Curriculum Review: A History of Us - The New Nation 1789-1850 by Joy Hakim

This whole series is a trainwreck. They’re so horrible, but you can’t stop reading in disgusted awe of how horrifying this woman’s writing can get. To be honest, the only reason I keep reviewing them is so you can know how repulsively racist and inaccurate they are so you can spare your children an extremely damaging “education.” I realize this doesn’t sound very professional and I try to keep these reviews fairly professional, but these books don’t deserve that.

These books cause harm. Period.

So, I’ll just jump into the chapter-by-chapter breakdown. I mostly just pull terrible and inaccurate quotes from the text because these books are so bad. Sometimes there’s too many horrible quotes to pull, so I will try to summarize the best I can.

The cover statement says “Details of the world’s greatest land bargains. News of an expedition to unmapped territory west of the wide Mississippi. And stories of a very powerful Indian leader…”

US history is not “land bargains,” it’s theft. These aren’t “the world’s greatest land bargains,” they’re Europeans buying and selling land that doesn’t even belong to them in the first place. Land that was claimed through violent invasion and colonization. Land that was claimed without the consent of the Native nations whose land it is.

Preface – “Getting a Nation Started.”

This preface is basically all opinion. She inserts her baseless and odd opinions throughout her writing, but this whole thing is her opinions about this time period, not really any history. Honestly, the entire series is largely her opinions, not really history, but the prefaces are just ridiculous in that regard.

Some quotes and commentary:

 “It wasn’t easy getting a country started. Mistakes were made – some big mistakes.” The “mistakes” she is referring to are genocide, land theft, invasion, slavery, etc. These are not “mistakes.” These were intentional actions taken by people who felt it was their right to do so. Chalking up intentional bad decisions as being “mistakes” completely erases the fact that this country was founded on racism, genocide, and slavery.

“No nation has ever had a more impressive group of founders.” Why does she say things like this? These statements make no sense and are ahistorical. There’s no purpose for them except white nationalist propaganda.

“Never before have people written their own constitution. Never before have so many people been able to vote. Never before has a nation offered its citizens complete religious liberty.” These statements simply are not true. She is completely ignoring the history of Indigenous nations in the Americas and likely many other traditional societies around the world. This may be true of EUROPE, but not the whole world.

“Besides, everyone knows that in the United States ordinary people can and do own land. And that is astounding in the 18^th century.” Again, these statements simply are not true. This may be true in Europe, but not the entire world. The "need" to "own" land doesn't exist in most traditional societies. Collectively traditional societies have "owned" land together for thousands of years. This is a completely Eurocentric perspective on world history. 

She calls people that don’t agree with people of all races being represented by “We the people” – “cautious people.” She’s literally saying racist people are simply “cautious.”

It also says, “homes need to be built, forests cleared, and land explored.” Need? There is no “need” for this. This is all stolen land and none of this “needed” to be done.

It states, “farming methods are about the same as they have been for thousands of years.” This is only true of European methods. This not true worldwide and this is not true in the Americas. Indigenous farmers and scientists were always coming up with ways to advance and improve their knowledge and methods.

The preface has a whole rant about how people are used to slavery, it’s been practiced for thousands of years, so why is it a problem? This is supposed to be from the perspectives of colonists, but it ignores the glaring issue of chattel slavery which is very different. THIS TYPE of slavery had NOT been practiced for thousands of years. At least she acknowledges that Natives were also enslaved, but that doesn’t make up for the rest of her blathering.

She uses outdated terminology – “slaves” and “slave owners.” Of course, these were written in the 1990s. Many Euro-Americans hadn’t really thought critically about the language they use in the 90s. But just be aware that this language is used throughout the texts.

“This book is the story of America’s good beginnings, and of the cruelty of slavery that will lead us to war.” Good beginnings?? Excuse me? Invasion, genocide, theft, racism, white supremacy…these are “good beginnings?” Again, this is nationalist propaganda, not history.

Chapter 1 – “The Father of Our Country”

There is no mention of Native Americans in this chapter. It is about George Washington, but Washington had plenty of interaction with Native nations. He was named “town destroyer” by the Haudenosaunee and ever since then the name for “president” in their languages is “town destroyer.” His treatment of Indigenous people/nations is significant. There is no excuse to leave that out. 

This statement is false: “Remember, the birth of the United States was a world-shaking event. We were the first modern nation to form a people’s government, to write our own constitution, and elect our own leaders.”

She continues the trend from the last book of eliminating Native people from the narrative. Oddly enough, this book has more mention of Natives than the last book. There are later chapters that, of course, do include Native people and even a few (inaccurate) chapters about specific Native leaders, but we start to show up less and less in history at this point. She starts to eliminate us sooner than must curricula do. We usually disappear by the 1860s-1900. She starts that process by the mid to late 1700s. This should never happen. We are part of almost every aspect of this history and into modern times. In fact, Native people literally shaped the entirety of US history in the 1700s. You can't really tell that history without us. 

Chapter 2 – “About Being President”

Natives are not mentioned in this chapter. I do want to point out that it says Washington “supervised” people at his Mount Vernon home. No, he enslaved people. She is always trying to paint a rosy picture of slavery. It’s always a “both sides” narrative that highly favors the Euro-Americans. It gets so so so much worse in this book.

Chapter 3 – “The Parties Begin”

Native Americans are not mentioned in this chapter. There are a few issues of note, though.

The author calls people “good men” repeatedly. Men that enslaved people/trafficked humans, men that committed genocide, men that were rapists, etc. These are not “good men.”

