Merciless Indian Savages | Episode 1

Summary

First America: “Merciless Indian Savages” | Episode 1

Podcast: First America
Host: Rebecca Nagle (Pushkin Industries)
Guests: Nick Estes, Ned Blackhawk, other historians and community members
Air Date: June 22, 2026
Summary by Podcast Summarizer

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Overview: Uncovering the Erasure of Native Americans from U.S. History

The debut episode of "First America" launches with a bold thesis: Native peoples have been systematically erased from the story of America. As the nation celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, host Rebecca Nagle—a Cherokee Nation citizen and investigative journalist—questions the familiar narratives about the nation’s founding. She reveals that, contrary to the conventional wisdom that the Revolution was primarily about taxation and representation, one of the founders’ chief motivations was control over Indigenous land and affairs, clearly spelled out in the Declaration’s infamous reference to “merciless Indian Savages.”

The episode blends personal reporting, historical scholarship, on-site visits, and present-day events to draw a compelling, sometimes unsettling, throughline from colonial-era policies to modern acts of state violence.

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Main Themes & Purpose

• Reclaiming Native Narratives in American history—from the nation’s founding to today.
• Connecting Past and Present injustices: How historic policies toward Indigenous nations are echoed in current governmental actions (e.g., ICE raids).
• Exposing the Reality of the Declaration of Independence: The founding document’s explicit framing of Indigenous people as enemies.
• Challenging Foundational Myths of the U.S. and demonstrating their direct ties to white expansionism and settler colonialism.
• Insisting on Truthful History: Only by acknowledging the full story—including atrocities—can Americans move forward.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Visiting Fort Snelling: Sacred Site, Scene of Atrocity

[02:23–06:00]

• Rebecca meets Nick Estes (history professor, Lower Brule Sioux) at Fort Snelling, Minneapolis—a site sacred to Dakota people and location of a Dakota concentration camp (1862).
• Nick describes the fort, nearby modern trappings, and the healing site/memorial maintained by descendants ("I'm assuming it's the descendants of those who experienced that genocide." – Nick Estes [04:37]).
• Detailed recounting of the U.S. campaign against Dakota people: concentration camp, forced removals, starvation, death marches, bounties, rape, and executions.

Quote:
"It's a site of horrors." – Nick Estes [05:26]

2. History Echoes in the Present: ICE Violence at Fort Snelling

[06:00–12:44]

• The visit is interrupted by news: federal ICE agents shoot and kill Renee Nicole Good during an immigration raid.
• Rebecca, Nick, and others draw parallels between the rounds-up and violent expulsions of Dakota people and the modern-day detention and deportation of immigrants at nearly the exact location.
• Protesters at Fort Snelling cite historical memory and the danger of silence ("You cannot be quiet. You must stand up. Because silence is what allowed this to happen in the Second World War." – Protester [10:16]).

Quote:
"The murder of Renee Goode and the history of Fort Snelling are actually inseparable... 150 years ago, they were hunting us down to kill us. And now they're hunting down immigrants to deport them." – Nick Estes [11:44–12:23]

3. Interrogating National Myths: Reexamining the Declaration of Independence

[15:29–19:07]

• Rebecca attempts to “put Native people back in the story” by re-reading the Declaration of Independence.
• The Declaration famously includes Indigenous people in its final complaint against the King: accusing him of inciting "the merciless Indian savages" ([18:27]).
• The show discusses how this language not only perpetuates dehumanization, but identifies Indigenous nations as the ultimate threat to the colonial project.

Quote:
"There's a racial slur in the Declaration of Independence." – Rebecca Nagle [18:36]

4. How Indian Affairs Drove the Revolution

[19:07–29:15]

• Interview with Ned Blackhawk (Western Shoshone; Yale historian)—the first tenured Native faculty at Yale.
• Ned reframes the familiar story: after Britain’s victory in the Seven Years’ War (the 'first world war'), colonists expect to expand into land "won" from France. However, Indigenous resistance (esp. Pontiac’s Uprising, 1763) leads Britain to bar westward settlement (the Proclamation Line), sparking colonial outrage.
• Gentry/speculators like George Washington lose money and opportunity for further land speculation.
• The first armed colonial rebellion was not over taxes or tea, but over stopping Britain from keeping peace (via trade and diplomacy) with Indigenous nations (e.g., the Black Boys uprising).

