ANCIENT ECHOES PODCAST: WHY I NO LONGER BELIEVE IN GOD (JESSUP PA)

By: Jeric Yurkanin

The Fourth of July celebrates freedom.

But for Native American nations, the rise of America often meant something very different.

It meant broken treaties.

It meant stolen land.

It meant soldiers, settlers, politicians, missionaries, forced removals, boarding schools, and a government that kept finding new ways to say: Your land is ours now.

Long before Europeans arrived, North America was not empty. It was not waiting to be “discovered.” It was filled with Native nations, languages, governments, trade systems, farms, villages, spiritual traditions, and cultures that had existed for thousands of years.

But European colonization brought disease, warfare, land seizure, and a worldview that often treated Native people as obstacles instead of human beings.

That mindset became even stronger in the 1800s under an idea called Manifest Destiny — the belief that the United States was destined, and often understood as divinely chosen, to spread across North America. The National Museum of the American Indian describes Manifest Destiny as the idea that all of North America would inevitably belong to the United States. (National Museum of the American Indian⁠)

That word “destiny” matters.

Because when people believe God gave them land, they stop seeing theft as theft.

They call it blessing.

They call it progress.

They call it civilization.

They call it America.

In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act. The law gave the president power to negotiate removal treaties with Native nations east of the Mississippi River. In reality, it helped force Native peoples away from ancestral homelands so white settlers could take the land. (Research Guides⁠)

The Trail of Tears became one of the most shameful chapters in American history. In 1838, the United States government forcibly removed more than 16,000 Cherokee people from their homelands in Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. Hundreds died on the journey, and thousands more died from the consequences of removal. (National Park Service⁠)

But the Cherokee were not alone.

The Choctaw, Muscogee Creek, Seminole, Chickasaw, and other Native nations were also pushed from their lands. The National Park Service notes that after the Indian Removal Act, many southeastern tribes were forced to give up their homelands in exchange for territory west of the Mississippi. (National Park Service⁠)

This was not just policy.

This was human suffering.

Mothers walked with children.

Elders were forced from homes they would never see again.

Families buried loved ones along the road.

And America kept moving west.

Some white Christians saw this expansion as God’s blessing. Some missionaries believed Native people needed to be “civilized” by replacing their languages, traditions, and spiritual practices with white Christian culture. Some sincerely believed they were helping. Others were part of a system that erased Native identity while claiming to save Native souls.

That is the tragedy.

Religion was often wrapped around conquest.

The cross traveled with the flag.

The Bible traveled with the soldier.

The sermon traveled with the land deed.

And Native people paid the price.

Later, the assault moved from land to children.

For generations, Native children were taken from families and placed in boarding schools designed to erase their languages and cultures. The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition states there were more than 526 government-funded, often church-run Indian boarding schools across the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries. (Boarding School Healing⁠)

Children were punished for speaking their own languages.

Their hair was cut.

Their names were changed.

Their cultures were attacked.

The goal was not just education.

The goal was assimilation.

America wanted Native land first.

Then it wanted Native children remade in America’s image.

This is why history hurts.

Because the story of America is not only George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, fireworks, and freedom.

It is also forced removal.

It is also dead children in boarding schools.

It is also treaties broken by the same government that claimed to value law.

It is also white settlers believing God had blessed them with land that already belonged to someone else.

That does not mean every Christian supported these things. Some missionaries and reformers defended Native rights. Some Christians opposed removal. Some Americans recognized the injustice even in their own time.

But the larger system moved forward anyway.

And that system was often defended with religious language.

That is what makes this history so dangerous.

When greed wears religion, it becomes harder to challenge.

When conquest sounds like destiny, people stop asking who is being crushed.

When a nation believes God is on its side, it can excuse almost anything.

Manifest Destiny was not just expansion.

It was a theology of possession.

It taught many Americans to look at Native land and see opportunity instead of people.

It taught settlers to see themselves as chosen and Native nations as temporary.

It taught the country to confuse power with providence.

And the consequences are still with us.

Native nations are still here.

Their cultures survived.

Their languages survived.

Their communities survived removal, warfare, boarding schools, broken treaties, and centuries of erasure.

That survival is powerful.

It is one of the most important truths America must face.

Native people were not simply victims of history.

They resisted.

They rebuilt.

They preserved.

They endured.

And they are still here.

So on the Fourth of July, when America celebrates independence, we should also remember the people whose independence was taken.

The people whose homelands were invaded.

The people whose treaties were broken.

The people whose children were taken.

The people who were told that their suffering was part of God’s plan for America.

That was not God.

That was empire.

That was greed.

That was racism.

That was America refusing to see Native people as fully human.

A better country does not hide that truth.

A better country tells it.

Because fireworks are not enough.

Flags are not enough.

Patriotic songs are not enough.

If America wants to celebrate freedom, it must also remember the people it denied freedom to.

It must remember the Native nations who were here first.

It must remember that land is not holy just because powerful people claim God gave it to them.

It must remember that progress built on stolen land is not innocent.

And it must finally be honest enough to say:

Manifest Destiny was not destiny.

It was conquest.