politics as they relate to jefferson, monticello and the early republic of the united states. today's topic is far too broad to cover in one brief conversation. and will likely just scratch the surface of this complex and rich subject. in spite of a narrative of american history that is often told, as though everything began in 14 92, the history of north america is far older and more complex. it began at least 12,000 years ago, although scholars argue on the origins and migrations of the first human inhabitants of this land. for millennia, the history and political structures of a dinginess america developed and solidified through long processes of power of conflict, corroboration. thousands of cultures and nations have come and gone, and thousands remain today. the post colonial history of the americas is relatively recent development. for the past several centuries have how profound impacts on the course of humanity. and european colonists came to what they called the new world, they brought disease. warfare, ideas about religion morality and they created the concept of the defining people by the colors of their skin. a concept they called race co-developed with that of african slavery and armed warms against indigenous people. centuries of conflict would follow and by the time thomas jefferson was born and what his english people called virginia, this conflict had been going on for two and a half centuries. america was a very different place in the 18th century. jefferson was born in what was considered a frontier, as far west as. the closest national neighbor's worth the -- reference to political dolphins to the north, tara key to the south and scores of other indigenous entities on the eastern seaboard worse so many -- the colonial powers of europe. the american revolution and the americans of the united states. a native peoples in america were forced to continuously reassert their rights and reinvent how they survive in the highlands. as an intellectual, jefferson robin native people, languages, correct in native art, -- he sought out more information about the people of the west and lewis and clark expedition and, he had indigenous articles and artifacts displayed on the walls of monticello. as a national leader, jefferson helped establish the military in the political power of the united states and helped determine the new nations policies towards the american indians. today, will dig further into some of the subjects i will talk about jefferson's arguments. and how are the u.s. developments impacted native america. and we're very fortunate to be joined today by an expert in native legal and political affairs. please join me and welcoming doctor david e. welcomes. doctor will canes it's a distinguished professor in indigenous studies at the -- at the university of richmond. professor welcomes is a citizen of the nation in north carolina, here in his ph.d. in political science from the university of north carolina chapel hill, and it concentrates much of his work on native politics and governance, with particular attention on the transformations of the indigenous governments that are both cohesively and voluntarily been in precolonial times. the concepts of native sovereignty and self determination diplomacy are at the heart of the resurgent teachings. he's focused much of his work on the political and legal relationships between -- between native peoples and states and native peoples and the federal government. he's been a visiting professor at dartmouth, harvard university. he's the author and editor of a number of books, putting documents in native american political government. before joining the university of richmond, doctor will was the professor to professor of americans at the university of minnesota, where you also held appointments political science and american studies. thank you for joining us today dr. will can's. i say we jump right in so if you don't mind, just tell us a little bit more about yourself, your research and your work. >> i appreciate that. thank you. i'm very happy to be joining you today. as you noted, i belong to the lumbee a nation in north carolina, i'm a citizen of the nation with the largest native nation east of the mississippi. our population means that we're about the fifth largest tribe in the country. i was a military fat inspo most of my lifetime and reservation, but they were military reservations not native reservations. but when i got to college, i began to read the works of bangalore junior, who was the most powerful intellectual thinker of the time and if not the century. and i wonder of studying under him for my masters degree, and he was the one that convinced me that we needed more indigenous people studying the political affairs of our nations and inter governmental relations as well. and so that's what led me back to chapel hill to get my phd, and then i began my career at the university of arizona for nine years, and then third desert heat finally drove me away from their up to the cold viking country in minnesota, where he spent 20 years and had a wonderful run there in both native studies, political science. as you noted, my work really focuses on how indigenous people, how we've always governed ourselves and how our government sort of required a change because the dominating influence of western colonialism and all the forces that unleashed along with other factors. and so, i want you to understand how we govern and how we relate intergovernmental the with the states and the federal governments and increasingly, my work is looking at the global world as well. i teach courses on indigenous people at the global level. there are a lot of activities happening now in the united nations and indigenous people around the world are meeting regularly and have been meeting regularly