Quotes:

• "They are willing to die to stop the Crown from making peace with indigenous nations." – Rebecca Nagle [29:15]
• "That anthem calls Native peoples the enemies of mankind." – Unnamed Historian [29:35]
• "(Britain is) committing treason not to the Crown, but to humanity as a whole." – Unnamed Historian [30:00]

5. The Systemic Erasure—and What’s at Stake

[30:37–33:10]

• Nagle and Blackhawk lament that this crucial history (e.g., the Black Boys' rebellion) is absent from U.S. textbooks.
• Ned receives a souvenir Declaration shot glass. The moment becomes a metaphor: America’s history is usually "easily digestible, goes down smooth"—not reflective of brutal realities.
• Americans, Blackhawk warns, "are losing a real sense of understanding about our nation's past." [32:21]
• Without reckoning with the full scope of U.S. origins—including the violence against Native peoples—it is impossible to honestly understand our present.

Quote:
"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 [32:57]

6. Bringing the Past Into the Present

[33:10–34:13]

• Nagle is "mad" and "baffled" at the persistent erasure, given the evidence is right in the text of the Declaration.
• The episode ends by connecting dots: the tactics of state violence used against Indigenous people are now deployed against others (immigrants, dissenters), but have deep roots in American tradition.
• Calls out the folly of labeling recent state violence as “un-American,” when it is, in fact, foundational.

Quote:
"Our government has done this before. ...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." – Rebecca Nagle [34:17]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|--------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 04:37 | Nick Estes | "I'm assuming it's the descendants of those who experienced that genocide." | | 05:26 | Nick Estes | "There was a lot of malnutrition, purposeful starvation. ...It's a site of horrors." | | 11:44 | Nick Estes | "The murder of Renee Goode and the history of Fort Snelling are actually inseparable." | | 12:23 | Nick Estes | "150 years ago, they were hunting us down to kill us. And now they're hunting down immigrants to deport them." | | 18:27 | Reader/Declaration | "He has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages..." | | 18:36 | Rebecca Nagle | "There's a racial slur in the Declaration of Independence. Native people are called savages." | | 29:35 | Unnamed Historian | "That anthem calls Native peoples the enemies of mankind." | | 32:57 | 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."| | 34:17 | Rebecca Nagle | "...if we want to root that authoritarianism out, we have to know where and how it started." |

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Important Timestamps

• 02:23 – Arrival at Fort Snelling; discussion of its dual history as a sacred Dakota site and scene of atrocity
• 07:05 – ICE shooting of Renee Nicole Good; direct link to historic forced removals
• 10:16 – Protester links silence to historical atrocities
• 15:29 – Re-reading Declaration of Independence; laying out its actual grievances
• 18:27 – Declaration's explicit reference to “merciless Indian Savages”
• 21:44 – Ned Blackhawk reframes the Seven Years’ War as “the first World War”
• 27:13 – Exploration of land speculation and the colonists' economic motivations for rebellion
• 29:35 – “Enemies of mankind”: Discussion of anti-Indigenous ideology shaping colonial identity
• 32:57 – Ned Blackhawk on why understanding the full founding context is essential
• 34:13 – Nagle challenges the “un-American” framing of state violence

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Tone and Language

The conversation is urgent, personal, and incisive—balancing storytelling, historical deep-dive, and pointed commentary. Rebecca Nagle’s tone is both frustrated and determined; her guests, mostly Indigenous historians, bring scholarly gravity and lived experience. The show insists on clarity and specificity, especially around the violence of colonial settlement and state projects.

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Conclusion

“Merciless Indian Savages” methodically dismantles the sanitized origin story of the United States. By centering Native histories and voices, the episode exposes how the pursuit of Indigenous land was pivotal in sparking the Revolution, and how the logic of conquest and exclusion endures in contemporary policies. The call to action is clear: without reckoning with the truth—even the ugliest truths—America cannot hope to become what it claims to be.

---

Recommended for listeners interested in honest U.S. history, Native perspectives, and how the past is alive in today’s politics.

Transcript

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[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. Where do you want us to park?

[Unidentified Companion 1]

Should we park right here?