This chapter makes a claim that people with disagreeing ideals (conservatives and liberals mentioned here) working together “helped make this country great” and “which is what has always happened in America. That is not true in many other nations. In some countries, people who speak out against the government are put in jail or even killed. Members of the losing party are thrown out of the country or even killed. That doesn’t happen in America.” This is entirely false. First of all, the idea that the US is “great” is a moral value judgement, a matter of opinion. This author constantly inserts her opinions (often odd and baseless) into history. And secondly, not only is this greatly exaggerated (and I don’t know anywhere that simply throws people from the “losing” party out of the country??), these types of things have happened in the US. The US holds political prisoners. These types of things happened in the colonies that started the US. The history of US politics is not squeaky clean as this author would want you to believe.

Chapter 4 - No Native Americans mentioned.

Chapter 5 – Counting Noses

Regarding the census, she says “Almost 4 million of us were counted in 1790….” “Six hundred and ninety-seven thousand, six hundred and eighty-one of us were slaves. No one counted the Indians. We do know that half of the land claimed by the U.S. government was held by Indians.” Notice the words “us” and “Indians.” A white author should not be saying “us” when talking about slavery. She also won’t drop the word “Indians.”

Later, regarding the 1800 census: “The census of 1800 counted 5.3 million Americans. One million of us were black, and 9 out of every 10 blacks were slaves.” Again, a white author should not be saying “us” here.  

“The new country was much larger than just the 13 states. When the British lost the Revolutionary War and signed a peace treaty, England gave up land that stretched all the way to the Mississippi River.” There is no mention of whose land it was or that they were “trading” land that wasn’t theirs. There are multiple quotes like this.

Another such example: “(If you crossed the Mississippi, as Daniel Boone did, you were in a foreign land. You were in Spanish territory until 1800. Then the land was taken by France. And then – keep reading and you’ll find out who got it next.)”

She constantly primitivizes Indigenous people. Here is one quote that does this: “On the frontier – beyond the mountains – people often lived in crude huts and wore leather clothes adopted from Indian designs.”

“Boys and girls on the east coast – those with white skins – lived much as their European cousins did. But there was an important difference: people here didn’t have long traditions to guide them (as most people on other continents did). So, Americans learned to think for themselves.” This statement is false. They did have long traditions to “guide them” – EUROPEAN TRADITIONS! US culture is and has always been largely European based. They brought their traditions with them. Also she has this regular theme of claiming USisans are better than the rest of the world because they “think for themselves.” Um, so does the rest of the world? This is nonsense propaganda.

“That was true for black boys and girls, too. Their world was radically different from that of their African cousins. They learned new ways, and, at the same time, hung on to some of their old traditions.” Their world was radically different BECAUSE THEY WERE ENSLAVED AND TRAFFICKED. This statement is gross.

Chapter 6 - No Native Americans mentioned.

Chapter 7 – About President Adams

There are no Native Americans mentioned here, but there are several examples of the authors bazar opinions here that I want to point out.

 “Perhaps he stayed too long in England. He grew fat and vain and peevish there.”

 “John Adams was a good man even when he didn’t have to be.” (Again, with this “good man” theme when the people weren’t actually “good men.”)

“Perhaps Adams was just too independent to be a good politician. Perhaps he had grown lazy by the time he became president.”

“If children acted the way the country’s leaders were acting, their parents would tell them to stop being silly, make up, and be friends.”

Chapter 8 - No Native Americans mentioned.

Chapter 9 - No Native Americans mentioned.

Chapter 10 – Meet Mr. Jefferson

Louisiana Purchase mentioned as if it was a legitimate purchase from France. The problem is - European powers were buying and selling land that they had no right to buy and sell. How did France get that land in the first place? By claiming it without the consent of the people whose land it actually was. Through colonization, which is inherently violent and harmful. She says that Jefferson “sent an expedition to investigate” – the size, where it ends, what it was like, etc. There is no mention of this being a military spy mission…which is what it was. It was always a military reconnaissance mission from the get-go.

Chapter 11 – Meriwether and William – or Lewis and Clark

It says Jefferson “…wanted to train him [Lewis] for an exploring mission. Thomas Jefferson was filled with curiosity about the West. He wanted to know about its land and its plants and animals; he wanted to know about the Indians who lived there.” Again, this wasn’t an “exploring mission,” it was a military reconnaissance mission. Why did Jefferson want to know all of those things? For the purpose of invasion and colonization.

“The West was as unknown in 1803 as much of outer space is now.” Unknown to whom? It certainly wasn’t unknown to the Indigenous people who not only lived there, but managed and cultivated the land there.

Of Lewis it says: “As a soldier he learned the ways of the Indians and how to survive in the wilderness.” As an “Indian,” I’d really like to know what the “ways of the Indians” are because…this doesn’t exist?? There are hundreds of nations, and each nation has their own unique ways. There is no such thing as “ways of the Indians” any more than there are “ways of the Asians” or “ways of the Europeans” as if they’re all the same.

Of Lewis and Clark, it says: “They chose men who were used to living in the wild. They trained them until they were tough and disciplined.” The fact is, they were already soldiers, so no…this isn’t quite accurate. They hired soldiers. Because this was a military mission.

“They explored that big unknown land that the United States had just bought from France…” Hopefully you already know what my thoughts are on statements like this. *eyeroll*

“It was dangerous country, with unexpectedly high mountains, difficult deserts, fierce animals, and wary Indians.” This is a major part of US origin mythology. The “dangerous” west because of “Indians.” Wary? More like Native nations that were defending themselves against foreign invasion.

“Wherever they went they took careful notes, made maps, wrote down vocabulary lists of Indian words, and collected samples of strange plants and animals. They added 200 species to the world’s list of known plants. The Native Americans taught them to use some of those plants as medicines, some as foods.” Emphasis mine. First of all, “Indian words?” Is that like “European words?” As if they all speak the same language?? This is monolithic nonsense. Same with “the Native Americans.” There is no such thing! This is more monolithic nonsense. Also, the people that helped them and taught them these things did so out of pity…because Lewis and Clark would have died otherwise. It was more like “oh these poor children have no idea how to live” rather than just “teaching” them things.

