The Anti-Indigenous Slur in the Declaration of Independence Speaks Volumes

Every Fourth of July, the Declaration of Independence is the cornerstone of the U.S.’s celebrations. It’s read aloud in radio, television, and public celebrations. But it carries a contradiction expressed through a slur that Native people have never been able to ignore — a scathing reference to “merciless Indian Savages.” Even as the framers promised a nation of equality and liberty for all, they also made it clear that Indigenous people are not included in their notion of “all.” So, within Native communities, the yearly invocations of the Declaration Independence are also a reminder of how long we have been struggling to resist, survive, and defeat every effort to silence, erase, and eradicate us.

While most public readings of the Declaration of Independence include the full passage, others read around its anti-Indigenous slur or omit that line entirely. The omission says just as much as the words themselves. The U.S. wants the Declaration’s promises without its confession, its dreams of liberty without regard for the people it dehumanized and oppressed, and its proclamation of independence without any acknowledgment of the crimes against humanity that made it possible for the U.S. to exist.

The commemoration of this country’s founding every July 4 asks the public to celebrate a United States that begins with the myth of a nation born of nothing but courage and liberty, on lands not yet tamed or developed. Native people know another beginning. Our nations were already here, with governments, laws, languages, and infrastructure.

The United States is only the latest nation to exist on these lands. As it celebrates 250 years of “independence,” it still has not rescinded or made an effort to correct the violence and policies that followed from the framing of Native people as “merciless Indian Savages.” Instead, it has expanded the strategy of using dehumanizing language against migrants, trans people, anti-fascists, and other targeted communities in an effort to reframe their resistance as “antithetical to freedom and the American way of life.”

“Merciless Indian Savages”

The phrase “merciless Indian Savages” isn’t just an unfortunate remnant of a different time; it was an intentional and strategic political move that set a precedent for anti-Native ideology and policies that persist today.

Historian and member of the Yamasee Nation Donald Grinde Jr. described the phrase as political rhetoric used to justify frontier wars and the taking of Native land. The phrase collapsed hundreds of Native nations into a new enemy and stripped them of their humanity. If Natives were “merciless savages,” their resistance could be framed as aggression, and colonial violence could then be positioned as self-defense, maintaining the optics of innocence and exceptionalism as the newly formed republic looked to build its empire.

“Merciless Indian Savages.” These three words set into motion centuries of brutal anti-Native policy from the Indian Removal Act of 1830 to the Dawes Act to the reservation and boarding school systems — every policy carrying the weight of those three words into every new era.

How the Phrase Impacts Natives Today

The intent and danger of the phrase “merciless Indian Savages” is alive and well. It’s threaded through our contemporary realities every time the federal government treats Native people, land, water, and treaty rights as acceptable casualties of profit and so-called progress.

Donald Trump’s first administration made that painfully clear almost immediately. In January 2017, he issued a memorandum to expedite the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline, despite the massive Native-led protest at Standing Rock, in which Water Protectors were subjected to military-style counterterrorism tactics and compared to terrorists. That same year, he revived theKeystone XL Pipeline that had already met with years of organized resistance from Tribal Nations, environmental organizations, and local ranchers and farmers, who were labeled extremists for efforts ostensibly impeding U.S. jobs and energy independence. By December 2017, his administration had moved against Bears Ears National Monument, cutting it by roughly 85 percent and weakening protections for a landscape that Tribal Nations had spent years fighting to protect.

In a commencement speech to the U.S. Naval Academy’s class of 2018, Trump praised settlers who “tamed a continent” and declared that: “We will not apologize for America.” His words appeared to do the same work as the phrase “merciless Indian Savages.” They dehumanize us, making Native people and lands sound wild and dangerous, while settlers are remembered as courageous. His administration carried that attitude into policy when the Interior Department moved to revoke the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s land-in-trust status, pushed oil and gas leasing near Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, and treated treaty rights and federal trust responsibilities as barriers to development. In 2020, border wall construction near the Tohono O’odham Nation and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument caused lasting environmental and cultural damage. During the COVID-19 crisis, tribes were left fighting each other over access to the $8 billion CARES Act tribal relief fund and then having to sue the government for the funds to be released, while the Native American Health Center reported receiving body bags instead of the personal protective equipment (like masks and gloves) it had ordered.

