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If you are a listener of History This Week, you know that we examine the moments and decisions that have shaped not only history, but our perspectives on the world. There is a new podcast called First America that does something similar, focusing specifically on how the country's founders' treatment of indigenous nations and their resistance shaped U.S. democracy. As the United States reaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, First America asks a deceptively simple question. What if the story we've been told about the American Revolution is incomplete? We've learned that the revolution was fought over taxation and representation. But when you actually read the Declaration, the last grievance is about Native people. He has excited the merciless Indian savages, it reads, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions. Why have Indigenous people been pushed to the margins of the American origin story when they were so central to it? Alongside leading Native historians, First America host Rebecca Nagel, an Indigenous author and the former host of Crooked's This Land podcast, looks at the real story of why the colonists rebelled, what kind of government they created, and, crucially, how the forces that shaped America 250 years ago are still shaping it today. Here's episode one, where Rebecca sits down with historian Ned Blackhawk, Western Shoshone, to talk about how hunger for indigenous land drove the revolution. You can find more episodes of First America wherever you get podcasts.

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

I think you have to park in here. The port is that way? Yeah, the port's that way.

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

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

Can you just describe what the fort looks like?

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

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.

This is a sacred site for Dakota people, which was later appropriated by the U.S. military to build their fort. So, look at that bald eagle. Told you we were going to 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.

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.

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

Can you describe what the memorial looks like?

Yeah, so it's like a camp circle, but in the center it looks like there's prayer ties, sage, tobacco, etc. wrapped in cloth.

And there are also prayer ties in the trees that surround us.

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

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

Over 1,600 Dakota people were held here during the winter of 1862.

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

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.

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.

do you think most people who come to this spot do you think that they come here to honor the

atrocity that happened here 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

while we were standing there some hikers walked by Hi. 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. I think I should just go up here. Uh-oh, okay, I need a merge. When we were in the car, Nick's phone rang.

My wife called me, somebody got shot.

He pulled up the news on his phone.

Breaking witnesses report. A woman was shot in the face by ICE while trying to flee in central Minneapolis.

Earlier that day, a woman named Renee Nicole Good had tried to block ICE agents with her car. An agent had just shot and killed her.

Damn, the photos are really bad. Oh, God. It looks like a deployed airbag. It's just covered in blood.

We parked and watched the video. Wow. Wow. That's awful. That's awful. When I was in Minneapolis last January, thousands of ICE agents were on the ground.

It's in like a residential neighborhood.

Federal agents had been rounding people up, including children, and sending them to detention facilities. People were afraid to leave their homes. Parents stopped sending their kids to school. It's interesting given what we were talking about this morning of the history. of Dakota people being rounded up and violently forced out of Minnesota. When I started this project, I thought I was making a history podcast. I read books, I interviewed historians, I went to important sites, I traveled across the country. But then this thing kept happening. I would be in a place, learning about America's past, And then the same thing would happen right here in our present. You're listening to First America, the true story of how the United States came to be and how our current political moment is 250 years in the making. From Pushkin Industries and Critical Frequency, I'm your host, Rebecca Nagel. 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.

Renee Nicole Good! Renee Nicole Good!

The next morning, there was a protest back at Fort Snelling. because Fort Snelling is also the site of ICE's headquarters in Minneapolis.

I was curious why you guys came today, because, I mean, you know, someone was literally killed yesterday for standing up to ICE, so is it scary to be here today, knowing the violence?

Yes, it's scary, and I'm angry, and the anger overcomes the fear. I have a good friend, and she lived in Denmark during the German occupation, And she has told me over and over again, you cannot be quiet. You must stand up because silence is what allowed this to happen in the Second World War.

How far are we from the historic Fort Snelling?

I'm just right across Highway 62 here.

And do you know what happened there?

Oh, no, no, don't ask me those kinds of questions. I'm not good with history. It's a historic fort. It's historic.

Yeah, I'm sorry to put you on the spot.

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

The fort in the 1860s is actually a concentration camp for Dakota people. I'm just curious if any of that history feels relevant to what's happening now. Yes, clearly, you know.

But I mean, our state, I mean, just, I, yeah, I mean, what's, I mean, you watch that video. Thank God that person was there taking the video on their cell phone yesterday. So everyone can see what happened, you know.

After leaving the protests, I went back to see Nick Estes at his office.

the murder of renee good and the history of fort snelling are actually inseparable first of all ice is headquartered on the fort snelling area campus do you know if that's because it's federal land yeah it's it's headquartered there because it's federal land and why is it federal land it's federal land because it was once a military reservation from the zebulon pike Treaty of 1805. And that was a treaty signed between some Dakota leaders and the United

States government to create a military outpost. It's not just the same place. The same thing

is happening. 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.