since the 1960s. my wife an eye on barking on a textbook, we prepared politics textbook for indigenous people around the globe. right now, my main work is a book on native governance that oxford is going to publish. it's going to be sort of my big book, if you will. tracing how we governed pre-contact and how things have evolved from that point to the present time. >> that's fantastic segue, actually. it's a good question here. we are talking about these global broad concepts and just important things that have to do with the whole cultural implication of humanity. and here in monticello, we focus on very specific historical period. mostly is this period of jefferson's life, the bridges of meat 18th century in the 19th century. and during that time, indigenous peoples in america, so major changes. on the traditional homelands and of course later, with the emergence of the united states itself. a new nation state that forever alters how they interact with societies. you mentioned that your new book that you're working on starts sort of before that. so if you could just speak a little bit about primary can, reunited states and precolonial indigenous politics. >> yeah, i mean. we don't know exactly how many native nations there were prior to the european rival, but we guesstimate somewhere between 600 and 650. the best population figures that we have today say that there were somewhere between seven to 12 million native peoples living what we could now call the continental united states. and they range widely from very small fishing communities and the northwest to the large blue in the plain states. you have the public communities in the southwest who are very village oriented and some of the way they live. pretty tight societies. and then you have the major nations in the southeast, the so-called five civilized tribes as they would come to be called in the early 1800s. the chair he, creek, seminole. the, east of the media recoordination. that had some influence on the founding fathers and their articulation and understanding of democracy, of equality, of paternity and someone. and then here in virginia, of course, you already mentioned the moniker nation. we had a number of these nations going back to the confederacy, whose people negotiated the earliest treaties that we have with european powers dating back to 16 oh seven. and so, the variation and the ability through these native governing styles is just enormous. and i'm basing that as i'm driving to the deep research on how we governed. and of course, we don't know and we will never know exactly how we govern historically because of the arrival of the europeans and the diseases that accompanied them, the devastating loss of life that accompanied them with the disease factor, well aware of the pandemic that we are suffering from right now, these diseases took a dramatic and mighty toll on native nations. they estimate, population loss of about 90% of indigenous peoples throughout the americas or from the tip of canada all the way down to the tip of south america. and we know that population from population studies that if we accept this figure of seven to 12 million, we know that the first estimate in the 18 sixties is that there were about 600,000 native people have. by 1890, with population going bottom down, the united states -- only remaining was 250,000 native peoples left in the entire country. so seven to 12 million down to 250,000. so imagine the loss of knowledge, the loss of memory, the loss of values, the loss of institutions and there's no way that you can recover that and so, the impact of the discovery of our country and that how translated to the doctrine of discovery, a legal doctrine that continues to inform our status today elevating the federal government as it's understood by legal scholars and supreme court justices to a standard, a level of legal titled that is superior to that of the indigenous people. our rights being reduced because our so-called, having been discovered by the europeans. you go from the discovery doctrine to the disease episode and then following that, you have a diplomacy that then unfurled and the negotiation of many hundreds of treaties that were performed during the treaty -- period of time. there's a massive activity and affairs going on and it was all lubricated but by the attitudes and the values that europeans brought with them and indigenous peoples in quipped with their own attitudes and values tried to cope with the dramatic changes that they were immediately subject to buy all the things that were unleashed once colonialism unfurled and began to spread across the continent. >> there's just so much history and i think and many of our viewers probably have this experience, having learned american history and these little bits and highlights of things that happened. for my own experience, thirds this fascinating blank period from, you know, you've got 16 oh seven, something happened with the pilgrims, then 1776. that's a very long time. hundred and 50 years. and then of course, from 1776 on, the emergence of the new nation. an him anyways, of course, colonial impact has impacted -- and you mentioned a doctrine of discovery. talk a little bit, if you don't, mind about early federal indian policy. how that developed and when it began? >> well, merging out of the colonial era, i mean, you have benjamin franklin with the albany cline, where he acknowledges the politicals sophistication of the iroquois people and said, how is it that that in nation of york where people can organize a confederacy that has them linked that creates interest -- and they are now the dominant factors of a great swath of eastern america, all the way down to virginia and parts of north carolina, my own home state. so we know that that was a huge influence