Merciless Indian Savages | First America

Summary

About this episode

<p>There's a sentence in the Declaration of Independence that almost no one talks about. It's the last grievance: &ldquo;He has excited the merciless Indian Savages&rdquo;, it reads, "whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions." We&rsquo;ve all been told the American Revolution was fought over taxation and representation. But that's not what the Declaration of Independence says. According to our founders, what they were most upset about was Native Americans. How did we miss that?</p> <p>That's the question at the heart of a new Pushkin podcast called First America. It&rsquo;s hosted by Rebecca Nagle, an Indigenous author and the host of Crooked&rsquo;s This Land podcast. First America reveals the true story of how the United States came to be, and how our current political moment is 250 years in the making. It unveils how the founders&rsquo; treatment of Indigenous nations&mdash;and their resistance&mdash;shaped US democracy.&nbsp;</p> <p>Here's episode 1. Rebecca sits down with historian Ned Blackhawk (Western Shoshone) to talk about how hunger for Indigenous land drove the Revolution.&nbsp;<a href="http://lnk.to/FAPushkin">Find more episodes of First America wherever you get podcasts</a>.</p><p>See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.</p>

Key Insights

• The Declaration of Independence explicitly names Indigenous peoples as the primary grievance against King George III, calling them 'merciless Indian savages,' yet this has been systematically omitted from how Americans are taught their founding document for 250 years.
• The American Revolution's true catalyst was colonial anger at the Crown's peace treaty (Proclamation Line of 1763) with Pontiac's Indigenous confederation, which restricted westward expansion and land speculation—not taxation grievances as conventionally taught.
• Colonial militias known as the Black Boys attacked British troops three years before the Boston Tea Party specifically to prevent trade and peace-making with Indigenous nations, framing Indigenous destruction as ideologically central to American identity formation.
• Britain's peace with Indigenous nations was motivated by imperial economics: the crown prioritized profits from Caribbean sugar and slave labor over North American expansion, making conflict avoidance financially rational for the global empire.
• Fort Snelling exemplifies how sites of Indigenous genocide have been transformed into casual recreation spaces and tourist attractions where visitors participate in winter sports unaware that 1,600 Dakota people were imprisoned, starved, and executed there during winter 1862.
• The same federal land (Fort Snelling) now hosts ICE headquarters, making the location a continuity of historical Indigenous removal and contemporary immigrant detention, both rooted in violent expulsion policies.
• Contemporary statements that current US government actions are 'fundamentally un-American' misdiagnose the problem, as detention, forced removal, and extrajudicial killing of designated groups represent core continuities in American policy rather than aberrations.
• Ned Blackhawk argues that Indigenous hatred provided colonial cohesion before independence was ideologically defined, with anti-Indigenous sentiment appearing in Revolutionary-era rhetoric before egalitarian Enlightenment ideals were articulated in founding documents.

Topics

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