WEBVTT - It Happened Here | Episode 3 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.279 Rebecca and Nagel. Here before we get into this episode, 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:05.200 I wanted to let you know that you can hear 0:00:05.280 --> 0:00:09.639 episodes of First America early and ad free by signing 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:14.480 up for Pushkin Plus. You'll also get bonus episodes, full audiobooks, 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:18.000 and other binges from your favorite Pushkin hosts and authors. 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:21.680 Find Pushkin Plus on the First America Show page on 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:27.120 Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot fm slash Plus. Let's 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:31.160 get into it. Just a heads up before we get started. 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:36.120 This episode includes descriptions of violence against Indigenous people. Please 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:43.200 take care while you listen. You see, ANSWER's a spot 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:46.080 full over like right here. 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:48.640 I think I'm all the way off through. 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:58.120 Yeah, all right, okay. This past fall I drove with 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:01.440 my producer Jordan to a small time in eastern Tennessee. 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:06.000 All right, so where are we right now? We are 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:11.880 in a bend of the Highwaha River. We're kind of 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:16.440 in the middle of someone's farm. He's actually on the 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:19.800 tractor right now, farming. There's a horse and a donkey 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:23.920 and a bunch of farm equipment, and you can see 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:27.440 a really beautiful hill in the distance that I think 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:29.880 is on the other side of the river. So we're 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:33.560 like walking distance from the river. It is just kind 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:37.240 of wild. Like even the person is farming right now 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:41.320 we are talking, may not know the story of this land. 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:46.280 Yeah, hi, yeah, that is. 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:54.680 We're just recording some tape for a podcast. A man 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:58.280 in short sleeves, jeans, and a baseball cap climbed off 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:01.200 his tractor to come and talk to us. Where he 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:04.120 was friendly. Yeah, we're talking about the history of the 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:07.560 Trail of Tears in the area. We're recording a podcast. 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:09.440 Sorry to pull you a hat a tractor. 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:12.320 Yeah, actually, where I live at that's part of it, 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:15.400 up our Trail tears. Oh wow, there got in on 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:16.600 that river up in there. 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:19.000 He told me he knows this land was part of 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:19.920 the Trail of Tears. 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:23.480 Well, the Indians they lived up our tea because I've 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:26.160 got a garden up there, and I picked up stuff 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:29.440 up our old town to our own heads and hatchets 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:33.239 and meal rocks and stuff, you know, to mat Every 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:37.200 time I pick up one, I think, oh, gosh, how 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:38.120 many years ago? 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:41.840 Yeah, how long ago? We're just recording about some of 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:42.840 the history in the area. 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:46.280 So picking up the Indian arrow around there all my life? 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:48.120 Oh really, how long have you lived here. 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:52.560 Well, I'm sixty five horn raids up here working a 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:54.560 far Am. I actually live up on up the river 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:55.120 road up. 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:58.000 Far Okay, Yeah, well I don't mean to take you 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:01.160 away from plowing your field and bothering you. 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:06.000 But yeah, we're just she's talking about. 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:07.200 Oh, that's all gonna be tulips. You guys are gonna 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:08.560 do a little tulip farm. 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:10.799 Right over thirteen by out. 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:14.919 Wow, that'll be really pretty come back in the. 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:17.799 Spring, fell out. 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:29.440 What are your thoughts and feelings being here, because like 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:33.560 they're putting gonna put toolips fly. How is this speaking 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:39.240 you feel? I mean, it's just a really heavy place. Yeah, 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:44.520 it's just a really heavy place if you ask like 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:48.160 the average American. Has the United States ever had a 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:53.680 concentration camp on us soil? I don't think people would 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:59.760 think of this place. In eighteen thirty eight, this was 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.880 part of Fort casts, which was a concentration camp where 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:08.800 Cherokees were kept the United States federal government and also 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:12.000 the states here in the South. They wanted all indigenous 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:17.160 people in the Southeast to be gone. My family has 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:21.160 a complicated relationship to this place. Some of my ancestors 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:24.880 signed Cherokee Nation's Removal Treaty. They thought it was the 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:29.560 tribe's best chance at survival, but most Cherokees didn't agree. 