and so we go from that, you know, and then you look at the 70 63 will broke uber you learn those established by king jordan, in the hope so they try to contain settlements or having a measure of respect for the nations who are both from the east side of the line and the western side of the line. because they're trying to centralize political power because they knew that there was enormous amounts of -- happening. and the best way to deal with that is to have central control of that situation. by the time we get to the declaration of independence, and of course we know that important clause in the declaration where jefferson, as the author, talks about people being merciless. ages, sections and contagions. so that center chilling message to indigenous peoples, yet that was one mindset of the americans as they were getting ready to revolt against king george. and yet, two years later in 1778, the united states negotiates its first written treaty with the -- and that tree article six encourages and invites delaware to create a native state and they were invited to have a representative in congress, so how do we go from being savages to kill everything, and then two years later, being invited to create an indian state and have representation? and that was a clause that reappears in several other treaties, including ones with the cherokee and the -- as well. and then 1795, in 1830, and 1835 as well. and so, what you really have or these conflicting and positions by federal policy makers and lawmakers understanding that we need to find a way to engage with indigenous peoples because spain and france and russia even, out in california, still had their own designs on north america and so united states was trying to find a way to woo native peoples to negotiate with them to become trading partners and military allies and political relatives with the united states. at the same time, being steeped in ethnocentric mindset, believing that native people were culturally inferior, that we were spiritually inferior. that we didn't understand the concept of property ownership and that discovery had given them superior rights to our lands because they were a christian society. so, you have these endemic feelings of how it played out like in the declaration of independence and the first treaty with the delaware, and so things have been in a state of confidence ever since there. with some federal lawmakers, you know, anxious to engage with native people and being willing to invite them to win the draw in the american democratic experience. and other still viewing us as savages. and as people who are inferior in various ways. and so, there is an inherent tension that is existed since the very beginning time, all the way to the president. so when i look at the trump administration, these policies, he was in the mindset of the merciless indian savage kind of person who believed that native people really are an inferior population. and the treaty was not to be respected, that airlines could be taken, that more land can go under our territory. whereas under individuals had much more, you know, beneficial mind sets and president elect biden harrow that he issued a 15-page policy proposal that's much more steep in the tradition that recognizes native peoples as the original people and he's going to engage in diplomacy and he's going to renew the policy of meeting with tribes at the white house wants year, as obama did during his eight-year term. so, we see these historic indemnities continue to play out even to the present time. >> it seems like you're such a perfect representation and conversation about a country that has a paradox at its core foundation. a monticello we have this conversation a lot, i was a possible for the man who -- it's a similar kind of paradox that jefferson would hold in him a simultaneous admiration and mobility of american people, and the construct of that native, noble idea forces the naval tip savage. and if it plays out trust throughout the whole course. one of the things that you said, that is so telling, you mentioned the spanish on the west and the russians in the west. and of course, part of the mythology of monte carlo on the story that we tell is centered on the lewis and clark expedition. its journey to the unknown west. and of course, the reality is that millions of people are living there and are colonial powers already there. not to diminish the actual challenges of the lewis and clark expedition. but there's a lot of diplomacy involved and they had to tread lightly as they were in many cases grossly outnumbered and faraway in the military's purity. but the louisiana purchase helps further this tone. and of course, it opens up much of the central part of the united states america. so could you talk a little bit about how louisiana purchase helped pave the way to changes and tribal sovereignty? >> i'm not a jeffersonian specialist, but i know enough about his policies -- i actually participated in a lewis and clark conference a few years ago. so when i was preparing for our conversation today, i went back and went through some materials about jefferson and he had long had an interest in indigenous lands and one of the positive aspects of jefferson is that he understood that native peoples actually on the owners of their own land. so he didn't buy into the doctrine of discovery definition, but native peoples had no nine titles at all. or their land title is somehow inferior to that of whites. he recognized that it belong to us. and it's the original inhabitants. so i give him credit for that. nevertheless, he was an individual who would become one of the leading founders of the american republic, near that american people need additional lands and so he was certainly willing and pushed and sometimes prodded native peoples to