Trump’s second term has taken it a step further, increasing the danger to Native communities. Federal freezes and proposed cuts have threatened programs tied to treaty and trust obligations, including health care, education, housing, public safety, and social services. Reporting on Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget exposed proposed cuts of more than $700 million from Bureau of Indian Affairs programs and $239 million from tribal housing programs. His administration’s attack on birthright citizenship dragged Native citizenship back into public debate, forcing Native legal advocates to remind the country that Native people born in the United States are U.S. citizens and that tribal citizenship cannot be erased by federal political panic. Immigration raids have also raised alarms in Native communities, where Native citizens have reportedly been questioned, detained, or targeted because agents racially profiled them due to appearance, language, or proximity to the border. The legacy behind the three-word slur in the Declaration of Independence has not changed since 1776, and Trump’s administration has taken them to heart in its glorification of Manifest Destiny.

Ahead of the semiquincentennial, Trump leaned into the revival of national mythmaking and exceptionalism. In May, the White House released a statement celebrating the 222nd anniversary of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, praising it for fulfilling Manifest Destiny and carrying “prosperity” across the continent.

The Lewis and Clark story is personal for me. My people, the Otoe-Missouria, were the first Native people to hold council with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. On August 3, 1804, near present-day Fort Calhoun, Nebraska, tribal leaders met the expedition at what became known as Council Bluffs. The official story treats that meeting as a diplomatic milestone. Lewis and Clark arrived in full military display, made some speeches and promises, gave some gifts, and showcased the technologies of the time: an air gun, a magnet, a spyglass, a compass, and a watch. But despite the pomp and circumstance, they didn’t really accomplish much beyond establishing a routine for future councils on the expedition.

For my people, the U.S.’s westward story does not begin with wonder nor does it end with conquest, the way the U.S. would like the world to believe. We are not a conquered people. We’re still here and still resisting the narratives and violence that have followed those three words from 1776 to our present day.

Who Have the “Merciless” and “Savage” Ones Been?

The semiquincentennial celebrations urge us to turn westward expansion into a patriotic stage set, but Native people know what gets left outside the frame: truth. Before the celebration moves on from the Declaration of Independence to the fireworks, the U.S. needs to acknowledge the gravity of the words the founding fathers chose for us — “Merciless Indian Savages” — and to recognize the brutality of colonialism.

When we look at history, who have the actual cruel ones been? Who was “merciless” and “savage” when Native communities were massacred? When treaties were signed and broken? When children were taken to residential boarding schools, and when their graves were found on those same school grounds? When sacred sites were destroyed, and pipelines were forced through our lands?

Who is “merciless” and “savage” now, as immigration raids tear through communities and as families live under the threat of detention, disappearance, and deportation? Who is acting with cruelty when federal troops are sent into cities in response to protests against immigration enforcement? When the genocide in Gaza is streamed in real time and the lives of Palestinians are treated as negotiable?

Who is “merciless” and “savage” when disabled people are threatened by policies that force institutionalization and punish people for needing support? When the trans community is targeted by executive orders, health care restrictions, school policies, prison restrictions, and public campaigns built to erase trans people from law and daily life? When women and pregnant people are forced to fight for bodily autonomy while reproductive health care is attacked across the country?

The words “merciless Indian Savages” taught the U.S. how to turn targeted people into threats. The authors of the Declaration of Independence called us “merciless Indian Savages” because they needed a justification for the violence and death upon which the U.S. was founded, for the violence and death that would continue to structure this nation. After 250 years, the phrase still carries the weight of that violence. This country needs to answer one question before asking anyone to celebrate: Is this legacy of violence really what we want to continue building on and celebrating for the next 250 years?