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Through the 4th of July CELDF will be challenging dishonest narratives about America’s past and how those lies distort our lives in the present. This essay is part of a four-part series of reflections on the Declaration of Independence from CELDF’s staff.

By Will Falk

The Declaration of Independence is a dangerous document – though probably not in the way you’re thinking. When Americans think of the Declaration, they often think of it as the shot across the British bow that announced the brave underdog patriots’ defiance of those powder-wigged, lordly stiffs who dared tax Americans without representation. Today, the Declaration of Independence is fetishized in the United States as key to what it means to be an American. It is clung to by Americans who need to soothe their guilty consciences for the history of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and colonial violence that has made, and continues to make, the United States possible.

The British, at the time the Declaration was made, didn’t think much of it. Much of the British commentary on the Declaration chided the American rebels as petulant children. “Petulant children” might be too nice of a term for men like Thomas Jefferson who, while declaring that “all men are created equal” enslaved hundreds of men (and women and children) during his lifetime; who raped at least one of those slaves; who defined his children, born by the woman he raped, as property; and who engaged in illegal land speculation, buying claims to land that Native peoples had not ceded. “Petulant children” similarly might be too nice of a term for men like George Washington who, like Jefferson, enslaved hundreds of men (and women and children); who similarly engaged in illegal speculation of land that Native peoples had not ceded; and who treated Native Americans with such brutality that the Iroquois nicknamed him “Town Destroyer” for his practice of ordering troops to destroy whole villages.

Of course, there’s nothing unique about Jefferson and Washington amongst the United States’ so-called “founding fathers.” One of the primary motivators for the American movement for independence was the Proclamation of 1763, which prohibited colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains (land that Jefferson, Washington, and others were hoping to make a fortune selling through speculation markets). I can hear readers demanding: “How dare the King tell Americans where they can settle?” The thing is, the land west of the Appalachian Mountains was already home to Native American First Nations. No, the British didn’t really care about protecting Native folks. But, they were sick of spending money on troops to protect American colonists (and speculators) who were illegally violating treaties made with those First Nations.

Another one of the primary motivators for the so-called “Patriots” was an alliance that enslaved folks made with the royal governor in Virginia beginning in 1774. This alliance resulted in Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation, which offered freedom to any enslaved person or indentured servant owned by a rebel who escaped and joined the British Army. Americans feared free African populations so much that Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation pushed many Americans to the rebel cause. And, of course, this fear found its bloodiest expression 90 years later during the Civil War, when hundreds of thousands of Americans gave their lives to protect the institution of slavery.

“Yes, yes,” I hear some readers muttering. “But, some of the Patriots really did aspire to the ideals described in the Declaration.” Did they, though? Because I think people who truly aspired to the ideals described in the Declaration would have joined with Native Americans and enslaved Africans – those whose life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness were most clearly threatened in 1776 – and fought directly to protect them.

And, this is why the Declaration of Independence is such a dangerous document. It was propaganda used in 1776 by the most powerful American rebels (enslavers, land speculators, purveyors of genocide) to convince the working class folks that the most powerful American rebels needed to do their dirty work to protect their interests against the British. The Declaration of Independence is similarly used as propaganda in 2026 by the most powerful Americans to convince working class folks to do the dirty work of protecting the most powerful Americans’ interests in Venezuela, Iran, Gaza, and the streets of cities like Minneapolis.

There’s nothing wrong with the ideals described in the Declaration. But, the United States has never existed to defend Americans’ life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. If it did, slavery would have been outlawed on July 4, 1776. If it did, Native Americans would still govern their land. If it did, the United States would not be one of the prime drivers of total ecological collapse. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, after all, are not possible on a dead planet.

So, no, I do not care about sweet sounding ideals. I care about protecting the most vulnerable amongst us, those whose life and liberty are most directly threatened. We have countless other histories to look to than the history of the reactionary American rebels who fought for independence so they could steal more land and enslave more people. We could look to people like Tecumseh, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, and John Brown – people who knew just how dangerous the Declaration of Independence really is.

About the Author

Will is a writer, lawyer, and environmental activist. The natural world speaks and Will’s work is how he listens. He believes the ongoing destruction of the natural world is the most pressing issue confronting us today. For Will, writing is a tool to be used in resistance.

Will graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School and practiced as a public defender in Kenosha, WI. He left the public defender office to pursue frontline environmental activism. So far, activism has taken him to the Unist’ot’en Camp – an indigenous cultural center and pipeline blockade on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory in so-called British Columbia, Canada, to a construction blockade on Mauna Kea in Hawai’i, to endangered pinyon-juniper forests in the Great Basin, and to Thacker Pass in northern Nevada.

Will’s first book How Dams Fall describes his relationship with the Colorado River in the context of the first-ever American federal lawsuit seeking rights for a major ecosystem, that he helped to file, was published in August 2019. His second book When I Set the Sweetgrass Down, a full-length collection of poetry was published in 2023. You can follow Will’s work at willfalk.org.

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