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

A little look behind the scenes. Producing history this week, some weeks, eats my whole schedule. And Instacart is how I survive it. It connects you with thousands of stores. In as fast as 30 minutes, you can have quality groceries delivered right to your door. Last week is a perfect example. I was locked in on sound design. Headphones on, mixing some music under a scene. Finally in the zone when everything clicks, that flow state, and the last thing you want to do is break the spell. Problem was, my fridge was basically empty and I hadn't eaten all day. But instead of stopping to run to the store, I opened Instacart, picked out fresh produce,

Cold brew, real dinner for the night. Kept working, never took the headphones off, and a little while later, it was all at my door. Quality I'd have picked myself. No hours lost. If I can get time back to focus on what matters, working on a show like this, that's a game changer. Instacart brings convenience, quality, and ease right to your door, so you can focus on what matters most. Download the Instacart app now and get groceries just how you like.

it's Jill Schlesinger. I'm launching a new show. It's called Money Moves, and your money is going to move. We're going to help you make better financial decisions. We're going to call out the BS you're finding all over social media. We're going to give you actionable guidance to make your financial life clearer, less stressful. We're going to answer your financial questions and take the mystery out of your financial life. Follow and listen to Money Moves with Jill Schlesinger, wherever you get your podcasts.

At California Closets, we design for the little things. Take this moment of a family getting ready to leave the house.

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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.

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

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

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.

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.

The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations.

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 taxes on us without our consent.

And so the Declaration is basically this long list of complaints. He has plundered our seats. — And that list has an order. — Ravits our coast. — It starts with smaller grievances. — Burnt our towns. — And ends with the biggest ones.

— And destroyed the lives of our people.

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.

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

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 merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare...

There is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions. 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 hi i'm ned blackhawk i went to connecticut to find out and uh what's your tribal affiliation i'm western shoshone and

uh what do you do ned i teach history where yo university i was the first tenured american indian

to teach at yale wait i just kind of want to back up like in the entire history of yale you're the first Native person to get tenure here?

Yes, and I'm still the first.

Still the only?

Tenured faculty member, yes.

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

No, it is the First World War.

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.

All across British North America, colonists are rejoicing. Sermons are being offered in Sundays. 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. 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.

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

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. Pontiac is an Adawa 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. Because once they start reimagining themselves in these ways, they decide that they're going to drive the English.

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.

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 a flood of warriors come in and destroy the fort.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Okay. Have you ever been to India?

No.

Have you heard of the Caribbean?

Yes.

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.

Is that because Barbados makes the crown more money?

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

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.

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

Mountains. The crown promises to keep settlers off their land. So everything east is British

North America, everything to the West is to be reserved for the Indians.

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.

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 fields are so depleted. Because the fields have become

so depleted. 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.

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

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.

And 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?

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

80 supply 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.

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

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

They're not attacking indigenous people. The Black Boys are attacking British troops.

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

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 for making peace with indigenous nations. And we know why they are willing to die for this cause, because they wrote a song about it.

The Black boys create an anthem, and that anthem calls Native peoples the enemies of mankind.

I asked Ned to read part of it for me.

On March the 5th 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.

What does that line mean?

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

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.

I do believe that 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 in Pennsylvania before it's happening in Massachusetts.

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

And to my knowledge, that Black boy's history that we've been discussing has yet to appear in any U.S. history textbook. So, why we can't tell that story is a mystery to me.

Before I left Yale, I gave Ned a present.

You want me to open this? Yeah.

You may or may not want it.

Declaration of Independence shot glass. Thank you so much.

What does it say?

We the people.

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

I wanted to say something that is easily digestible.

Goes down smooth.

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

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

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

I'm mad that Native people have been written out of the story of the revolution. But I'm also baffled by it. I mean, it's kind of wild, right? It's not like you have to dig through the archives to find out that hunger for indigenous land drove the revolution. It's right there, in the Declaration of Independence. in one of our country's most famous documents, in one of the most famous documents in all of human history. But somehow no one knows about it? It 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 U.S. 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 is fundamentally un-American. This is just so un-American.

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.

Are you guys big Chiefs fans? Hell yeah, yes. Chiefs on three. One, two, three.

Chiefs!

I feel like that's going to happen a lot.

Do Native Americans still exist? Maybe. I don't really think so.

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.

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.

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

If you like what you're hearing, please leave a review. It's one of the best ways to help listeners find this show. You can also support First America by subscribing or sharing episodes with your friends. First America was made possible by the generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation and the NYU-Yale American Indian Sovereignty Project. Additional support came from Indian Collective, First Nations Development Institute, Yahavia Tam of San Manuel Nation, Borealis Philanthropy, and Black Liberation Indigenous Sovereignty Collective. Our fiscal sponsor is Red Media. I dreamed this project into the world in collaboration with an amazing group of Indigenous scholars, including Maggie Blackhawk, Fond du Lac Ojibwe, Ned Blackhawk, citizen of the Team Oak Tribe of Western Shoshone, Phil Deloria, descendant of the Standing Rock and Yankton Sioux Tribes, and Nick Estes, citizen of the Lower Brule 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 Nader-Vay-Petersa, and Jordan Gaspour are our producers. Our editorial consultant is Connie Walker, citizen of the Okanese First Nation. Fact-checking by Naomi Barr. Our partnerships director is Lindsay Crowder. Our theme song is by Raven Chacon, who is Denae. Scoring by Laura Ortman, citizen of the White Mountain Apache Tribe, and Raven Chacon. 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 Strabinick, Senior Analytics Manager, and Jake Flanagan, Production Counsel.

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