An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

White people are fragile. Their ego, built on the foundations of white
supremacy, which allows them to automatically claim a type of personal
innocence divorced from history and structures, can’t even handle being
called racist. The roots of antiblackness and anti-Indigenous sentiments
predate the establishment of what would become the United States.
However, they were codified in some of the sacrosanct documents of the
US, including the Federalist Papers.
In addition to covering the early political theory of US democracy, the
Federalist Papers also tell us a great deal about how the founding fathers
viewed their own political theory and sovereignty, in direct relationship and
contrast to Indigenous peoples. The Federalist Papers are eighty-five
essays written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison.
Speaking of Hamilton, are we done celebrating some slave owners rapping
on Broadway? I appreciate the artistic genius of the Lin-Manuel Miranda
show Hamilton, but as with any artistic form, once it’s in the public sphere,
it can easily be celebrated outside of the author’s intent. Maybe Miranda did
not intend the play to be a liberal, uncritical view of history, but that is one
consequence of being so widely celebrated. Also, Hamilton was a slave
owner. As an alternative to Hamilton, I would highly recommend the
Ishmael Reed play The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda, directed by
Rome Neal. 7
Written to help ratify the Constitution, the Federalist Papers can be
found on the US Congress website, which makes it easy to perform a
targeted text search. Searching for the word “Indian” reveals that it was
used thirteen times in the Federalist Papers. Hamilton uses the term
“savage” only once, in Federalist No. 24, titled, “The Powers Necessary to
the Common Defense Further Considered.” The words “Indian” and
“savage” are used in the contexts of defense and issues of sovereignty. As
Hamilton notes, gaining land and maintaining a military to protect that land
was essential for the developing nation’s security against possible
Indigenous attacks. Although concerned with Britain and Spain, he notes,
“the savage tribes on our Western frontier ought to be regarded as our
natural enemies, their natural allies, because they have the most to fear from
us, and most to hope from them.” 8
The use of the terms “Indian” and “savage” in the Federalist Papers
demonstrates two things. First, it represents the necessity to create a
political other to feed into the need for dispossession. Second, it reveals that