I will start by saying that the first few chapters, which are about Native Americans, sound like if a textbook had written about Europe like this: https://indigenoushistory.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/what-if-people-told-european-history-like-they-told-native-american-history/
The way they write about us is extremely simplistic. It reduces us to uncomplex stone age idiots. It is also extremely Eurocentric. This is clearly an uneducated, non-Native opinion about what we were (and are) like. They obviously did not read or use any sources by Native American authors or talk to actual Native people to write this book. It shows.
Now for the glaring inaccuracies, lies, and problematic statements.
Chapter 1 – “Who Lived Here First”
It uses the word “Indian” throughout the book. It describes us entirely in the past tense. Here we have the tired old Bering Strait theory. It has been found to be incorrect multiple times over the past several decades. It needs to be accepted today that the supposed migration from Asia to solely populate the Americas didn’t happen. Cross migrations (meaning both ways) happened after the Americas were already populated and thriving. Science, archaeology, linguistics and DNA have all found evidence of this. It also puts the dates of the Bering Strait land bridge at “2142-1842 BC” since it is a fundamentalist Christian curriculum. This is absolutely absurd. The book says “There really isn’t any other way to know much about these people…” when talking about artifacts found in the Americas. Except that there are other ways…like talking to us because we know our ancestors' histories and stories better than anyone else. Our oral histories stand the test of time and are found to be true over and over again. Talking to Natives is the best way to learn about us and our ancestors.
It says we had “no plastic, rubber or metal” – well no, no one had plastic…but rubber comes from the Americas. Some Native nations were using rubber balls for sports long before Europeans came here, as well as using rubber for other uses. We also had metal. We did not live in the stone age. We had metal products that were art, weapons, and tools. Copper, bronze, gold, silver and even iron were utilized by some Native peoples pre-contact. There was full metallurgy in South America.
What they write about Native American religions is almost entirely false. What they say is a complete misunderstanding of how we culturally see the earth, plants, and animals. It says that most Native nations were nomadic and followed buffalo herds. Most nations were not nomadic. Out of the hundreds of Native nations in the Americas, relatively few were nomadic. Most lived in permanent towns and agricultural societies and some even in cities. Men were not the only hunters. Women and children did not “follow behind” and carry everything. Many Native societies were generally very egalitarian. Women were equal to men (or regarded higher than men) and children were treated with respect and dignity…which is not what this book describes.
It says “Indian babies were called papooses.” No, Native babies were not called “papooses.” Papoose is an Algonquin word that means “child” and was literally only used by Algonquin speaking peoples to mean “child.” Every nation has their own language and has different words for baby and child. The word papoose has been used in harmful ways toward indigenous peoples. It says Hopi is pronounced “HOP-ee.” It's not pronounced that way.
It says that farming nations had to move around to find warm enough places to grow their crops. Farming nations did not move around like that. They lived in permanent towns. There were even cities bigger than some European cities with more advanced farming and irrigation techniques during the middle ages.
This chapter then says that it is “fun” to play “Indian” basically. It is not okay “play indian”…as this is a harmful, stereotypical activity that encourages bad education about us. (https://samanthamatalonecook.com/teaching-native-american-history/) There are entire books written about this by Native authors. The text then implies that Central and South American nations were the only non-nomadic nations. It says they were advanced civilizations, but then does nothing to describe how or why they were advanced. The book then just say that these civilizations are “very old.” I can’t imaging a textbook describing European civilizations that way.
It calls the Iroquois a tribe, it is not, rather it is a confederacy of 6 nations. It is false to say they were a tribe. It describes traditional homes incorrectly. It says the Seminoles “ran away” when colonizers came. The Seminoles did not “run away,” they were attacked and forced away. The only mention of modern Natives indicates that we only live on reservations in the great plains. Around 78% of Native peoples today do not live on reservations today and there are reservations outside of the plains. They use the word “roam” to describe plains nations. Plains nations did not “roam,” they followed specific routes. They call the Pubelo a tribe and claim that Apache, Navajo, Hopi and Pubelo people were all basically the same. The Pueblo are many nations of similar cultures. They lump us all into one group and say we all lived in adobe homes built into cliff sides. This is incorrect. They mention that corn comes from us, but not that 50-70% of the world’s produce today was originally cultivated in the Americas by us. Most of your food comes from us, not just corn. There are many more things I could say about this chapter, but these are some of the glaring inaccuracies and problems.