see land through various treaties, right? and so, he negotiated during his presidency, at least 28 treaties from what i was able to gather. and most of these were -- and what's important about louisiana is that many people are finally coming to understand that when the purchase was made with france, it wasn't land that was exchanged. hulu sovereignty, or the governance that were exchanged. nothing more, nothing less. jefferson knew that the native peoples that inhabited that vast swath of land still held title to their territory and they knew that they were going to have to be many treaties negotiated to buy that land from them and that's what in fact happens. of course, jefferson also -- willing to put pressure on native peoples to sell their land, right? because ultimately, he was the president of the united states which at that time, could did not include indigenous peoples as part of the citizenry. and there's a critical dimension to remember as well, even though they're treaties, early is 1819 where natives were encouraged to become american citizens if they were willing to leave the nation and fully assimilated into the body of tall politic. you can become an american citizen, but the vast majority of mid peoples had no interest in that. they were proud members of their own nations. but jefferson certainly used a lot of pressure and at one point, he mentioned in that one letter that he wrote that, you know, native peoples must be willing to negotiate and lands or we will crush them. and so, there was that constant pressure as well. so, you know, there was that sense of paternalism, there was a sense that native peoples are culturally inferior, even though we are territorially superior because the land big long to us. and yet, jefferson was going to use whatever powers he could muster to help americans continue their expansion west and if it meant putting pressure on peoples so lands, whether they want to sell them or not, he was not above gate doing that any certainly did that as well. because it really did open up indian country to additional pressures from settlers who were streaming out west and yet, you know, land was not exchanged, only the sovereign pea because the united states realized that it only had the right to be the preemptive purchaser of any land that tried my trees to sell. so, that's how jefferson understood the doctrine, that gave the united states the first purchase rights, the preemptive rights to purchase but they had to still purchased them from the native communities whose lens they were moving into. >> so jefferson wrote several letters where he said similar kinds of things. one of the ones that we referenced, which will put in our comments for the viewers. he writes in 1803, this isn't a letter he wrote to william henry harrison, which was then the governor of indiana character tory. he basically says exactly where you just outlined. indian people can culturally assimilate or they can be removed west of the mississippi river. if you use that word, and of course, the concept of a removal had profound -- can you talk just for a few minutes about the idea of removal and what those consequences were? >> yeah, the removal -- jefferson was an early component of that. he wasn't the first proponent, but he certainly saw that native peoples were going to have to be relocated in order to make additional lands available. and, so he talked about that quite a bit in his writings and his policies and so on. and ultimately, of course, when conditions arose and the southeastern part of the country, particularly with andrew jackson's presidency and state of georgia obstinacy, feeling as if they were entitled to all the land, including the land of the cherokee whose territory, georges were now we're seeming to overrun, especially when they discovered gold in those territories. and so, that set in motion the chain of events which will culminate in the 1830 in the removal act, which thousands upon thousands of natives were relocated from all points of america, not just the southeast, butler the regions of the country as well. and they were all shipped off to what became oklahoma and kansas and what's the what's the five tribes did for their parties negotiate a series of treaties, because they knew that they couldn't resist removal and wants the cherokee cases had been handed down by the supreme court, jon marshall offering three huge cases. johnson versus mcintosh in 1823, based on the doctrine of discovery to establish that really did elevate the federal government to a superior prioritary position over the natives peoples. and it also eliminated were denied tribes the right to negotiate with other treaty partners that they had long been negotiating with. and then when you get to the two cherokee cases, the one 1831, cherokee nation versus georgia, with the supreme court essentially said that sorry cherokee's, you do not have the right to bring a case directly to us, because you are not -- you are a foreign state. where you are as a domestically independent community. domestically dependent nation. so in that case also contains language that will overtime -- into the idea that nations -- marshall used analogy in there saying, the relationship between tribes and the federal government resembles that regard to the ward. to me or knowledge you that he used and yet overtime and gradually, that expanded and by the time he got to the 18 fifties, 18 sixties, policy makers in washington d.c. where is wards. and they were claiming, we had always been awards. an interesting lee enough, six months after the cherokee case, marshal then offers the -- opinion. in which several missionaries had been arrested as having violated georgia law by moving into any country that the cherries invocation. and it on the color of federal law, which