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:33.560 The treaty set a deadline for Cherokees to leave their homeland, 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:37.640 and so the US military rounded them all up at gunpoint. 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:42.680 Seven thousand soldiers and militiamen went out into all of 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:47.240 the Cherokee towns and it took twenty five days for 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:50.799 them to round everybody up and put them into concentration camps. 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:55.520 People weren't allowed to collect possessions, so people weren't allowed 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:59.080 to even like find loved ones. There was a pregnant 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:03.440 woman who was actually in labor, so they drove her 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:06.240 from one of the remote valley towns in North Carolina 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:10.000 and forced her to walk, and she gave birth and 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:12.920 they would still not let her rest, and then close 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:14.239 to this place she died. 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:15.760 That's horrifying. 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:19.120 Yeah. I think when people think about the Trail of Tears, 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:22.080 they're like, oh, it was violent because people had to 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:25.200 walk a long distance. But actually the most violent part 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:30.440 of our removal was in the camps. Disease was really rampant. 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:33.800 And I think disease is this stand in for like 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:36.560 why Native people died in a way that lets the 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:40.080 United States off the hook, but often it was the 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:45.760 violence and the disease worked hand in hand. Yeah, I 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:55.200 don't know, it's really heavy. Uh yeah. I think what 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:56.680 strikes me is. 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:04.719 Just how deeply you can feel the collective forgetting of 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:12.240 what happened here, that it's just like a field and 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:13.599 a subdivision. 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:17.280 Yeah. 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:20.080 Yeah. When I started this project, I was on a 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:24.400 quest of sorts. I wanted to answer a question. It's 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:28.640 a big question but also kind of simple. How do 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:34.080 I fit? How do Native people fit an American democracy? 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:41.200 You know, like what democracy rounds an entire ethnic group 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:44.839 up at gunpoint and puts them into a concentration camp. 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:02.240 You're listening to First America, the true story of how 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:05.039 the United States came to be and how our current 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:07.640 political moment is two hundred and fifty years in the 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:11.559 making from Pushkin Industries and Critical Frequency. I'm your host, 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:16.280 Rebecca Nagle Gohein d'Al don de leca Yetlekee La citizen 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:24.680 of Cherokee, Nesian. Before I made this history podcast, I 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:28.040 reported on the Supreme Court. I followed one case where 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:31.440 my tribe could have lost our reservation and another one 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:34.560 where all tribes could have lost the special legal status 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:38.880 that protects everything from our land to our kids. During 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:45.040 that reporting, I traveled to DC to attend oral arguments. 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:47.720 It was the first time I stepped inside the Supreme 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:51.520 Court building. The room was full of Native people who 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:55.160 traveled thousands of miles to come watch. They had lined 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:58.280 up before dawn to get a seat. To enter the courtroom, 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:01.320 we had to go through security twice. A guard made 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:04.600 one Native woman put a t shirt over her traditional clothes, 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:07.880 otherwise she'd have to leave. One of the guards. 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:10.680 She was like, listen, like political attire isn't allowed, and 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:12.400 I told her. I was like, this is my culture, 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:16.120 this is my religious fact, this is my traditional attire. 