There is a quote from Jefferson as to his instructions to Lewis and Clark. There is no mention that the purpose of such detailed notes was invasion and colonization.

“President Jefferson wanted to know all about the Native Americans who inhabited the land; he wanted Lewis and Clark to establish friendships with the Indians and prepare for trade with them.” Why did Jefferson want to know this? For the purpose of invasion and colonization. It was reconnaissance. He didn’t want Lewis and Clark to establish “friendships” with Natives…he wanted them to spy on them.

It says they might not have been successful if it weren’t for “…an Indian woman named Sacajawea.” With a poor pronunciation guide for her name. It’s just wrong. Then everything else said about her is mythology and not reality. More US origin mythology.

“Sacajawea was 16 and married to a Frenchman. She was about to have a baby. Everyone was excited about that.” No, she was not “married” to a Frenchman, she was purchased by him and was ONE of his Indigenous sex slaves. I’m guessing Sacajawea wasn’t too excited about having her rapist’s baby.

“In the spring, when Lewis and Clark were ready to start out again, they hired Sacajawea’s husband as a translator of Indian languages. Sacajawea came along with her baby strapped to her back. But it was Sacajawea who turned out to be the helpful one; her no-good husband was lazy.” This perpetuates they mythology of her tragic story. She didn’t just “come along,” she was forced to…by the man who purchased her. And he was forced to within only months of having a baby. This is a time she should be resting and healing, instead she is being dragged along to help the initiation of invasion and genocide of her own people.

“When she was a child, Sacajawea had been kidnapped from this very tribe. The white men had brought her home.” This makes it sound as if Lewis, Clark, and her enslaver Charbonneau, were benevolent and bringing her home. They were not. They had no idea this would happen and it’s not like she had the opportunity to STAY home with her family. She was forced to leave them yet again by Lewis, Clark, and Charbonneau.

Chapter 12 – An Orator in a Red Jacket Speaks

This chapter is somewhat sympathetic to Natives, but still written in a racist and Eurocentric way. Eurocentrism is sneaky like this sometimes. It’s the WAY non-European cultures and people are written about.

“The new Americans wanted Indian land and they didn’t know a fair way to share it.” There is no “fair way” to share something that was violently stolen. This is a ridiculous statement.

“The Indians would lose most of their land. No one realized that in 1805, which was when Red Jacket spoke – though perhaps some understood that the Native Americans would not give up their land easily. Terrible Indian wars lay ahead.” They would not “lose” most of their land. This is passive language that puts the blame on Native people. They would have most of their land STOLEN. This is an important distinction. She regularly uses passive language like this as to not speak ill of her precious “founders.” I’m sure by 1805 most people knew this because that was the goal.

Chapter 13 – The Great Tekamthi, Also called Tecumseh

Same as the last chapter, this chapter is somewhat sympathetic to Natives, but still written in a racist and Eurocentric way.

One section ends with “…and leave the hunting lands of the West for the Indians.” These aren’t “hunting lands.” This is Eurocentric language that is used to make themselves feel better about stealing land and displacing Natives. If it wasn’t their homes, just “hunting land,” it’s not so bad, is it? But this was the HOMELANDS of Native nations. This is language that is used to discredit Indigenous claims to land.

“He would make the white men go. He would do it by uniting the Indian tribes.” Wow, so Tecumseh united ALL the “Indian tribes?” Sigh. This is monolithic language that does nothing to educate people about what Tecumseh really did. He united many Native nations in the Ohio Valley area, like the Shawnee, Potawatomi, Kicakapoo, Ho-Chunk, etc. But he didn’t unite “the Indian tribes.” That’s a ridiculous statement.

It says his brother was a “shaman.” The word “shaman” is incorrect. Native nations do not have “shamans.” This word is from eastern religions, not ours.
“They told them to go back to Indian ways and to be proud of their heritage. And the Indians did that, too.” Again, there are no “Indian ways,” there are lifeways that are specific and unique to each nation.

“Most of the Indiana Territory, by treaty, was supposed to be Indian land. But white settlers were moving in. Harrison was afraid that Tecumseh was too powerful, that the Indians would endanger the white settlers.” It wasn’t “supposed” to be “Indian land,” it WAS, by law, their land. White squatters were invading. Native nations were defending themselves against this invasion, not “endangering white settlers.”

Chapter 14 – Osceola

Again, this chapter is somewhat sympathetic to Natives, but still written in a racist and Eurocentric way.

She calls Osceola “the Indian boy” when he was a child. This is disrespectful.

The term “Indian civil war” is used in reference to the war of 1812. This was not an “Indian civil war” any more than any other European war where Native nations joined sides was. This was a European war on stolen land. That’s it. Just because Native nations took sides, doesn’t make it an “Indian civil war.”

“Although many didn’t understand it at the time, it was a disaster for both groups of Indians.” NATIVE NATIONS ARE NOT “GROUPS.”

“The Indians who lived in Florida were called Seminoles. They were a mixture. Many had been Creek, a few were of the old, mostly extinct tribes; some were wanderers and outcasts; some were blacks who had been slaves.” Surprisingly, the mixture of who the Seminole are, is correct. However, they were not simply “the Indians who lived in Florida.” This monolithic language makes it sound like they were the ONLY nation in Florida, which is not correct. The way this is written is problematic.

“The women farmed, the men hunted. Because the climate was warm, their houses were simple roofed platforms on stilts that kept them off the moist ground.” While there is nothing “incorrect” about these statements, they’re written in a Eurocentric way that makes them sound primitive. Yes, women were in charge of agriculture and men were hunters in Seminole society, but most other things were not divided by gender. Men and women participated in arts, storytelling, religion, medicine, etc. It is Eurocentric values of patriarchal society and strict gender roles that lead writers like this to focus on such concepts. This isn’t noteworthy unless you’re really diving into the societal structure of Seminole culture. Also calling traditional engineering and architecture “simple” is insulting and primitivizing.