was designed to encourage tried to accept christiana de, except transportation and the charity -- cherokee invited the mission that's there and george arrest them, said sent into a penitentiary and marshall finally had the case that he had been waiting to get and he finally renders the opinion that i think really reflected his real views about natives that natives were not domestic or dependent, they were not wards, they were distinct independent political communities, treaties were the spring all of the land and state laws had no force inside of indian country. and so, that was the opinion that he had always wanted to write the politics kept him from writing in. he was fearful of what's the jackson administration would do, had he decided to favourably with charities in the first case. and so, he had rendered a political compromised opinion that acknowledged, you know, native peoples that had some rights and yet not writes that could challenge those of the federal government. and so, all of this is set in motion of course by jefferson's views on removal, on the generated a lot of support from people who wanted indians relocated, in part in their minds to save them, right? because they knew that native peoples are on immediate exposure to colonizing powers, frequently led to their death. whether it's because of diseases or alcohol or settler conflicts or any combination of that. and so, it really set the process in a chain of events that culminated in that very dark period. when we were preparing for this these three legal decisions, we went over them for hours. i think that's right. there are several ways in which this has impacted federal indeed policy. for many of our viewers this happened right after jefferson's death. for most part these are on the decades it immediately followed. if you just sift through some of the writings you'll get some of his opinions on both. both of those men, which he had things to say and you mentioned professor woken's, some of the concept of preserving native people but moving less and my own knowledge is on the turkey nation, about the best past path forward, but there are still ramifications today. then of course the trail of tears followed. one of the more interesting and complex aspects of this conversation has to do with the ways in which the cherokee sought to negotiate their survival, of these colonial pressures. one of the things they did was enslaved african americans and many of them traveled with them on the trail of tears. and much cello over 400 african american people were held in bondage there. and this conflict of europeans and people who descended from you know and and of course we will come from asia and from the south latin americans there is this people and cultures who developed to who we are today and i was wondering if you could talk about the role slavery played in the development of indian relations in the united states? >> that really is a dynamite topic both figuratively and because there's always been an inherent tension where slavery for native peoples where it is slavery was such a dominant enterprise. and you are right on the cherokee and members of the other so-called civilized tribes the elites of those nations did in fact in african americans. of course it's been argued by some scholars that native peoples treated african slaves better than white slave owners. i'm not familiar with all that literature but i don't buy that. that i know that the seminal people of florida, seminal itself actually means runaway slave. because you had a numerous tribes, and runaway slaves which formed will became the seminal nation. and there was this tension between latin americans and indigenous people and at one point they described african americans historically, he said they were viewed as how people saw as draft animals and native peoples were viewed as wild animals. both animals had to be there cage, but for the white african americans with people who be kept out of the american social contract. where is native peoples, some native peoples they were forced into the american social contract. so there is an inclusion that native peoples experienced, where african americans it was exclusion. they wanted them to remain on the outskirts. and in the case of the civilized tribes, was they mostly were relocated to what we came oklahoma. and we bring up we bring it up to the civil war, and the slave owning leaders of several of those tribes signed treaties with the confederates in part, because they want to keep african americans and slaved. and as a result of their participation and civil war, on the side of the confederacy, when the negotiation when the united states negotiated new treaties with them in 1866. one of the provisions of the new treaties said that the tribes had to enfranchise, to their pre-slaves. slavery had now ended, and as a requirement of negotiating these two trees, they had to grant citizenship rights to their former slaves. and the tribes did that, but they did it reluctantly. we see that played out even right now at this current moment, the jerky nation even in the 19 seventies, sought to disenfranchise the african american friedman. and the friedman fought back, and they challenged it disagreement by the cherokee nation, and that belong to a series of court proceedings, finally a federal judge in washington d.c. i think it was the 2017 issued a ruling that said that the turkey nation had to enfranchise and restore citizenship rights to the freed men. and the cherokee nation finally accepted that. so to them this is finally been resolved but the creek people of hakeem, are still behind and they are still facing legal consequences and political consequences because a bill had been introduced just within this current congressional time that would essentially strip