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:21.160 I sat behind more senior white Supreme Court reporters. I 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:24.600 watched two of them walk past a security guard yelling 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:28.360 at them to stop. They just ignored her. Before the 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:31.440 proceedings started, I stood up to get a look around 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:34.640 the room. I was told to sit down. When the 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:39.199 white reporter stood up. No one said anything. A big 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:43.240 part of our democracy and especially our courts, is this 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:47.800 idea of fairness. In this case about Native rights, it 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:50.800 felt like the perfect example of how the rules aren't 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:54.120 the same for everyone. We will hear argument this morning 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:57.920 and Colin versus Brecking and the consolidated cases. Mister McGill, 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.520 that day of oral argument was one of those fourteen 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:04.440 hour days that started before the sun came up and 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:07.960 ended after it went down. When I was finally walking 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:12.120 back to my hotel, I got lost. I was too 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:16.520 tired to navigate the maze of DC streets. I sat 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:20.200 down on the steps of a manicured office building and cried. 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:24.960 I had thought my job was to fix the inn 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:29.120 accurate and let's be real racist media narrative around these 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:32.640 important cases. I wanted the Supreme Court to not harm 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:37.080 my community, or at least harm it less. But what 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:41.240 I felt in those sobs was powerless. As Native people, 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:46.280 we were still defending such basic things, power over our land, 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:49.400 over our children, and we had to jump through so 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:53.560 many hoops to even do that, and that question of 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:58.160 how Native people fit into US democracy. I didn't have 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:02.560 the words for exactly what, but I knew something was wrong. 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:08.200 The past two episodes, we talked about the lead up 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:11.920 to the Revolutionary War. We talked about the Boston Tea Party, 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:16.120 the Declaration of Independence, and why the colonists rebelled. In 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:20.880 this episode, we are looking at the war itself as 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:23.160 a country. We talk about the war as if it 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:26.480 was fought between England and the colonies. It's a story 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:29.560 of David standing up to Goliath and we get to 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:33.360 be David like everyone else. That's the story I learned 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:36.080 in school, but as an adult I found out that 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:37.040 story was wrong. 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:40.280 Turn left onto Great Gully Road, so it's supposed to 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:45.559 be at this stood there, look up here. 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:49.320 That's the site of Cayuga Castle, New York ninety and 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:53.000 Great Gully Road. I was looking for a historical marker. 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:56.200 We didn't see the marker from the car, so we 0:10:56.280 --> 0:11:03.360 got out and walked around. What's the weather like today? 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:11.200 Balmy is beautiful upstate New York day. It is heavy 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:14.839 and gray, as it usually is this time in November. 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:18.439 This is Scott Manning Stevens, which. 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:22.679 Is my settler name. Golognok Dat is my Mohawk name. 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:27.560 I'm a citizen of the aquesesessin Mohawk Nation and a 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:28.640 member of the Bear Clan. 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:32.480 He's the director of Native American and Indigenous Studies at 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:37.720 Syracuse University in New York. Scott's tribe the Mohawk is 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:42.400 part of a larger indigenous confederacy, and that confederacy played 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:46.840 a big role in the Revolutionary War. You've probably heard 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:49.960 of them as the Iroquois, but that's just what the 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:50.840 French called them. 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:56.960 We call ourselves collectively the hode Noshone, which means people 0:11:57.040 --> 0:11:58.080 of the long House. 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:02.160 The confederacy was a only made up of five tribes. 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:07.160 So starting with the Mohawk, then the Oneida, the Onondaga 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:11.120 in the center, the Cayuga, and then the Seneca. 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:14.679 The tribes came together under a peace agreement around one 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:18.040 thousand years ago. Many consider the hoden Schone one of 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:21.760 the oldest democracies on Earth. It's four times older than 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:23.559 the United States. 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:25.079 Isn't like popular with the pigeons. 