[Nick Estes]

I think you have to park in here.

[Unidentified Companion 1]

The Fort is that way.

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Nick Estes]

This is the historic Fort Snelling. Going to walk closer to it.

[Unidentified Interviewer 1]

Can you.

[Unidentified Companion 1]

Can you just describe what the fort looks like?

[Nick Estes]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Nick Estes]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Nick Estes]

There's like a healing site right over here.

[Rebecca Nagle]

It's next to an underpass, down a long set of stairs on the edge of the woods.

[Unidentified Companion 1]

Can you describe what the memorial looks like?

[Nick Estes]

Yeah. So it's a. 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.

[Unidentified Companion 1]

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

[Nick Estes]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Nick Estes]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Nick Estes]

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

[Unidentified Companion 1]

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.

[Unidentified Companion 1]

Hi.

[Ned Blackhawk]

Hello.

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Unidentified Companion 1]

Oh, okay.

[Rebecca Nagle]

I need a birch. When we were in the car, Nick's phone rang.

[Unidentified Companion 1]

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.

[Unidentified Companion 1]

Oh, God.

[Nick Estes]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

We parked and watched the video.

[Unidentified Companion 1]

Wow. Wow, that's awful.

[Ned Blackhawk]

That's awful.

[Rebecca Nagle]

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.

[Unidentified Companion 1]

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.

[Rebecca Nagle]

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 Daoton Jelecayatli 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.

[Unidentified Companion 1]

I go home.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Because Fort Snelling is also the site of ICE's headquarters in Minneapolis.

[Unidentified Interviewer 1]

I was curious why you guys came today? Because, I mean, you know, someone was looking, literally killed yesterday for standing up to ice. So is it scary to be here today, knowing the violence?

[Unidentified Protest Participant]

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.

[Unidentified Interviewer 1]

How.

[Unidentified Companion 1]

How far are we from the historic Fort Snelling?

[Unidentified Interviewee 1]

I'm just right across Highway 62 here.

[Unidentified Interviewer 1]

And do you know what happened there?

[Unidentified Interviewee 2]

Oh, no, no. Don't ask me those kinds of questions. I'm not good with history.

[Unidentified Companion 1]

It's a historic fort. It's historic.

[Unidentified Interviewer 1]

Yeah. Sorry to put you on the spot.

[Unidentified Interviewee 2]

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

[Unidentified Interviewer 1]

in 1860, was actually a concentration

[Unidentified Companion 1]

camp for Dakota people.

[Unidentified Interviewee 1]

Oh.

[Unidentified Interviewer 1]

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

[Unidentified Interviewee 2]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Nick Estes]

The murder of Renee 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 and 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.

[Unidentified Interviewee 1]

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, men, bayonets, and the twin speakers of the park services PA system. He began reading the Declaration of Independence.

[Unidentified Interviewee 1]

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.

[Unidentified Interviewee 1]

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

[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 that 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

[Unidentified Interviewee 1]

taxes on us without our consent.

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Unidentified Interviewee 1]

He has plundered our sea.

[Rebecca Nagle]

A lot of historians say that list has an order ravaged our coast. It starts with smaller grievances, burnt our towns, and ends with the biggest ones

[Unidentified Interviewee 1]

and destroyed 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.

[Unidentified Interviewee 1]

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

[Unidentified Interviewee 1]

merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished 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.

[Unidentified Companion 1]

And what's your tribal affiliation?

[Ned Blackhawk]

I'm Western Shoshani.

[Unidentified Companion 1]

And what do you do, Ned?

[Ned Blackhawk]

I teach history.

[Unidentified Companion 1]

Where?

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Unidentified Companion 1]

Wait, I just kind of want to back up, like, in the entire history

[Rebecca Nagle]

of Yale, you're the first native person to get tenure here?

[Ned Blackhawk]

Yes, and I'm still the first. So the only tenured faculty member?

[Unidentified Historian/Scholar]

Yes.

[Unidentified Companion 1]

Is it ever lonely?

[Ned Blackhawk]

Um,

[Rebecca Nagle]

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.

[Unidentified Historian/Scholar]

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 a new fort Boston town, England thinks it can push native nations around.

