Editor's note on July 8, 2022: This story quotes the U.S. Declaration of Independence — a document that contains offensive language about Native Americans, including a racial slur.
Over the past 32 years, Morning Edition has broadcast a reading of the Declaration of Independence by NPR staff as a way of marking Independence Day.
But after last summer's protests and our national reckoning on race, the words in the document land differently.
It famously declares "that all men are created equal" even though women, enslaved people and Indigenous Americans were not held as equal at the time.
What then follows is a long list of grievances and charges against King George III that outline the 13 North American British Colonies' intentions to separate from Great Britain.
The list, originally written largely by Thomas Jefferson, was edited by the Continental Congress. Among the Congress' changes: it deleted a reference to "Scotch & foreign mercenaries." It turns out there were members of Congress who were of Scottish descent. To win support from Southerners, the Congress removed criticism of the African slave trade.
But a racist slur about Native Americans stayed in.
The passage charges that King George III "excited domestic insurrections" among the colonists by Native Americans, who the founding document called "merciless Indian Savages."
Author David Treuer, who is Ojibwe from the Leech Lake Reservation, explains that this particular grievance refers to the idea that the British were, he says, ginning up discontent among Native people.
But a deeper look at history also shows that one of the reasons why the colonists wanted to rise up against the British — and wage the Revolutionary War — was over the question of who would try to colonize Native lands west of the colonies, Treuer tells Morning Edition. "The crown wanted that money for themselves. The colonists, understandably, would have preferred to have it for themselves. So the whole revolution was in large part fought over who got to take our stuff," he says.
He also notes that Native people helped the colonists in the Revolutionary War. "It was the Oneida people who broke the famine at Valley Forge, who taught the revolutionaries with George Washington, how to process Indian corn so that it was digestible and nutritious," he says. "So I think it's safe to say that war would been difficult to win without our help."
When it comes to how the declaration's words land among Native Americans, Treuer says that with more than 5 million people who identify as Indigenous, there is a diversity of opinion and thought.
"On one hand we are keenly aware of the ways in which this country has attempted to both take our homelands and to eradicate us. And yet a huge number of Native people are deeply patriotic. Native American people have fought in every war America has fought up until today," he says. "We remain committed to forcing this country to live up to its own stated ideals."
The declaration is a document with flaws and deeply ingrained hypocrisies. It also laid the foundation for our collective aspirations, our hopes for what America could be.
So in that spirit, here again is the Declaration of Independence as read by NPR staff.
Declaration Of Independence
Steve Inskeep
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Rachel Martin
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —
A Martinez
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Noel King
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
Don Gonyea
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.—
Lauren Frayer
Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
Joe Palca
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Audie Cornish
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
Jaclyn Diaz
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
Lulu Garcia-Navarro
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
Sylvia Poggioli
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
Frank Langfitt
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
Cheryl Corley
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
Nina Totenberg
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
Scott Detrow
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
Michel Martin
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
Ayesha Rascoe
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
Ofeibea Quist-Arcton
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
Mary Louise Kelly
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
Ailsa Chang
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
Sam Sanders
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
Renee Montagne
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
Sarah McCammon
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
Gene Demby
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
Terry Samuel
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.
Eyder Peralta
A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.
Susan Stamberg
We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.
Scott Horsley
They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
Camila Domonoske
We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States;
Emily Feng
that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved;
Franco Ordoñez
and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.
Melissa Block
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Editor's Note
The punctuation and spellings here match those posted online by the National Archives.
This audio story was produced by Barry Gordemer and for the web by Heidi Glenn.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
