The sun sets in Albuquerque, New Mexico on the eve of Independence Day 2024. (Photo by Shaun Griswold / Source NM)
I don’t skip a single word from the Declaration of Independence.
I find and lose meaning in the words that allow Americans on this day, this Independence Day, to go out and show the whole neighborhood how much they paid for the explosions that some of us freely shoot into the sky.
For me, the fourth day is a day off to barbecue and watch a few artillery shells explode over Albuquerque, perhaps brought in from Texas or Oklahoma.
These are the truths that I have taken for granted in my life as a Native American when I read the words of the Declaration that colonists in the past became the royal family of the United States and encouraged their enemies, namely people like me, to expand westward.
The declaration that on this day in 1776 wanted to create the destructive government, wanted to control new areas on the continent. The British monarchy, which wanted to move west from the Atlantic Ocean itself, need to get out of the way.
The Declaration of Independence records “a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, facts must be laid before a just world.”
This is the part where Americans build an identity of separation from British rule. To remove themselves from an oppressive government. Ideas of taxation without representation. A belief that a common enemy is harming the progress of those free men in their pursuit of their God-given fortunes.
And in true American xenophobia, the founders used the last sentence of their “Facts” Statement to blame a group of people they exploited, marginalized, and disenfranchised.
“He has excited internal insurrections among us, and has attempted to bring the inhabitants of our frontiers into conflict with the merciless Indian savages, whose known method of warfare is a stealthy destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.”
With that section in the Declaration of Independence, the United States declared to the people who had lived on this continent for millennia that any deviation from this new government would contribute to an internal uprising, and that those people would be labeled as “merciless Indian savages.”
It became the foundation for Native Americans’ relationship with the federal government—from the struggle for our existence to the rights we should receive after U.S. citizenship was introduced in 1924: access to health care, land, and education to build the societies we are working to create today.
I just finished rereading “Relentless Indian Savage” to myself and looked around at the people sitting in my living room in Albuquerque, New Mexico, who are from Zuni, Jemez, Laguna, Diné, Comanche, Cherokee, Kewa, and Taos.
I read it out loud. A mixture of sadness, anger and laughter filled the room, because sometimes that’s all you can do when you’re confronted with the hypocrisy of this country.
I see grace on all their faces. They show it in the work they do in education, law enforcement, the arts, and health care. They pray for it with songs and ceremonies once banned and punished under the authority of documents like the Declaration of Independence.
Call me and all my kin merciless as you read the Declaration of Independence today. Read it aloud. Say the words. Don’t skip them. Live with them.
Then seek the truth.
We, the compassionate NDNs, exist in this land, some of us thrive in it in public and private. Many of us are just like you and do our best. We do this despite the objectification, justification for genocide and general degradation of our indigenous existence in a document that constitutes a hypocritical government that is meant to give rights to all people.
We are not the only ones with extremely resilient DNA. The injustices that define this country mean that many of us are built differently, whether we are indigenous or not.
I won’t tell you too much about what this country is or where it’s going. I’ll do my best to figure it out. The Fourth of July can be a place to think about the values we want, but it’s also so twisted that I don’t even think we know how to define “value” beyond what a store would print on a receipt.
Truth is a value I will always stand by. It is the core of my soul. My truth on the 4th of July is a celebration of the merciless Native Americans who were vilified when this country was created, and our persistence for truth and justice.
And to me that is very clear.
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