FIRST AMERICA - HOSTED AND REPORTED BY REBECCA NAGLE (CHEROKEE NATION)
Weekly Episodes
This summer, as our country celebrates the 250-year anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, First America tells the true story of our country’s founding and how our current political moment is 250 years in the making.
Written and reported by award-winning journalist and Tulsa Artist Fellow Rebecca Nagle (Cherokee Nation), First America brings together Indigenous experts and historians to unveil how the founders' treatment of Indigenous nations is the root of authoritarianism in the United States.
Featuring:
Maggie Blackhawk (Fond du Lac Ojibwe), New York University
Ned Blackhawk (citizen of the Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone), Yale University
Phil Deloria (descendant of the Standing Rock and Yankton Sioux tribes), Harvard University
Nick Estes (citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe), University of Minnesota
Produced by Critical Frequency and distributed by Pushkin Industries.
For updates and more info: https://www.firstamerica.info/
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Rebecca Nagle is an award-winning journalist and citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Nagle’s debut book, By The Fire We Carry: the Generations-long Fight for Justice on Native Land, was an instant national bestseller, a New Yorker Book of the Year, and won the J. Anthony Lukas Prize and was a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize and numerous other awards. Nagle is also the writer and host of the podcast This Land, which garnered millions of downloads worldwide, reached #2 on Apple’s Podcast charts, won two Webby awards, and was nominated for a Peabody. Her writing on Native representation, federal Indian law, and tribal sovereignty has been featured in the Atlantic, the Washington Post, The Guardian, and more. Nagle believes Indigenous communities deserve the same standard of journalism as the rest of the country, but rarely receive it. Nagle seeks to correct this. From the census to COVID to the Supreme Court, Nagle focuses on deeply and timely reporting that sheds light on issues of national importance. Nagle is a 2026–2028 Tulsa Artist Fellowship Awardee and is from Tahlequah, Oklahoma.
Rebecca Nagle (Cherokee Nation), 2026. Photograph by Melissa Lukenbaugh. Courtesy of Tulsa Artist Fellowship.