American Indian Law Review Volume 25 | Number 1 1-1-2000 "Merciless Indian Savages" and the Declaration of Independence: Native Americans Translate the Ecunnaunuxulgee Document John R. Wunder University of Nebraska-Lincoln Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.ou.edu/ailr Part of the Indian and Aboriginal Law Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation John R. Wunder, "Merciless Indian Savages" and the Declaration of Independence: Native Americans Translate the Ecunnaunuxulgee Document, 25 Am. Indian L. Rev. 65 (2000), https://digitalcommons.law.ou.edu/ailr/vol25/iss1/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by University of Oklahoma College of Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in American Indian Law Review by an authorized editor of University of Oklahoma College of Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. "MERCILESS INDIAN SAVAGES" AND THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE: NATIVE AMERICANS TRANSLATE THE ECUNNAUNUXULGEE DOCUMENT John R. Wunder* Thomas Jefferson, by all accounts a man of the Enlightenment, did not take kindly to American Indians. His hostilities are legion and complex. Originator of the United States government's ethnic cleansing policies of the early nineteenth century termed "Indian Removal" and enthusiast and sponsor for the Lewis and Clark Expedition that among its several purposes identified intelligence for use in the subjugation of Indian nations west of the Mississippi River, Jefferson in 1776 penned a noted reference to Native peoples in the Declaration of Independence.' Found as the eighteenth item on the list of transgressions committed by King George ImI against American colonists is Jefferson's assertion that Britain's monarch "has excited domestic insurrections amongst us and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of *University of Nebraska-Lincoln.