“Like Tecumseh, he stood out among the others. He seemed braver and more truthful.” Why is a non-Native, non-Seminole or Shawnee author making value judgements like this? Not that it’s a bad statement, but her opinions don’t belong here.

There is a small breakout box about stickball, but she keeps calling it “lacrosse” which is a modern game that was based on traditional stickball. Stickball is not the same as Lacrosse. It also says “His [George Caitlin] words here describe Choctaw men playing a similar game; both games were like lacrosse.” This is a caption for a painting, but again, the games were not “like lacrosse.” The games are the origins of modern lacrosse. Lacrosse is like stickball.

Chapter 15 – The Revolutionary War Part II, or the War of 1812

“Capturing ships and holding territory – those are two pretty good reasons for fighting. There was a third reason that wasn’t so good. Many Americans wanted Indian land. But the English and their western forts had become friends and protectors of the Indians.” I would never call reasons for war “good.” But beyond that, they hadn’t become “friends,” they became political allies. Language like “friends” is patronizing and discredits the political nature of Native nations. Then Natives aren’t even mentioned again. She did talk about the Creeks and the Red Sticks in the previous few chapters, but briefly. Even though that was a huge part of the war of 1812, she doesn’t mention it here.

Pg 83 has a story about “the Star-Spangled Banner” but it completely skips the 3^rd stanza. It says “We’re skipping the third stanza – which is not often sung. The fourth stanza…” and then goes into the fourth stanza which is ALSO not often sung, so why completely skip over the 3^rd with the excuse of “it’s not often sung?” probably because it’s racist and she doesn’t want to admit that in the book.

Chapter 16 - No Native Americans mentioned.

Chapter 17 – That Good President Monroe

This chapter goes into the whole Florida taken from Spain, Jackson sent to capture “runaway slaves” and then it says “but he did more than that. He had learned to fight as the Indians fought. He burned villages and destroyed crops. He captured, killed, and humiliated the Seminoles.” This is about the First Seminole War, but seriously she keeps saying things like “learned to fight as the Indians fought.” Not all Native nations fought the same way.

“Lots of people in the United States couldn’t wait to move to Florida. But what about the Seminoles? They had to make way for the white settlers.” They didn’t “have” to “make way” for anyone. They were forced to by greedy violent people. But none of this was a “have to.” It was all choice on the part of the invaders. This language is gross.

“James Monroe and John Quincy Adams decided something needed to be done to keep Europe out of the Americas” This just made me laugh…in a sad disgusted way. THEY ARE EUROPEANS. USians ARE Europeans. They’re the invaders.

Chapter 18 - No Native Americans mentioned.

Chapter 19 - No Native Americans mentioned.

Chapter 20 – Old Hickory

She refers to Andrew Jackson as “Andy.” This is just strange.

“By the time he was 30 he owned two large plantations near Nashville.” As if that’s an accomplishment? These were worked by enslaved people.

“Andrew Jackson was a man of action, a born leader who was already doing things and going places and changing the world he lived in.” As if he was doing all positive, good things. He was a horrible man and president, though. This is Eurocentric glorification of a genocidal maniac.

“Andrew Jackson did change the presidency – it was never the same again. Most people think he made it stronger.” Who are “most people” here?? Whose opinion is she talking about? “It helped that he had good manners, natural manners.” Sorry, not sorry, people with good manners don’t commit genocide.

The entire chapter is positive praise for one of the worst and most horrifying presidents in US history.

Chapter 21 – Yankee Ingenuity: Cotton and Muskets

“People didn’t practice scientific farming. They often destroyed the land by growing the same crops year after year….” In this statement “people” refers to white people only. “People” is not the default for “white!” This type of wording needs to stop. Euro-Americans specifically didn’t practice scientific farming. Indigenous people in the Americas, as well as around the world, DID practice scientific farming. They did NOT destroy the land. They DID practice crop rotation long before Europeans/Euro-Americans understood the concept.

“The south had been having economic problems. Slavery wasn’t as useful as it had been in the early colonial days.” “There wasn’t enough work for the slaves.” “Slaves became very valuable again.” These are all incredibly problematic statements. Unfortunately they’re not the worst this book has to offer.

Native Americans aren’t mentioned here though.

Chapter 22 – Going Places

“Road building was a new science” Really? Because I’m pretty sure Natives in North and South America has been building road systems for thousands of years. What she means here is MODERN road building was a new science. But roads themselves were not.

She keeps calling things “wilderness” and “the wilds” in this chapter. I have addressed this multiple times, so I won’t again. But it’s just wrong.

No Native Americans (sans “two Indian boys”) mentioned in this chapter.

Chapter 23 – Teakettle Power

This chapter praises railroad expansion, which is gross because that was…you guessed it! Invasion and genocide. But what’s even more ridiculous is that she doesn’t even mention Native Americans in this chapter…a chapter about invading more Native land (even land guaranteed by Congress and treaty as being off limits to whites). You literally can’t teach the history of railroad expansion adequately and appropriately without talking about the impact on Native nations and the significant (and powerful) Native resistance.

Chapter 24 – Making Words

This is about Sequoyah. And good heavens, this entire thing is HORRIBLE.

“A white man would take words, turn them into shapes, and scratch them on a slate or draw them on a piece of paper. Then another man could look at those shapes and say the first man’s words. Was it magic? Sequoyah could draw pictures of things he could see. But you can’t see words. You can’t touch words. How can they be pictured? Sequoyah was determined to find out.” This is so racist. Not only did some Native nations already have writing systems or systems of recording information in various forms, not just “white men”, no one thought it was “magic.”