Chapter 2 – “Leif Ericson, the Christian Viking” It literally starts by saying “Many of the people on the other side of the world, in Europe, Asia, and other, more civilized continents…” It directly says that we were not “civilized” by calling other peoples in the world “more civilized.” This is racist. The chapter perpetuates the false idea that Europeans thought the world was flat during the time of Leif Ericson. They use the word “discovered” to talk about Europeans stumbling upon the Americas. Even if it is in quotes, it is false no matter how you write it.
It makes it sound like the Vikings found an empty land and peacefully lived there for a time. The Vikings invaded Greenland and were run out by the people who lived there. It claims that the Vikings had lived there “peacefully.” The book uses the term “friendly” to describe some Native peoples. “Friendly Indians” is a Eurocentric and problematic way of describing Native peoples. It creates the “good Indian” and “bad Indian” narrative that is prevalent in education. The idea is that “friendly Indians” helped the Europeans and “hostile Indians” fought against them. This theme is common in education, media, pop culture, literature, etc. It is a harmful concept. The Natives were not “friendly”, they were diplomatic, which is how textbooks usually describe relationships between nations in other parts of the world at that time, especially Europe.
Chapter 3 – “Christopher Columbus and Other European Explorers” I really take issue with calling these people “explorers.” Most of them were treasure hunters and slave traders. They weren’t “exploring,” they were invading. They also weren’t “adventurous” as the book describes. They were greedy. The book tells the story of Columbus that is often found in educational materials, but is based on a fictional biography written in the 1800s. It repeats the myth that people thought the earth was flat, but Columbus believed it was round. I really thought we’d be past this myth by now. At first the chapter says that Columbus had heard stories about the Vikings “finding” a “new land” to the west, but then contradicts itself later saying that no one knew there was land here. It says that Columbus thought he had landed near India, but the country known as India was not called India in 1492. In reality, he thought he had landed in the (East) Indies. It seems like a minor difference, but it is a history book so it should contain the correct information. This chapter includes the myth of the Native peoples treating the Europeans like gods and that they thought the ships looked like clouds bringing gods to them. Europeans made this up; Columbus himself was one of the people who made this up. This myth needs to end. (https://daily.jstor.org/the-mexica-didnt-believe-the-conquistadors-were-gods/?utm_campaign=generalmarketing&utm_content=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR1ZqNhmi4sfKT7ckYa_FNHhHLMYzA8omTlRnjB5-lLfe_6yF4nwWO07Pqo) It says “The men took gifts and even people from the island when they went home…” – it does not explain, however, that this was against their will. He kidnapped and enslaved them. It says nothing about his horrible treatment of the indigenous peoples – the slavery, genocide, torture, etc. These things can be explained to children in an age appropriate way. Textbooks need to stop avoiding this subject. It goes on to introduce several other invaders (“explorers”), but says nothing about how they invaded and treated indigenous peoples horribly. It says “Piece by piece, North America was being claimed by European countries.” without any discussion about invasion, land theft, colonization, genocide or any concept that these countries had no right to claim any of it.
Chapter 4 – “Settlements, Mosquitos, and an Indian Princess” Let’s stop at the title for a moment…there is no such thing as an “Indian princess.” This is something Europeans invented because they were describing other cultures through a European lens. The first sentence uses the word “discovering” when talking people invading North America. The chapter starts with the “lost colony of Roanoke” and quickly moves to a story that glorifies John Smith. It repeats the tired old story that Pocahontas saved Smith’s life. There is no real evidence that this is a true story. Her own people, the Mattaponi people, indicate that this story is not true. Dr. Linwood Custalow (of the Mattaponi nation) details how this would not have been possible, nor needed, in his book The True Story of Pocahontas. I highly recommend reading it.
Chapter 5 is about how the “pilgrims” escaped religious persecution in Europe. The problem with this story is that it paints them as innocent refugees. They did come to escape persecution...they had already "escaped" it and were living peacefully in Holland at the time, as freely as they'd like. They came knowing full well that they were stealing land that did not belong to them. The believed it was their right, according to their religion, to take the land and remove the Indigenous peoples. They stole corn and robbed graves as soon as they came ashore. They only believed in “freedom of religion” for themselves, not anyone else. None of this is included in the chapter. The chapter is completely dishonest about this history.