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:27.600 Scott and I were standing on the side of a 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:31.160 two lane highway. We still hadn't found the marker, but 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:35.240 from Google Maps we knew we were close. This place 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:39.200 that's now fields and farmland and highway was once the 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:42.680 capital of Cayuga Nation, one of the tribes in the 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:47.240 hoden Schone Confederacy. So if you were to like close 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:49.560 your eyes and like imagine what this would have looked 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:54.319 like in seventeen seventy eight, like, can you describe it beautiful? 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:58.320 I love the finger legs of these really, you know, 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:02.000 they're quite long but thin, so you can see across 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:07.000 them easily, and I find them kind of serene. It 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:11.320 would have been forested in some places, and farmland and others. 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:17.280 There'd be a number of large, traditional style long houses. 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:22.199 Can you describe what would have happened here in seventeen 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:23.240 seventy nine? 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:28.439 I imagine just chaos. If we assume that troops behaved 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:32.360 the way that Washington urged them to behave to come 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:38.760 shrieking in with bayonets drawn into a village to terrify 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:42.200 the population. It had to be utterly terrifying. And they're 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:45.520 you know, they're burning and lane waste to everything. 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:50.920 During the Revolutionary War, part of the hoden Shone Confederacy 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:54.680 sided with the Americans, but a bigger part sided with 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:57.400 the British. A few years into the war, a group 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:02.160 of British troops and Mohawk warriors attacked colonists. George Washington 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:07.280 ordered a scorched earth campaign as retribution. General John Sullivan 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:11.480 led the campaign. He used an entire third of Washington's 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:15.680 army to destroy dozens of hoden Shone towns. His men 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:19.880 targeted food so that the people would starve. The army 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:24.360 would spend days slashing and burning acres of corn. Then 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:27.640 they would pile the bushels into houses and set it 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:32.280 all on fire. They destroyed over eleven million pounds of 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:37.480 corn this way. The army also killed hundreds of civilians. 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:42.400 In one early massacre, militiamen speared children with bayonets. 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:47.520 So you were running for your lives and you saw 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:50.600 behind you everything you knew being burned down. 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:55.040 More than five thousand refugees of Sullivan's campaign made it 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:58.600 to Fort Niagara, which was still controlled by the British. 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:02.160 The British wouldn't let the refugees inside the fort, and 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:05.240 so they camped around it. The British gave them food, 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:08.120 but not enough for people to survive. 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:12.560 And probably, you know, five hundred or more are dead 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:13.360 by the spring. 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:19.720 Some historians estimate that during Sullivan's campaign, between direct killing, exposure, 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:23.360 and malnutrition, half of all hood and Shone people died. 0:15:24.040 --> 0:15:28.320 Do historians consider Sullivan's campaign an act of genocide? 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:31.440 I mean we we do. 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:37.960 Scott and I got back in his car and kept 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:42.400 looking for that historical marker, like often happens, we were close. 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:45.960 It was a few hundred yards down the road. We 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:48.760 pulled over on a little patch of dirt and got out. 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:50.720 Can you describe what it looks like? 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:56.640 So it's an almost six foot tall upright stone and 0:15:56.800 --> 0:16:00.640 it has a bronze plaque. But the is a map 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:05.040 of this region of central New York and the various 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:11.800 routes that the soldiers took and attacking the different Hodnashoni 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:13.480 communities across the region. 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:19.280 What does it feel like to see a monument celebrating that. 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:23.400 Well, it's a bitter thing, and you know, it would 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:26.760 be hard to imagine this in a country like Germany 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:31.360 today because it would be read as genocidal and like, oh, 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:35.120 we should take that down. This kind of desire to 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:39.920 utterly destroy a people is something that you wouldn't think 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:42.360 would be easily celebrated. 