“But no Cherokee could read or write his own language, because reading and writing were unknown to Indian tribes. Indian stories and speeches were remembered and retold by orators, or storytellers, or singers.” No. Reading and writing was not “unknown” to “Indian tribes.” It was not something the Cherokee practices prior to this, but some other Native nations DID. The idea that no Native Americans had writing before Europeans is a racist myth.  

“…some thought the symbols were dangerous witchcraft.” No, they did not. Some Cherokee thought that the practice of writing was too close to being witchcraft, but they didn’t just think his “symbols” were witchcraft themselves.

“The problem with the Indians, said many white men and women, was that they were “savages” and “uncivilized.” By that they meant that the Indians did not do and think as the white people did. But the Cherokees confounded the whites. Many of them did live as the whites did. Some Cherokees married white people. Some combined the two ways of life.” This whole thing is just racist. She loves to call us the S word, which is a racial slur. She uses it a lot. But many Cherokee “did live as the whites did” because they were forced to assimilate. It was essentially assimilate or die. Many people thought assimilation was the only way to survive. This wasn’t a random “choice” people made and making it out to sound like they just did this because they wanted to is dishonest.

There is a big description about how they were super assimilated and how great that was. She writes about it as if it was a wonderful thing. It’s like she actually believes we were “uncivilized” and Europeans saved us from ourselves. It’s disgusting.

“The Cherokees formed a government” Um, they already had one. It’s just that they formed a new, more European style government.  

She uses Eurocentric language to say people came to the “New World” looking for land. Land in the East was “full.” As if it was logical and right to keep invading other peoples land.

“That was when they discovered a problem: most of that frontier belonged to the Indians. ‘Why should the Indians have so much?’ they asked. ‘Isn’t there enough land for everyone?’ So they pushed west. Some of them put up their cabins on Indian lands. Many wanted to live peacefully with the Indians. Some didn’t. In Europe they had read that the Indians were ruthless savages.” Again, she loves calling us the S word. She does it completely unironically as if she really thinks of us that way. But calling our existence a “problem?” That’s gross. The European/Euro-American racist concept of “the Indian problem” can be taught about in a non-racist way. This isn’t it.

“The Cherokees had a warrior tradition. They didn’t know which white people were friendly and which ones weren’t.” Don’t Europeans have a “warrior tradition?” Don’t most cultures in the world? This isn’t unique to the Cherokee or Native nations. But it’s mentioned because we have to be portrayed as “fierce” S words by this author. It’s the only way she writes about us. Again with the patronizing word “friendly.” They were political and engaged in diplomacy. They didn’t know which white people wanted to murder them.

“They just knew their land and lives were being threatened, so they went on raids and killed white people and burned their cabins and farms. The settlers didn’t know which Indians could be trusted and which ones were killers, so they went on raids and killed Indians and burned their homes and fields. Life on the frontier was terrifying – and very dangerous.”  No, they defended themselves the way any other nation would in that situation. This whole “both sides” narrative she pushes is a racist dog whistle. Life on the frontier was only “terrifying and very dangerous” because white people were literally illegally invading other people’s nations with the explicit purpose of killing anyone in their way so they could have what they wanted.

Then she claims that “Some leaders like George Washington and James Madison tried to find ways to protect the Indians.” No...absolutely, no, they did not. George Washington was literally called “town destroyer” by the Haudenosaunee.

“…all Indians should live west of the Mississippi. Most white Americans – including Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson – agreed. They all thought the Indians would be safe there, and could live in peace.” Removal had NOTHING to do with “Indians” being sent to “safety.” This is disgusting and absurd and complete revisionist history. There is nothing correct about this statement at all.

“The Cherokees didn’t want to move. They loved their land.” That’s it??? It’s because they just loved their land?? How about they didn’t want to move because THEY ARE A SOVERIGN NATION with every right to stay exactly where they were without foreign invaders illegally pushing them out.

“The Cherokees had no choice. Even though they had their own nation and were governing themselves, they had to go.” They didn’t “have” to go. They were illegally forced to go. She writes about history as if these things were just inevitable and “had” to happen, but they didn’t.

A picture caption says: “by the time they had to move westward, few Cherokees lived in the old ways as this man did, hunting, fishing, and gathering. Most were farmers and traders.” Wow. Just no. The Cherokee have ALWAYS been farmers and traders!! For thousands of years!  

Chapter 25 – A Time to Weep

This title is not secular. It’s clearly a Christian bible reference.

It claims “As they went they wept, because they didn’t want to go. They didn’t want to leave their homes, their farms, their hunting grounds, the land of their fathers and mothers.” This is NOT why it is called the Trail of Tears. While being illegally forced from their homelands was part of the sadness, this is called the “Trail of Tears” because thousands of people were MURDERED. Because this was a genocide.

Then it says “The people who wept were Native Americans.” Again with the generic “the Native Americans” Which ones?? This chapter is about the Cherokee. It should say “The people who wept were Cherokee.”

It then calls the Cherokee “stubborn” because they refused to move from their homelands as was their sovereign right to refuse. This is not “stubborn.” It’s the law.

“Jackson was popular. He was a man of the people, a man of the frontier, in many ways was a good president.” She really loves to praise Andrew Jackson. Gross.

Then there is a whole page that focuses on a white missionary named Samuel Worcester – “…who had come to the Indian territory to teach school and to preach Christian doctrine.” It’s all written in a very positive way.

 Of John Marshall she says, “He was a man with a mind as straight as an Indian’s arrow.” Is a ridiculous comparison like this really necessary?

Regarding Jackson’s refusal to follow the ruling of the Supreme court “Our American system of checks and balances failed. I am sorry to have to write this. It was a terrible moment in U.S. history. But the truth needs to be told.” – Oh…NOW the truth matters to her? After all this untruthful history??

