

We got a word.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

But it took a long time. And if you actually ask most Native people, okay, what's the relationship? They will stumble over it.

[Rebecca Nagle]

But I think it's just because it's

[Maggie Blackhawk]

so hard to say that.

[Local Man on Tractor]

Because I think we want to.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Assert the sovereignty that we still have. What Maggie got me to say is this. My relationship to the federal government is that it colonized me and my tribe. It's hard to admit, but that's how I fit into US Democracy. I think that's what I felt that day at the Supreme Court before I had words for it, that despite all the things that indigenous people have done to assert our sovereignty, our self determination, we are still stuck under the foot of this government that has done so much harm. It's hard to reconcile that with the story of America I was taught in school.

I think when we think about the

founding of the United States, it feels

like the myth is this idea that our founding fathers created this great democracy that rejected the tyranny of the king of England.

Is that the full story of our government?

[Maggie Blackhawk]

No, the story we tell ourselves about the United States origins as throwing off a king, throwing off monarchy and establishing democracy leaves out empire.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Maggie says that story of her founders building a democracy, it's only half true. Part of the government they built was democratic, but part of the government they built was something else.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

They wanted to be a, quote, empire for liberty from the beginning. So the break with Britain was less about Throwing the colonialism behind and more about throwing the king behind.

[Rebecca Nagle]

So it's kind of like democracy for

us, colonialism for them.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

Yeah, no, exactly right.

[Rebecca Nagle]

In terms of sort of the fight in the US over sort of are we a democracy? Are we sort of not living up to those ideals?

[Maggie Blackhawk]

It's even a harder question, I think.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Do you.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

Yeah, do I have a position on it? I think when you bring in the story of expansion and colonialism, it just explodes the conversation because it's not even about building a government that just doesn't give everyone the same kind of political power. It really is that the US Is building governments that are not representative.

[Rebecca Nagle]

When the US expanded into native territories and later into places like Guam and Puerto Rico, those places didn't get democracy.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

So you wouldn't have elections, you wouldn't have accountability. This was not the American dream that the Constitution at least promised for those who were within the polity and within the several states.

[Rebecca Nagle]

In the early years of our country, unelected leaders governed 2/3 of all land in the United States. The only person they answered to was Thomas Jefferson.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

If you look at least, you know, the land mass. We've had more area of our government governed by top down, unilateral, non representative government for much longer than we have had actual representative government within the U.S.

[Rebecca Nagle]

when did we stop governing territories that way?

[Maggie Blackhawk]

We haven't.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Here's how I understand what Maggie is saying. Imagine a circle. What's inside that circle is the United States government. You know, it's got things like courts, elections, constitutional rights, local, state and federal government. But the US Also governed people and places outside that circle. And outside the circle, the US Gave itself a different set of rules. And those rules were first created to colonize indigenous people. The US government controlled where we could live, what religion we could practice, what languages we could speak, what food we ate, how we raised our children, if we could even keep or have children, all against our will. So while our founders did build a democracy, they also built something else. You can call it empire, you can call it colonization. I call it authoritarianism. Top down government that controlled the lands and lives of indigenous people. Do you think that most Americans think that what our government did to Native Americans affects them?

[Maggie Blackhawk]

No.

[Local Man on Tractor]

Should they?

[Maggie Blackhawk]

Yes.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Why?

[Maggie Blackhawk]

Well, because we had to build a government to do that. We had to build a government to dispossess. We had to build a government to expand. We had to build a government that colonized, and that government is still our government.

[Rebecca Nagle]

A lot of what our government can and cannot do is Based on precedent, which is a legal way of saying, if our country did something before, it can do it again.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

Especially if we've done it before a lot and you let us do it, we don't actually think through, ah, was this a good idea when we did this Quite a few times. The one area of exception is around the area of human enslavement and Jim Crow segregation. And those are areas where we have explicit constitutional amendments as well as decisions that have later repudiated things.

[Rebecca Nagle]

The legacies of slavery and segregation are still with us. Just look at voter ID laws. But the policy of enslaving people is no longer legal.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

But think in the area of Indian law, you don't get big amendments.

[Rebecca Nagle]

It's almost kind of scary.

Like, when you think about everything that our government did to Native Americans, that we've never gone back and, like, edited our government and said, oh, actually, ooh, like, we really, really shouldn't commit genocide again.

That was bad.

Like, we shouldn't put people in concentration

camps again, what you're saying, like, we've

never had that edit.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

So I dug really deeply into the question of Japanese American incarceration and Indian law and come to find out the two detention camps under the War Relocation Authority were built on Indian reservations. The Bureau of Indian affairs actually ran and established the first camp because they knew how to detain people and govern them. The science of governing other people through force is, sadly, something that takes forms of expertise, and the US developed that, and then they applied it to different and new people.

[Rebecca Nagle]

There's this feeling I have every time I talk to Maggie. This history is so important, but why don't more people know about it? I think something that I'm grappling with

is that, like, I feel like we're left out of the, like, America, rah

rah version of the history. But I feel like we're also left out of the, like, the Founding Fathers were flawed. They made, you know, like, women weren't,

you know, like all these people weren't included.

I feel like we're left out of that version too.

[Maggie Blackhawk]

Yes, well, it's because if you bring in Native people and American colonialism into the constitutional and national story that we hold, it pulls a thread that unravels the entire myth at once.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Doing this reporting, I realized I don't fit into the story of American democracy, but I am still part of the origin story of this country. You actually can't understand this country without Indigenous people, because what our history tells is the story of American authoritarianism. After the Winter, the Haudenosaunee refugees camped at Fort Niagara. In 1779, they returned home, but not much was left. Following George Washington's orders, the colonial army had burned everything.