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:57.920 Some people might say what happened to the Hodenshone during 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:02.600 the Revolutionary War, while horrific and tragic, is just part 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:07.399 of what happened during war. After all, they attacked colonial 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:13.240 settlements too. But during this period, colonial militias attacked native 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:17.360 communities that were neutral or allied with the United States 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:22.760 communities that were peaceful. One of those communities was called 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:26.639 Not in Hunton. It was a congregation of Lenapes and 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:31.840 Mohicans who had converted to Christianity through German missionaries. In 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:36.520 seventeen eighty two, after warriors from a different tribe killed 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:41.200 and captured some colonists, the militia of Washington County, Pennsylvania 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:47.600 went to investigate Not in Hutton. When the militiamen reached 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:50.800 the area, they told the congregation they just wanted to 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:53.240 take them to a nearby fort where they would be 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:58.159 safe from the British. The congregation was cautious, but eventually 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:01.080 opened their doors and even off for the militia food. 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:06.159 The militia separated the men and women into two buildings 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:09.600 and tied everyone up, and then they took a vote. 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:13.360 Would they take the captives to the fort or would 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:19.160 they kill them. The militiamen chose slaughter, knowing they would 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:22.440 die the next day. The Christian natives spent the night 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:27.920 singing hymns. Both this German sect of Christianity and Lenape 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:31.679 and Mohican cultures had songs for death and believed that 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:37.320 singing them aided spirits in their passage. The militiamen spent 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:41.840 the night drinking communion wine and preparing two killing houses, 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:47.600 one for men and one for women and children. In 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:51.920 the morning, the militia took congregation members into the killing houses, 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.919 two at a time. They used a large wooden and 0:18:56.040 --> 0:19:00.280 metal mallet made to pound iron to kill each person 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:03.800 with a blow to the head. Then they scalped and 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:11.040 piled the bodies. We know what happened, thinks in part 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:16.719 to two children who survived. One named Thomas, was knocked 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:21.720 unconscious and scalped by the militia members. He awoke to 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:27.679 dead friends and family members being stacked around him. He 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:32.439 didn't move As it got dark, he hid behind the 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:38.280 house and then escaped to another village. Before the militiaman left, 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:41.760 they burned the bodies of all the townspeople and the 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:45.720 buildings they had killed and stacked them in. They looted 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:49.359 and ransacked the town, and then they left with what 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:57.000 they had taken horses, blankets, food, and the scalps of 0:19:57.080 --> 0:20:03.919 thirty men, thirty two women, and thirty four children. Congress 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:07.639 and the state of Pennsylvania ordered an investigation, but no 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:27.920 one was ever held accountable. The un defines genocide as 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:31.159 the intent to destroy a group of people in whole 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:34.680 or in part. The term was coined in the nineteen forties, 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:39.560 but has been applied to historical events. The popular story 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:43.359 of the Revolutionary War is wrong. It wasn't just a 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:47.720 fight for liberty and freedom or even independence. It was 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:51.679 also a sprawling conflict over who would control the continent 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:56.000 of North America, and to stake out their claim, the 0:20:56.119 --> 0:21:00.000 United States was willing to commit unspeakable acts of violence. 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:00.359 Lens. 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:04.440 It's a big shift and how we talk about this war, 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:07.160 and how we think about it, and how we teach 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:12.439 it to our children. The Revolutionary War was also a 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:18.639 campaign of genocide. When I started seeing the revolution this way, 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:22.720 I stop asking how do I fit into this democracy 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:27.000 and started asking a different question, one that has broader 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:32.800 implications and higher stakes and is frankly just scary. Is 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:40.159 this even a democracy? Was it ever? That answer? After 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:49.520 the break in this quest to figure out us democracy? 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:52.119 I decided I needed to talk to an expert. The 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:54.120 first thing we're going to do is just get your level, 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.639 someone who understands the structure of our government better than 0:21:57.680 --> 0:21:59.080 I do. Can you just tell me what you had 0:21:59.080 --> 0:21:59.760 for breakfast. 