“People in Georgia wanted Indian land. (I don’t want to pick on just Georgia. The same thing happened in many other states.) So the Indians of the eastern woodlands went west. Some fought before they went. The Sauk and Fox in Illinois fought especially hard, but their cause was hopeless.” All the nations fought to protect themselves, some did it physically, others through the courts, but all fought. Calling the self defense of nations “hopeless” is another baseless opinion she didn’t need to insert.

“The Choctaws were the first, they moved in 1831. Three years later the Chickasaws trudged west.” Emphasis mine. This is passive language. They didn’t “move.” They didn’t just “trudge west.” They were forcibly removed by Euro-Americans. She continuously puts the blame on Native people through passive language like this.

“The government said the new land would be theirs forever. But when the white people moved west they forgot their promises to the Indians.” They did not “forget.” It was intentional. 

Chapter 26 – The Second Seminole War

This chapter is a somewhat inaccurate, but heavily Eurocentric, overview of the second Seminole War.

“Some white settlers were shooting and burning and looting. Some Seminoles were shooting and burning and looting. There was only one way to satisfy the homesteaders and protect the Indians, said most white people. The Seminoles must move.” Again, the “both sides” narrative is racist. The Seminole were defending themselves from violent invaders. They had every right to do so. The white settlers were the invaders that had no right to do so.

In contrast to the assimilated White Stick Creeks, “The Seminoles lived an Indian life. They had black friends. Some were blacks themselves.” Not only is the language regarding Black people outdated, again there is no such thing as “an Indian life.” They lived a SEMINOLE life.

Regarding the leader who was sent to “conquer the Seminoles” – “Dade’s troops were slaughtered.” She doesn’t use the word “slaughtered” to describe what Europeans and Euro-Americans did to Indigenous people. She only uses it to describe what Native people did in rightful self-defense. This is a distortion of history and racist.

Regarding the invading party – “the American soldiers were suffering from heat, disease, and frustration – as well as Indian attack.” No, they were not suffering from “Indian attack,” THEY were the attackers. The Seminole were suffering from white attacks. The Seminole were rightfully defending themselves.

It claims the Seminoles were the ones that raised the white flag of truce, and this is how Osceola was captured. It’s the other way around, the US raised the white flag as a trick. More specifically, General Thomas Jessup raised the white flat as a trick. The idea that the Seminole were the ones who raised a white flag is just a flat out lie.

“Most of the Seminoles who were left went west to the Indian territory.” This is passive language. It places the blame on the Seminole. They didn’t just “go west,” they were forced…by the US. Passive language about these topics are a huge issue throughout these books. And it wasn’t even “most” of the Seminole. Some Seminole went west, some didn’t. Some are still there in Florida.  

“In the end, no one won the Seminole War.” Um yes…the Seminole did. The Seminole won and never signed a peace treaty with the US.

Chapter 27 – History’s Paradox

I can’t really type out quotes of how horrible this chapter is, the whole thing is horrible. It is about slavery. She has extremely warped and racist views about slavery. As I read this chapter, my thoughts ended up being “It just keeps getting worse.” I’ll just leave photographs of the pages so you can see for yourself. 

No Native Americans mentioned (even though Natives were enslaved in the Americas from 1492 to 1865. She briefly mentions this in the preface, but nowhere else). 

Chapter 28 – A Man Who Didn’t Do as His Neighbors Did

The end of the 1700s/beginning of 1800s “It was the Age of Reason. People were using their minds, reading books, and asking questions.” Um…I’m pretty sure people have been doing that for thousands of years. Again, she uses “people” to mean Europeans only. She regularly makes white people the default of the word “people.” It was only the “Age of Reason” in Europe and most of their ideas came from BIPOC people around the world, including ideas from Native nations in the eastern woodlands areas.

Alas, yet again there are no Native Americans mentioned in this chapter and it is not secular either.

Chapter 29 – African Americans

This chapter starts with a weird unnecessary statement about Pangea. Beyond that, this whole chapter is a nightmare. 

“…some of Africa’s children were torn from their roots and transplanted to America.” This is passive language. She loves to not place blame where it belongs.

“Like the people who came here from Europe or Asia, they were changed by the American land.” This is a straight up racist erasure of Indigeneity. Repeatedly just saying we “came from Asia” instead of acknowledging our Indigeneity is inaccurate and harmful. Also, Europeans weren’t “changed by the American land,” they were changed by developed Indigenous civilizations that they invaded and took over the infrastructure that already existed.

“Soon they were different from the brothers and sisters they had left behind. Soon they were no longer Africans. Now they were Americans – African Americans.” Wow no.

“An African may have come to the newly discovered land on the first of Columbus’s voyages. By 1501, Africans were living in the Caribbean. In 1619 they were living in Jamestown, Virginia, and, a few years later, at Plymouth, Massachusetts.” As if it was all voluntary?? This just says they were “living” in these places as if they came here on their own free will. This is extreme erasure of true history.

“Africans cleared the woods, tilled the soil, planted tobacco, and harvested cotton. They were farmers, trailblazers, mountain men, cowhands, and pioneers. They were Americans.” Holy wow, this is so horrible. They were FORCED to do these things. She writes as if this was all a choice. They were not considered “Americans” by white people!

No Native Americans are mentioned. I only mention this because I do for any chapter that doesn't mention us for the main purpose of my reviews. Despite the long history of community building and sharing between African Americans and Natives, I still wouldn't really expect mention of Natives in a chapter like this. 

Chapter 30 – The King and His People

This chapter is entirely passive voice about cotton itself being the cause of chattel slavery and it being a tyrannical king. It’s absurd and full of horrible opinions.

Of the human traffickers/enslavers she says, “They were smart, and lucky, too. Each of them bought a little land, worked it, bought a slave or two, worked them, bought more land, and soon had a whole plantation.” This is said as if this is positive and good. She calls them “smart and lucky”?! For trafficking in kidnapped humans??

