In his Montauk talk, Linford Fisher reported scholarly estimates that as many as 6 million Indigenous people were enslaved across the hemisphere (1492–1880s), with roughly 600,000 in North America, and described archival methods used to reach those figures.

Fisher described multiple Indigenous freedom suits and how court records often erased Indigenous identity over time, citing cases from Dinah Neville (18th century) to Marguerite (Natchez) whose freedom claim progressed to the U.S. Supreme Court.