Many Call Authoritarianism ‘Un-American’: History Shows Otherwise
The United States turned 250 this year, and the document officiating its birth, the Declaration of Independence, is famous for its opening lines proclaiming the nation’s freedom from England and the rights of men. But Rebecca Nagle, a journalist and citizen of the Cherokee Nation, frames the document differently, describing it as a list of grievances growing in ascending order, where Native people, smeared as “merciless Indian savages,” are the founders’ biggest “problem.”
This characterization rendered Native Americans as less than human and as part of the natural world, over which settlers believed they had God-given dominion, justifying genocide and land theft.