[Brad Powles / Tehoetati]

And the people who survived in the spring came back to Onondaga to rebuild with nothing.

[Rebecca Nagle]

This is Brad Powles.

[Brad Powles / Tehoetati]

My name is Tehoetati. I am from the Onondaga Nation.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Brad's father first told him the story when he was 15.

[Brad Powles / Tehoetati]

And he goes, it's a good thing. It's a sad story, but it's a good thing too. It's both at the same time.

[Rebecca Nagle]

When the Onondaga returned to their land, they saw what the army had burned. Their homes, their crops, their food stores, even their fruit orchards. People had barely survived that winter, and now they were facing more starvation. But then something happened.

[Brad Powles / Tehoetati]

That's when our friend Oguanyota came and provided a food source for us.

[Rebecca Nagle]

The cicadas came out. The people ate cicadas to survive. There's something really special about this. You see, the cicadas on Onondaga land live in one small area and only come out every 17 years. The rest of the time, they're hibernating. If this had happened any other year or any other place, the people would have starved. Brad gets emotional when he talks about this.

[Brad Powles / Tehoetati]

It really tears me up thinking about it. Is that something that the Creator gave us that year? I don't know.

[Rebecca Nagle]

I teared up too, while talking to Brad. I know my ancestors went through hell so that me and my tribe would still exist. But this example is just so visceral. Brad taught me how to say cicada in Onondaga.

[Brad Powles / Tehoetati]

So, Okwenyota.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Okunota, yes.

[Brad Powles / Tehoetati]

Oquenota.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Ogwenota. The cicadas, or ogwenota still come out on onondaga land every 17 years. And it's quite a sight to see. The first time they came out, Brad was a teenager.

[Brad Powles / Tehoetati]

Oh, they are everywhere. Like, you walk outside and they're just like rain dripping off the trees. They come out during the summer. The trees are all green and beautiful. My mom was like, you gotta get ready to pick them because you gotta pick them early. So you get up early in the morning and you're going through and you're picking them off the trees. If you're really young, you know, you're a little scared because they're a big bug with big red eyes.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Nowadays, when the Ogwa nyota come out, the Onondaga fry them and eat them. Families make it together. People bring big batches to share at summer ceremonies.

[Local Man on Tractor]

What does it taste like?

[Brad Powles / Tehoetati]

Everyone always says chicken, but it's its own unique flavor for sure. I guess the most similar thing would be it'd be kind of like a popcorn. You get a nice little buttery base and you get your butter nice and melted and you throw your cicada in, little salt and pepper and that's all you need.

[Rebecca Nagle]

The Onondaga didn't always eat bugs. At first they did it to survive and now they do it to remember the times in your life that you've eaten cicadas or oguinota. Do you think about your ancestors?

[Brad Powles / Tehoetati]

Definitely.

[Rebecca Nagle]

There's something almost poetic about the way the ogwinota come out. Every 17 years, it means once every generation there's this material way for the community to remember what their ancestors went through. And in one person's life, you learn the story as a child, you pass it on to your children in middle age and tell it again as an elder. Do you consider Sullivan's campaign an act of genocide?

[Brad Powles / Tehoetati]

Of course it is.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Like when you read George Washington's letter to General Sullivan.

Like the goal is really to drive

you all out, to get you away from your land. Was that successful?

[Brad Powles / Tehoetati]

We're still here. We lost so many people, so that's sad to think about. But no, we still stayed and we were able to come back home.

[Rebecca Nagle]

You know, for indigenous people, it's not like this stuff is easy to talk about. It's overwhelming how much our ancestors lost. But we find ways, big and small, to remember because without that, we wouldn't know who we are and how we got here. The same is true for the United States. Genocide shaped and changed our country. And until we process that violence, we won't know who we are or how we got here. There's this war you've probably never heard of, but it's why our president can use the military the way that he does.

[J.R. Martinez]

You know, my ancestors put dirt in those soldiers mouths to say, if you're going to get our homelands, this is the only way you're going to get it.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Next time on First America. 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, Yahavi Atam 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 Borough 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 Neder, V. Petersa and Jordan Gas Pore are our producers. Our editorial consultant is Connie Walker, citizen of the Okanese First Nation. Fact checking by Naomi Barr. Our partnerships Director is Lindsey Crowder. Our development consultant is Jenny Lawton. Our theme song is by Raven Chukan, who is Danae scoring by Laura Ortman, citizen of the White Mountain Apache Tribe and Raven Chacan 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 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 Counsel. Special thanks this episode to David Jones, Paul Kelton, Jenzuva Gettel, Jeffrey Osler and Atani Nota, citizen of Navajo Nation. Research help from James Anthony Owen.

[American Military University Announcer]

When one person serves, the whole family supports the mission at American Military University. They honor that commitment with reduced tuition for military families. If someone in your family served in the military, you may qualify for this reduced tuition because service opens doors and your next opportunity could start today. American Military University is your path forward dedicated to serving those who have served. Contact them today and learn more at amuapus.edu Military Happy Birthday America.

[Spin Quest Announcer]

It's time to celebrate and play your favorite Las Vegas casino games by American owned spinquest.com what's better than fireworks and American Pie? Hitting a blackjack in the palm of your hand and you won't lose your fingers. Fingers over a thousand games including slots and live dealers and 30 coin packs are on sale for 10 spinquest.com buy American players.

[CarMax Announcer]

For American players, Spin Quest is a free to play social casino Boyd where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

[Capella University Announcer]

There's a fire inside you you can't ignore. Stand still. Not a chance. You're a lifelong learner who's come this far. Now we are here to help you Keep going further. Capella University. What can't you do? Visit Capella Edu to learn more.