“Walk in woods like that and you may see goblins and spooks and little people; soon you’ll think up your own stories.” WOAH. If you don’t know the history of the word “sp**ks” look it up. In this context it is a racial slur.

Then it falsely states that most lynchings in the south between 1840 and 1860 were white people, “There was almost no lynching of slaves – they were worth money.” This completely erases the actual history of lynching Black people (and sometimes other BIPOC as well). Most of those early supposedly “white” people that were lynched were Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, or Indigenous people, not actually white. And just because enslaved people weren’t often lynched because of their “value” to human traffickers, that doesn’t mean free Black people and self-emancipated (“escaped”) Black people weren’t targeted. She is clearly trying to downplay the racial history of lynchings.

“If you want to understand about slavery and the conflict between blacks and whites, you will need to do a lot of reading and thinking. Especially if you want to be fair.” WHAT?? There is no “fairness” on this topic. She is yet again trying to “both sides” this horrific history.

“You will read tales of kind masters and happy slaves…” AGAIN, WHAT?? This is a racist myth created to make white people feel better about the history of slavery in the US.

“…and you will read stories of viciousness, cruelty, and abuse. There is both truth and exaggeration in most of these stories.” WOW. Just racist.

“Yes, there was terrible, brutish, inexcusable meanness in slavery. But most slave owners – even if they were cruel – thought of their slaves as valuable property. They might beat them, but they tried not to do them serious harm. They needed to keep their property healthy.” This is horrifying and disgusting.  

“Yes, there were kind slave owners who cared for the people they owned and treated them well. There was genuine affection between blacks and whites.” I can’t even at this point. Sorry for losing my professionalism here.

Then it goes on to talk about being illegal to teach slaves to read and a woman going to jail for it and said “Whites were losing their freedom, too” as if this is about them?!?!

I am disgusted more and more as these books go on. No Native Americans mentioned.

Chapter 31 – Abolitionists Want to End Slavery

Another disgusting chapter.

“Don’t think this was a case of good Northerners and bad Southerners.” – This starts out correct….

“Many white Southerners hated slavery and treated blacks decently. And many white Northerners didn’t seem to know about the Golden Rule (“Do unto others…”). Northern blacks were rarely given the rights of citizens: in most places they weren’t allowed to vote or serve on juries. In the North, blacks often held the worst jobs, and black children were usually not allowed in white schools.” – and then COMPLETELY misses the mark. No, it’s not because some white Southerners were good, and some white Northerners were bad. It’s because RACISM. That’s literally the answer. Racism and white supremacy. North – bad, South – bad. All bad. It is a white supremacist country. BOTH ARE BAD.

No Native Americans mentioned (again, only saying this for the main purpose of this review, I mention it for any chapter that doesn't).

Chapter 32 – Frederick Douglass

This chapter starts out okayish, but then it says that as a young child he was sent to be a “companion to a little white boy. For a slave, that was a lucky break.” There is absolutely nothing “lucky” about being enslaved. She’s still trying to claim slavery wasn’t “that bad.” The rest of the chapter surprisingly isn’t horrible, but I think that is because it is mostly quotes from Frederick Douglass himself.

There is a section at the end about “Walking Across the Map” in the time of Andrew Jackson’s presidency. It is, of course, very whitewashed and full of passive language. There is very little mention of Natives and all of it is passive and whitewashed. No surprise there.

Of course, I would not expect Natives to be mentioned here, and we're not. 

Chapter 33 – Naming Presidents

This chapter is about presidents 8-15. It’s propaganda mostly. She also claims that all of the first 7 presidents were “outstanding,” including enslavers and Andrew Jackson. Native Americans are essentially not mentioned here (brief reference). 

Chapter 34 - No Native Americans mentioned.

Chapter 35 - No Native Americans mentioned.

Chapter 36 – Liberty for All?

This is the opening: “How do you think the nation is doing? Are you discouraged? After all, there is slavery, some people are being horrible to the Native Americans, and there is much lawlessness in the land. Does it look hopeless for freedom, democracy, and fairness? Well, don’t be discouraged. Actually, the United States is doing amazingly well.” I’d like to know – in what world is invasion, genocide, the chattel slavery, and white supremacy as a national foundation “doing amazingly well?”

And the chapter ends very quickly with more propaganda and baseless opinion of the author.

This is from the last review, but it needs repeating: I want to explain why I point out “there is no mention of Natives in this chapter” instead of just skipping it. Excluding Natives from history is as “American as apple pie.” We disappear from the textbooks and stories and are said to have disappeared ourselves. We become so insignificant in the mentality of modern Euro-Americans that we aren’t included in history as books move through time. We become invisible. 87% of textbooks don’t mention us past 1890. We are still invisible today and this has a massive impact on us and our continued oppression. Erasing us from history is an intentional and vital piece of US propaganda. The reality is that we should be included in pretty much every aspect of US history, because we have been part of it since its beginning, willingly or not. I have taught thousands of US school children about Native peoples over the years. I am regularly confronted with questions of my existence. “Are you a real Indian?” even though I introduce myself as a Native woman. “Are you from India?” because they don’t understand that Natives didn’t all disappear. I have been told by children and adults that they thought we didn’t exist anymore. Reclaiming Native Truth is a project that found that 40% of adults in the US don’t know that we still exist. Hakim actively participates in this propaganda in the way she writes this series. My reviews will most likely get shorter and shorter as I move through the books because we will disappear from them completely. I always point it out because I want you to notice. 

There are obvious chapters, like ones that focus on African Americans or people like Frederick Douglass, where I wouldn't expect Natives to be mentioned, nor do we need to be. This book has several chapters where it is perfectly fine that we are not mentioned due to the nature of the chapter. I only point it out because my main purpose for the review is Native content and where we are or are not mentioned. However, there were several horrible chapters that I had commentary for that are outside of the main scope of this review, only so you can see how racist the books and writer are. I am not an expert on those histories, but I can spot inaccuracies, racism, and Eurocentrism (and her awful opinions) there regardless. 