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Rebecca Nagle]

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

[Ned Blackhawk]

Pontiac is An Odawa leader, and he's fallen into close affinity with a preacher who's Delaware or Lenape, named Neolin. 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, but 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.

[Unidentified Historian/Scholar]

And one ball makes it over the fence. And so they ask if they could kind of get their ball returned. And so the fort officials are opening the doors to return the 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

[Unidentified Historian/Scholar]

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?

[Unidentified Companion 1]

Because, like, England is a global empire.

[Rebecca Nagle]

So why wouldn't the King of England

[Unidentified Companion 1]

want more land in North America?

[Unidentified Historian/Scholar]

Have you ever been to India?

[Unidentified Protest Participant]

No.

[Unidentified Historian/Scholar]

Have you heard of the Caribbean?

[Unidentified Companion 1]

Yes.

[Unidentified Historian/Scholar]

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.

[Unidentified Companion 1]

Is that because Barbados makes the Crown more money?

[Unidentified Historian/Scholar]

Correct. Because Barbados produces large quantities of slave produced 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 crest 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 most, more land.

[Unidentified Historian/Scholar]

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 because the

[Unidentified Companion 1]

fields are so depleted.

[Unidentified Historian/Scholar]

Because these 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, were 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, and supplies. This was how diplomacy between indigenous nations and European powers worked back then.

[Ned Blackhawk]

80 supplies of mule trains are coming. Massive actually logistical undertaking if you think about it. At Pittsburgh awaits these traders 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 with indigenous nations. And we know why they are willing to die for this cause, because they wrote a song about it.

[Unidentified Historian/Scholar]

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.

[Unidentified Historian/Scholar]

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.

[Unidentified Companion 1]

What does that line mean?

[Unidentified Historian/Scholar]

It means that the British trading policies of supplying Native peoples are supporting the enemies of not just settler society, but mankind more broadly. That 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.

[Unidentified Historian/Scholar]

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 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.

[Unidentified Historian/Scholar]

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?

[Unidentified Companion 1]

You may or may not want it.

[Unidentified Historian/Scholar]

Declaration of Independence Shot glass. Thank you so much.

[Unidentified Companion 1]

What does it say?

[Ned Blackhawk]

We the people.

[Unidentified Companion 1]

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

[Unidentified Historian/Scholar]

I wanted to say something that is

[Ned Blackhawk]

easily digestible goes down smooth.

[Unidentified Historian/Scholar]

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 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

[Unidentified Companion 1]

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

[Unidentified Historian/Scholar]

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. 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

[Spin Quest Announcer]

is fundamentally un American. 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. Coming up on this season of First America.

[Unidentified Interviewer 1]

Are you guys big Chiefs fans?

[Ned Blackhawk]

Hell, yeah.

[Spin Quest Announcer]

Yes.

[Rebecca Nagle]

Chiefs on three.

[Mint Mobile Announcer]

One, two, three.

[Unidentified Interviewer 1]

Chief.

[Unidentified Companion 1]

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

[Unidentified Interviewer 1]

Maybe.

[Unidentified Companion 1]

I don't really think so.

[Ned Blackhawk]

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

[Unidentified Companion 1]

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.

[Capella University Announcer]

It's not.

[Unidentified Companion 1]

It's not a new thing. This is what we've done. We're good at this.

[Rebecca Nagle]

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 Barol Sioux Tribe. I, Rebecca Nagle, citizen of Cherokee Nation, also reported, wrote, hosted and executive produced the show. First America is produced by Critical Frequency and distributed by Pushkin Industries. Our Managing producer is Amy Westervelt, Senior Producer and Sound Designer is Brendan Baker. Our Story Editor is Audrey Quinn. Jules Bradley, Kim Netter, V. Petersa and Jordan Gas Pore are our producers. Our Editorial consultant is Connie Walker, citizen of the Ookanese First Nation. Fact checking by Naomi Barr. Our partnership's director is Lindsey Crowder. Our Development Consultant is Jenny Lawton. Our theme song is by Raven Chukan, who is Danae scoring by Laura Ortman, citizen of the White Mountain Apache Tribe and Raven 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 of Marketing Owen Miller, Content Delivery Associate Kyra Posey, Creative partnerships manager Jordan McMillan, social media manager Brian Strabanek, Senior Analytics Manager and Jake Flanagan, Production Counsel.

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