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First America

First America

Pushkin Industries

Native people have been written out of the American story, but without us you don’t know what happened. This summer the United States will celebrate the 250-year anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. When you read the Declaration, you realize it is a list of complaints. The last entry, the climax in our founders’ reasons for rebellion against the Crown, is this: “He has excited… the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”

We have been told the Revolution was fought over taxation and representation. But what the founders were most angry about in our country’s most famous document was Indian affairs. How did generations of Americans miss this?

The first armed rebellion against the Crown was an attack on British forts that traded with tribes. When colonists threw tea into the Boston harbor, they dressed up like members of the Mohawk tribe—not for disguise, but because pretending to be Indian symbolized freedom and rebellion. The founding fathers’ first government failed because Indigenous nations were too powerful; war and diplomacy with Native people is why we have a central federal government.

Hosted and reported by Rebecca Nagle and  featuring leading Native historians,  First America unveils  how the founders’ treatment of Indigenous nations—and their resistance—shaped US democracy. The show  does not simply add another blemish to the image of the founding fathers, it reveals the real story of why the colonists rebelled, what kind of government they created, and, crucially, how our current political moment was 250 years in the making.

38 - From HISTORY This Week: How the Whitman Murders Redefined the American West
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  • 38 - From HISTORY This Week: How the Whitman Murders Redefined the American West

    We're sharing an episode from History This Week.

    May 30, 1855. Five thousand Native Americans come to Walla Walla to negotiate a treaty. However, it’s not exactly a fair negotiation—the territorial governor basically tells these tribes that they have no choice but to live on reservations in order to maintain peace. This moment comes in the wake of a violent time in the Pacific Northwest, a period started by the killing of Christian missionaries—namely, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman—by the Cayuse tribe. In the wake of their deaths, the Whitmans are portrayed throughout the United States as martyrs; the Cayuse, as a problem to be dealt with. But in reality, the backstory behind these murders is a lot more complicated. How did things go so wrong between the Cayuse and the Whitmans? And how did these missionaries’ deaths lead to a massive expansion of the United States?

    What happened this week? Go to htwpod.com or find HISTORY This Week wherever you get your podcasts.

    Special thanks to Bobbie Conner, director of the Tamástslikt Cultural Institute; and Blaine Harden, former correspondent for the Washington Post and author of Murder at the Mission: A Frontier Killing, Its Legacy of Lies, and the Taking of the American West.

    We also consulted another great book putting this episode together, Unsettled Ground: The Whitman Massacre and Its Shifting Legacy in the American West by Cassandra Tate.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Mon, 21 Sep 2026
  • 37 - The Origin of American Authoritarianism | Episode 6

    We’ve all been told our founders created a democracy. Rebecca talks with Maggie Blackhawk (Ojibwe) about why that's only half the story. Because our founders also wanted an empire. And so, they built both: a democracy that gave its citizens a voice and a vote; and an empire that controlled the lives and lands of people who had no say. That playbook never went away. Today, when our government wants to annex Greenland, deny citizenship to people born here, or put migrants in detention camps, it uses laws first passed to colonize Indigenous nations to do so.

    Resources:

    - July 31, join First America, Tulsa Artist Fellowship, the Oklahoma Center for the Humanities, Red Media, and the Lindy Waters III Foundation for an evening celebrating Indigenous futurism, storytelling, and the release of "From the Heart of Our Nations"

    - Get "From the Heart of Our Nations," a collection of short stories from First America's Indigenous youth writing workshop, here

    - Dig further into Maggie Blackhawk's scholarship here

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Mon, 27 Jul 2026
  • 36 - Land, Not Liberty | Episode 5

    Did you know that foreclosure was invented as a way to take Native land? Free, Indigenous land once built the American dream. But the mechanisms our government used to take it are now robbing everybody. With the help of Nick Estes (Lakota), Michael Blaakman and K-Sue Park, Rebecca tells the story of how our founding fathers used Indigenous land to bail out the early republic. And how their decisions planted the seeds for our current housing crisis.

    Resources:
    - Speculation Nation by Michael Blaakman
    - "Money, Mortgages, and the Conquest of America" by K-Sue Park

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Mon, 20 Jul 2026
  • 35 - Military Might | Episode 4

    After America won the Revolutionary War, the Continental Army was disbanded. After the abuses of British soldiers, the founding fathers didn’t want a big standing army. That small, disorganized military then went off to fight Indigenous nations and lost. Rebecca talks with George Ironstack (Myaamia) about how a 15-year war with the Myaamia Nation forever changed both countries. In the United States, it is why we have a standing army, why it is so big, why the president can fight undeclared wars, and why our country can never seem to end them.

    Resources:
    - Myaamia Center

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Mon, 13 Jul 2026
  • 34 - It Happened Here | Episode 3

    The American Revolution wasn’t just a fight for liberty. It was also a sprawling conflict with Indigenous nations over who would control the continent of North America. And to stake out their claim, the United States was willing to commit genocide. Rebecca talks to Maggie Blackhawk (Ojibwe) about how our country’s early treatment of Native Americans is the root of authoritarianism in the United States.

    Resources:
    - Jeffrey Ostler, "“To Extirpate the Indians”: An Indigenous Consciousness of Genocide in the Ohio Valley and Lower Great Lakes, 1750s–1810," The William and Mary Quarterly, by Thurman Wilkins

    - Rhiannon Koehler "Hostile Nations: Quantifying the Destruction of the Sullivan-Clinton Genocide of 1779," American Indian Quarterly, 2018

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Mon, 06 Jul 2026
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