Chapter 6 – “Squanto the Friendly Indian and the First Thanksgiving” The title starts with the “Friendly Indian” narrative again. History books don’t describe Europeans in this way when they interact with each other. It is patronizing and perpetuates the “good Indian/bad Indian” narrative mentioned above. “Squanto” was not his actual name. Tisquantum may or may not have been his real name. The chapter starts with the myth of friendship between the “pilgrims” and the Native peoples in the area. It claims that he may have gone to England on his own will. It also says he may have been captured. The reality is that he was captured. This is a pretty well accepted historical fact. The only reason to claim he may have gone by his own free will is to make the English look better on paper. It continues the story about being “friends” with the English, being kidnapped again, being sold as a slave, etc. Much of it is accurate, but it is told in a very Eurocentric manner. Some of the story is conjecture about how he felt. It goes on to say he made friends with the pilgrims. It says he was happy to do all the farm work with his “friends” the “kind pilgrims” and that knowing he could save them from dying made him “feel better.” This is literally just a sappy made up story. It calls the area a “wilderness.” This is incorrect, the area was well inhabited by Native nations that shaped the land to their needs. Then we get to the Thanksgiving myth. It tells the myth of the friendly “pilgrim and Indian” feast. It uses the term “Indian braves” to describe the Wampanoag showing up as supposedly invited guests. This story is not true. For more information on Thanksgiving myths, visit this site: http://www.oyate.org/index.php/resources/43-resources/thanksgiving
Chapter 7 is largely not about Native peoples, but it says “Everything west of those colonies was wild country, where the Indians still lived, and only tough, strong explorers and trappers dared to roam.” It would take me a whole book to unpack that sentence. The implication is that “Indians” are wild, the land is “wild” and not shaped to the needs of the Native nations there, and that Natives didn’t live where the colonies were anymore. This is all false. It really glosses over slavery in this chapter and the way it talks about slavery is pretty gross. In the summery it states “Native American culture” with the word culture being singular. There is no such thing as “Native American culture.” We are not a monolithic people group. We are hundreds of different nations with vastly different cultures. It is very important to pluralize the word to be “cultures.” When I teach I have to address this concept every single time because children and adults alike regularly think we are all the same.
Chapter 8 talks about how Natives “gladly signed” treaties and wanted to be friends. Oh dear. Otherwise there is hardly any mention of Native Americans here. I do not understand how someone could write such a book and pass it off as a history textbook.
Chapter 9 glorifies George Washington. “George Washington was quite the fellow, wasn’t he?” It calls colonists innocent. If we want to be honest about history, we must acknowledge that the act of being a settler on stolen land is not innocence.
Chapter 10 calls Natives murderers for fighting back against the colonies. No where in this book does it call the “explorers” or colonists – murderers. It says the Natives “murdered” people because they did “not like the way the English built forts or cut down the forest.” Of course it had nothing to do with invasion and genocide…sure. The description of the Boston Tea Party is really something. Since they dressed up like “Indians” they of course let out “wild war whoops.”
The next few chapters don’t mention Native Americans, but they are heavy glorifications of early American “heroes.” Of note in Chapter 15 is this statement: “The Proclamation of 1763 also ceded a large portion of land to the Native American tribes…which included access to the Great Lakes region.” This is backwards and a highly biased wording. No one could “cede” land TO the Native nations in the area; they stole it and then temporarily gave it back with strings attached. This isn’t benevolent as this section makes it sound. Same with “including access” to the Great Lakes. They blocked their natural access to the lakes and then temporarily gave it back with strings attached. This type of wording is intentional to make the colonists look like innocent people being kind to their poor poor neighbors. This is a method of propaganda that is employed in almost all US textbooks. Chapter 16 makes no mention of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy’s influence on the constitution or structure of government. This is usually left out of textbooks. There is also no mention of how many of these “founding fathers” owned slaves or supported slavery.
