Whenever someone uses "we" to refer to a body politic, and doesn't otherwise specify, it's meant to refer to the collective polity throughout its history.

So, the democratic-republican "we". As compared to the royal "we".

As to why no one was behind bars? Because "we" also made those bars.

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jalapenos 20 hours ago | parent [-]

[flagged]

	▲	anonymouskimmer 19 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Their polities weren't then part of the US polity, so they'd have a separate we. Now they are part of the US polity, so they could include themselves in that we. But to honestly answer your sarcastic question: There were a bunch of them, and they typically didn't include their fellow natives in their collective understanding of "we" until later years. At the time, and even prior to colonization, various tribes did indeed commit, or participate in, genocide on other tribes. Just like the pseudo-collective "Europeans" did among their tribes. Some history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crow_Creek_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Indian_Wars#Indigen...