the creation of federal resources until they grant full citizenship to the freedmen's descendants. it's an ongoing battle. so when the black movement erupted the spring, and it continues, a number of native peoples join them as allies. so you saw confederate statues coming down, even enrichment and other parts of the south. we saw columbus statues being torn down as well. so we have these moments where these alliances can't be formed between indigenous persons and african americans. but it doesn't always happen at the governmental level unfortunately. >> again it seems like an answer to a conversation that is so complex. it's so many it's a myriad of different distinctions. i would encourage our viewers here, jefferson specifically wrote about his idea that professor will can stop about in the beginning. with the view of africans versus american indians. and check that out, and in the state of virginia they speak specifically to what doctor will consist talking about. and they're talking about the inclusion of the american indians and african americans. we have time for one last question, and this is just as complex, so i will go over again. you already brought us into a little bit, with a conversation about how some of these ongoing legal battles are still happening is still taking place today. and the political unrest throughout the country with the black lives matter movement, that's brought national attention into a broader and more public version of a discourse. and this is also happen in indian countries, with the water protectors, and ongoing conversations about protection of indigenous women in the north. and i'm curious if we could end just by having a bit of a conversation about, bringing this history forward. just a bit more about you know, travel relations today. the way in which the history we talk about plays out today. if you can tell us for our viewers in all americans. >> yes that is a good question. i think what i would emphasize is that the concept of nation itself is critical. because native peoples who live in or on reservations, and their governments which pre-existing the united states formation. we were not party to the construction of the american constitution. and we are not subject to the u.s. constitution proper. they think that the u.s. constitution applies uniformly across every corner of america, but it does not apply the same way could native people do. it called up our pre-existing sovereignty. and i identified that native peoples and what they're very proud of, it was formally recognized by jefferson, and by the early founders, and even going into the colonial area. era. native peoples are a separate serve in government, and we must deal with them diplomatically through the negotiation of treaties, and its importance of treaties. so while the indian nation 71, technically of treaty rights, and treaties that have been established, but they still govern. and as in most treaties, every treaty had been violated by the federal government, and very few treaties, in total have been abrogated. so indigenous peoples have not been protected by the constitution, as we are by the treaties that were negotiated. that certainly has its origin in the colonial and early american period, that jefferson represented. and the other thing that continues to resonate, and traces back to what we talked about at the beginning of today's conversation, is this tension between federal lawmakers, who on the one hand support at times, the inherent rights of native peoples, the right to land ownership, the right to be self governing, the right to be self determined, and you're at the same time the federal government the idea of warship, even though it's no longer eight legal doctrine, they there still political mindset that many federal policy makers have, but native peoples still need a paternal father to oversee them, because they are still viewed as somehow culturally or legally incompetent. that tension still persists in the law. and traces back to those things we talked about. with the way that we are protected with the declaration of independence, as opposed to the first treaty provision, which invites delaware to have representation in the u.s. congress. so that continues to be a problem. the fact of citizenship itself right. native peoples, have three layers of citizenship. i'm a citizen of the lumbee nation and a citizen of virginia, and a citizen of the federal government. so i tell my students in theory native individuals, should be the most protected class of people in the country. the three layers of citizenship, yet they call us indigenous citizenship, and the federal government claims it can do things to us that we absolutely have political power that's invested in congress, which is called the congress clause. and it leaves us without any recourse. so even though we are armed with all these layers of citizenships, our right to subject which are more tenuous and more attenuated than those of any other group in this country and again, that all traces back to early jeffersonian period. >> that's fascinating and just makes me remember and want to underscore again as with other conversation we have here, it might be about the past, but it's not really about the past. >> exactly. >> it helps us understand so much more about where we are today. and we still where we still might go. >> you're right. >> professor will cain's, i can't thank you enough. thank you for justin lighting all of us with his conversation. giving us a lot more to think about. and i hope that this, is as a refinished in the beginning, the very beginning of what might be a very long conversation for us at monticello and for many people around the united states in the world. i look forward to seeing you again. hopefully, will be able to talk again soon.