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:03.280 The awkward thing is I haven't yet had breakfast. I 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:07.360 had coffee. It's been that kind of a day. 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:10.480 And so I sat down with a constitutional law professor. 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:16.199 Yes, I am Maggie Blackhawk. I teach law at NYU 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:20.119 Law School, and I'm Fondeleac band a Jibwei. Should I 0:22:20.119 --> 0:22:24.160 say my formal title, I'm Maggie Blackhawk and the Moses Grossman, 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:26.439 Professor of Law at NYU Law School. 0:22:29.080 --> 0:22:32.520 I've known Maggie for years. She's really helped me shape 0:22:32.560 --> 0:22:35.639 how I think about these issues, and so first I 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:39.160 wanted to get her take on my original question, how 0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:44.600 do Native people fit into US democracy. I'm a citizen 0:22:44.640 --> 0:22:47.439 of the United States, but I'm also a citizen of 0:22:47.520 --> 0:22:51.359 Cherokee Nation, and my tribe has a nation to nation 0:22:51.560 --> 0:22:54.760 relationship with the federal government that's based on the treaties 0:22:54.760 --> 0:22:58.520 that we signed. I feel like I've had as like 0:22:58.560 --> 0:23:02.960 a Native person when I think about my relationship to 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:05.560 the government, like I have that relationship as an individual, 0:23:05.800 --> 0:23:09.160 but then I also have a relationship through my tribal nation. 0:23:09.480 --> 0:23:10.880 But what relationship is that. 0:23:13.600 --> 0:23:15.920 Like between Cherokee Nation, between. 0:23:15.600 --> 0:23:17.840 You and your tribal nation and the United States what 0:23:18.080 --> 0:23:21.159 is that relationship? If you had to put. 0:23:21.040 --> 0:23:30.720 A word on it, Oh god, I mean old what 0:23:30.800 --> 0:23:38.720 about now? I mean, I guess that would be nation 0:23:38.840 --> 0:23:42.400 to nation. I mean, it's like France to the United States. 0:23:42.560 --> 0:23:45.480 But we're subordinated like you are. 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:49.240 And it's a big word, subordinated. You're unequal, you're you know, 0:23:49.320 --> 0:23:52.400 but what would you call it? I know you want 0:23:52.400 --> 0:23:55.159 to call it government to government, and you know, but 0:23:55.240 --> 0:23:57.440 when I press on that, it doesn't quite fair. 0:23:57.480 --> 0:24:00.240 I mean, it's you know, it's a relationship of like 0:24:00.280 --> 0:24:02.840 the people who've been colonized to the people who colonize. 0:24:02.880 --> 0:24:06.719 They go, We've got a word, but it took a 0:24:06.760 --> 0:24:10.320 long time. And if you actually ask most Native people, okay, 0:24:10.359 --> 0:24:12.879 what's the relationship, they will stumble over it. 0:24:13.080 --> 0:24:15.080 But I think it's just because it's so hard to 0:24:15.160 --> 0:24:17.520 say that, like, because I think we want to, like 0:24:18.480 --> 0:24:23.680 we want to assert the sovereignty that we still have. 0:24:25.640 --> 0:24:30.000 What Maggie got me to say is this, my relationship 0:24:30.040 --> 0:24:33.720 to the federal government is that it colonized me and 0:24:33.800 --> 0:24:38.280 my tribe. It's hard to admit, but that's how I 0:24:38.359 --> 0:24:43.359 fit into us democracy. I think that's what I felt 0:24:43.400 --> 0:24:46.399 that day at the Supreme Court before I had words 0:24:46.440 --> 0:24:50.760 for it that despite all the things that Indigenous people 0:24:50.800 --> 0:24:55.919 have done to assert our sovereignty or self determination, we 0:24:55.960 --> 0:24:59.280 are still stuck under the foot of this government that 0:24:59.359 --> 0:25:03.600 has done so much much harm. It's hard to reconcile 0:25:03.720 --> 0:25:07.000 that with the story of America I was taught in school. 0:25:08.520 --> 0:25:11.000 I think when we think about the founding of the 0:25:11.119 --> 0:25:15.440 United States, it feels like the myth is this idea 0:25:15.760 --> 0:25:21.840 that our founding fathers created this great democracy that rejected 0:25:21.880 --> 0:25:25.560 the tyranny of the King of England. Is that the 0:25:25.560 --> 0:25:27.800 full story of our government. 0:25:28.600 --> 0:25:34.600 No, the story we tell ourselves about the United States 0:25:34.640 --> 0:25:39.600 origins as throwing off a king, throwing off monarchy, and 0:25:39.720 --> 0:25:43.440 establishing democracy, leaves out empire. 0:25:44.880 --> 0:25:48.240 Maggie says that story of our founders building a democracy, 0:25:48.760 --> 0:25:52.560 it's only half true. Part of the government they built 0:25:52.600 --> 0:25:56.520 was democratic, but part of the government they built was 0:25:56.560 --> 0:25:57.320 something else. 0:25:58.160 --> 0:26:01.200 They wanted to be, a quote empire for liberty from 0:26:01.240 --> 0:26:06.600 the beginning. So the break with Britain was less about 0:26:07.240 --> 0:26:11.480 throwing the colonialism behind and more about throwing the king behind. 0:26:12.160 --> 0:26:17.879 So it's kind of like democracy for us, colonialism for them. Yeah, No, 0:26:18.080 --> 0:26:23.359 exactly right, in terms of sort of the fight in 0:26:23.400 --> 0:26:26.400 the US over sort of are we a democracy? Are 0:26:26.440 --> 0:26:28.800 we sort of not living up to those ideals? 0:26:30.440 --> 0:26:33.600 It's even a harder question. I think, do you yeah, 0:26:33.720 --> 0:26:36.880 Do I have a position on it? I think when 0:26:36.920 --> 0:26:43.119 you bring in the story of expansion and colonialism, it 0:26:43.320 --> 0:26:48.639 just explodes the conversation because it's not even about building 0:26:48.640 --> 0:26:52.119 a government that just doesn't give everyone the same kind 0:26:52.160 --> 0:26:54.600 of political power. It really is that the US is 0:26:54.640 --> 0:26:57.720 building governments that are not representative. 0:26:59.040 --> 0:27:03.400 When the US into Native territories and later into places 0:27:03.480 --> 0:27:08.520 like Guam and Puerto Rico, those places didn't get democracy. 0:27:08.560 --> 0:27:11.439 So you wouldn't have elections, you wouldn't have accountability. This 0:27:11.640 --> 0:27:15.320 was not the American dream that the Constitution at least 0:27:15.320 --> 0:27:18.240 promised for those who were within the polity and within 0:27:18.280 --> 0:27:19.360 the several states. 0:27:20.000 --> 0:27:23.840 In the early years of our country, unelected leaders govern 0:27:24.000 --> 0:27:28.159 two thirds of all land in the United States. The 0:27:28.200 --> 0:27:31.320