Chapter 18 – “Looking West” This chapter starts with a glorification of “fearless men and women braving” the frontiers, including calling Daniel Boone an explorer and credits him for “discovering” places. Then it says “We are going to go roaming into the wilderness where there are Indians and wild animals.” Notice the incorrect word “wilderness” and including “Indians” with “wild animals.” This is another example of propaganda and dehumanization found in textbooks. Daniel Boone apparently knows how to “deal” with animals and “Indians.” It repeats the word “wilderness” throughout this entire chapter. The west was NOT a wilderness. Next we have statements about “not all Indians” being “friendly.” This is now introducing the “bad Indian” part of the narrative. It says he “discovered” the Cumberland Gap, but also says he used Native American trails to get there. Which is it? It can’t be both. Then they introduce the story of Boone being captured. This wording is not used in the book in reference to Europeans capturing Natives, except the part where they debate whether or not Tisquantum was captured. The term “unfriendly Indians” shows up in this story. The Europeans have to “defend” themselves. In reality, it is the other way around. The Native nations are defending their people and homelands from the unfriendly Europeans that are stealing their land and harming their people. They have several stories of “Indian braves” and “kidnapping” of Europeans in this chapter. They are not even subtle about their negative depictions of Native peoples and glorification of colonizers.
Chapter 19 – “The Louisiana Purchase” They continue to use the word “wilderness” quite frequently. This implies that it is untouched and unused. This is an important word to make children believe it was empty land without explicitly saying it. That is why it is repeated so often. This is why so many adults today honestly believe that the west was fairly empty and unused. Nothing could be further from the truth. It even states “I don’t want you to think that this land was tame, though, for it was far from that! It was vastly unsettled and teeming with wild animals. Also, many Native Americans lived there.” It can’t be “vastly unsettled” AND have “many Native Americans.” The statement about Natives living there is almost a footnote, like it didn’t matter. It then calls the area Native American “hunting grounds” rather than their home. It states that the colonists “received” land instead of discussing how it was stolen by the English and French and wasn’t theirs to sell or give away. It later discusses exploring the newly acquired land and needing weapons to “protect ourselves from the wild animals (not to mention hostile Natives).” Who was really hostile here? The Europeans invading or the Native nations defending themselves from invasion? Like the word “wilderness” and “friendly,” the word “hostile” sends a specific message to the reader that influences how they see Native Americans. Many American children see us as enemies still today. This comes directly from poor education like this as well as pop culture. The book continues on this exploration of the area: “We will need to keep our eyes open for Native Americans, though.” This is a warning, it implies we are dangerous. “Unfriendly” and “hostile” is used frequently in this chapter to describe Native peoples in the area.
Chapter 20 – “The Adventures of Lewis and Clark” We continue to hear the “wilderness” myth and the “friendly” vs “hostile” myth about Natives. “He also needed to know what Indian tribes lived there and if they were friendly or hostile. The land was wild; it had been inhabited only by French Canadians and British hunters and trappers for many years.” They keep contradicting themselves by saying “Indians” lived there, but then “only” French and British lived there or that it is empty. This dehumanizes Native peoples living in the area. We don’t matter to this narrative unless we are “hostile.” It says the area was “abundant in Native Americans.” This is how you describe plants or animals, not humans. We don’t say England is “abundant in English” or the colonies were “abundant in Europeans.” It says they encountered a “friendly Sioux tribe” and then calls the Lakota hostile. “Sioux” is an incorrect word used to describe Lakota and Dakota people. This story doesn’t make sense. It introduces Sacajawea and says she was a teenager. Instead of explaining how she was involuntarily “married” to a man who bought her, they say her being married young and having a baby was “custom among the Indian tribes at the time.” This is a white man who bought her and got her pregnant as a teenager, not Native people. She was an unwilling participant in this expedition, not someone they hired as the book claims. They hired her “husband,” not her. Sacajawea is used to further the “good Indian” narrative despite the reality of her story (which isn’t included, only the sanitized textbook version.)
Chapter 22 calls us “descendants of those who came from Asia.” Repeating this theory serves one purpose: to remove our inherent claim to this land. If we’re just supposedly immigrants or migrants from another land, then it isn’t really theft to invade and take it away from us. This is a subtle method of eroding our sovereign rights in the minds of US-Americans. Their treatment of the topic of slavery is really gross, again, but of note is the comparison of child labor in factories (paid, little as it was) to chattel slavery.
Chapter 23 – “Paths of Change” Again the discussion on slavery is gross. They highlight only white abolitionists. It pretends to travel back in time and “imagine” what it was like to be enslaved and uses stereotypical representations of the way white people think they talked. It’s really awful. Next we come to the Trail of Tears. It puts the word “theirs” in quotes when it mentions the land belonging to us, because the author obviously doesn’t believe that the land really is ours. It says we were violent toward the white settlers with no mention of the violence toward us. I don’t think the book has mentioned colonizer violence toward us even once (even when it mentions capturing people, it sanitizes it and makes it sound not harmful). It frames the idea of removal as the government “giving” land to Native nations in another area. The government never “gave” us land. They took all the rest and the reservations are what is left. The word “give” implies benevolence. It also implies that the land isn’t ours to begin with. For the first time in the book it mentions Native American deaths at the hands of colonizers, but it is done passively by describing the Trail of Tears and not who did it to them. Passive language is omission. Chapter 24 calls Fredrick Douglas’s owner (it says owner’s wife) a “kind lady” for teaching him to read.
Chapter 25 is about the Alamo. It says that not many people lived in California and the southwest. This is false, these areas were very populated by many Native nations at the time. Today the southwest and California have some of the highest Native American populations in the country, most of them are indigenous to those regions.
Chapter 26 – “The Great Journey West – Part 1” This chapter starts out by saying that the “spirit of adventure” is why people moved west. I’m pretty sure it was for land (that wasn’t theirs) and gold. It heavily pushes the idea of manifest destiny as positive. They’re still calling the area “wild” and “wilderness.” “There were many hardships on the journey – from Native American attacks to sickness and death.” We’re still the bad guys here, of course. If this was reversed and someone was invading Europe, they would write about how brave and amazing they were at defending themselves against this invasion. But when we are invaded, it’s a fun story of adventure and we’re the bad guys for defending ourselves.
Chapter 27 – “The Great Journey West – Part 2” This chapter begins by glorifying the gold rush. The gold rush kicked off the California genocide. This was the worst time period in California history for Native peoples. Some of the worst massacres in US history took place there. It is estimated that 24-27,000 Native Americans were taken as slaves, including thousands of children. The population dropped from over 150,000 Natives to less than 30,000 in just a few decades. There is no mention of any of this in the chapter. “We are always on the lookout for Indians.” This is said about imagining traveling west by wagon. It then says, again, that the “Indians” weren’t happy that they were being “crowded” off of their “hunting grounds.” It doesn’t acknowledge that the area was the HOME of these nations. It continues to call it “hunting grounds” instead. Then it says that Native Americans had lived there for “hundreds and hundreds” of years (thousands really) “without changing the land.” This is incorrect. Native nations were master stewards of the land. The land was shaped to the needs of the people in sustainable ways. Just because Europeans couldn’t recognize the work that was put into the land doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Most Americans believe this myth, the idea that we did nothing with the land (and therefore it was okay for them to take it). Americans are just now catching up to the idea that this is incorrect, despite the fact that we’ve always told them this. (A few examples: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110321134617.htm, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190521162443.htm?fbclid=IwAR1C9ULXtlNi68ruRT8Qq1rXlsgYRwQ2IsVmAf0osSrjZBX-B_TyDfATr4w, The management of land was common all throughout North and South America.) The myth of Native Americans not believing in land ownership is also found in this chapter.
If you read this far, thank you. There is so much wrong with this book. I didn’t even mention everything in this review. This book is horrific. I have zero hope of Volumes 2 and 3 being any better. I can almost guarantee Native Americans aren’t mentioned past the “wild west” part of book 2. 87% of textbooks don’t mention us past 1890. Even if they did, I wouldn’t trust this company to put out anything accurate about us or our histories. Other than using this book for kindling, the only value I can see is using it to teach my children (raised Apache and very well versed in Indigenous histories) about bias in US-American history textbooks when they are older. If they read it now, not only would they recognize the inaccuracies, but it would be hurtful to read some of these things. Please consider how harmful this book is to your children’s education and do not use it.
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