I continue to recommend staying far, far away from these books and telling others to do the same. They are absolute trash and cause harm. 

Curriculum Review: A History of Us - From Colonies to Country by Joy Hakim

This theme of "one of the worst history books I have ever read" isn't going away any time soon when I review the Joy Hakim series A History of Us. As with the first two, this book is full of incorrect information, baseless opinions, and a significant amount of bias and racism. Getting right to it:

A History of Us – Colonies to Country 

Preface – The opening of the book paints a picture of a natural, wild, paradise that she calls an “animal playground.” She claims that Natives are “clustered in small spaces across the land” and says that people live in “tiny clearings” in this wild, essentially empty, continent. It says “and this land is much as it has been since the times beyond remembering.” Of Native Americans, she says “They have been fortunate, these people who are now called Indians. They have had the luxury of much land and few people. They have lived in a kind of natural paradise.” This picture is 100% false.

Pre-Invasion population estimates vary, but as many as 112 million people lived in the Americas before Europeans. Mesoamerica was one of the most densely populated places in the world in before European invasion. There were massive cities north of modern day Mexico, extensive trade routes, and people everywhere. The land was not a “natural paradise” either. It was intentionally shaped to the needs of the people. There were purposefully cultivated food forests, maintained grasslands and prairies, carefully cultivated farms, and signs of human intervention everywhere. It was never a wilderness. These “tiny clearings” were actually massive cities and connected satellite communities. This supposed small number of people “clustered in small spaces” were actually millions of people spread out in a well maintained environment. If it was a paradise, it was a man made one.

This type of myth leads to false and harmful ideas about wide open land for the taking when Europeans came. It was just there and available for them, beckoning them to come and improve it. These are US origin myths. They’re not real.

In the preface, she also claims that the ideas behind slavery, classes, aristocrats, peasants, and all of that will be “blasted away” on July 4, 1776. In what world? This is a total fantasy. She says that people came to “escape those European ways.” Nope. They forcefully brought those ways with them. She claims that July 4, 1776 “unleashes” the ideas that will “end slavery” and that the US founding was all about “opportunity for all” and “equality and fairness.”

“The idea is so daring that nothing like it has been heard in governments before. This is it: ordinary people are as worthwhile and valuable and competent as anyone, even as worthwhile as kings and queens.” Except these ideas already existed in some societies and governments, especially in some Indigenous cultures around the world.

This is not history, it’s fanciful stories and myths that she is weaving throughout these books. None of this is true.

Chapter 1 - Natives are not mentioned.

Chapter 2 - Natives are not mentioned. Of note though, she says that Lawrence Washington built Mount Vernon, there is no mention of enslaved people that actually built it.

Chapter 3 – Frenchmen and Indians

It starts off with a bunch of oversimplifications and misrepresentations of treaties and cultural beliefs about land.

“Indian hunting grounds were disappearing as the whites moved in. The Indians were alarmed. They were willing to fight to preserve their land.” This wasn’t just “hunting grounds,” but homes, nations, towns. And of course we were “willing” to fight (and it wasn’t just about land) …anyone facing an invasion and genocide would be.

A picture of a man is labeled “General Braddock was 60 years old….” It finishes with “But he didn’t know how to fight Indians in a wilderness.” Again…this was not a wilderness.

The book claims that treaties were signed “without the Indians understanding the details” as if intentionally deceptive treaty practices were our fault. It wasn’t due to lack of “understanding the details” unless those details were intentionally left out. This makes us sound ignorant and stupid. It says the English “bought land.” A lot of land was not “bought,” but taken…stolen.

“And yet, though Indians never owned land individually, Indian tribes did claim the right to use an area of land.” Okay, this is correct. Territories were agreed upon and maintained. But the next thing is incorrect. “It was those rights they signed over to the English.” No. Native nations did not “sign over” rights. They made specific agreements for the use of the land. They were deceived sometimes. There were cultural misunderstandings sometimes. But they did not “sign over” rights.

That was just the first page of this chapter. These books are exhausting.

She claims the colonists meant to honor the treaties, but they didn’t always actually mean to honor them. She then blames “frontiersmen” for the treaties not being honored instead of corrupt politics and lies. There is no mention of some of the bad practices behind the treaties that lead to them being known as “bad paper.”

She then lays the blame for Natives being invaded and killed on Natives instead of the colonizers.  “If the Indians had united, perhaps they might have been able to resist the frontier people.  But old feuds kept the Indian tribes apart.” “They kept picking at each other – the English, the French, and the Indians – raiding and scalping and killing.” This is not accurate. Plus, a lot of “feuds” between Native nations in this time were a direct result of invasion, genocide, colonization, slavery, disruption of food networks and trade, and being pushed around constantly by Europeans. She simply describes the “frontier people” as “rough and rowdy.”

The first time any nations are specifically named, it claims the French respected the land and were a lot like the Natives. While French colonization was certainly different, it was still invasion and colonization. It still involved land theft, killing, rape (all those “marriages” weren’t always consensual), deceptive politics, and everything else. They weren’t just nice, happy, friends with Natives as she describes. She even says the French were “the best friends the Indians had.” It is so much more complex than “friends” and “not friends.” It even says that the French were basically innocent – “they understood and respected the land in a way the English never learned” – and then says the issue was that the Iroquois simply didn’t like them and that’s why they were enemies. “But the Iroquois didn’t care. They didn’t like them.” It’s just absurd the way this is written.

“The Iroquois led a strong league of six Indian nations.” There is no real indication of what time period this is talking about. The sixth nation didn’t join the Haudenosaunee Confederacy until 1722. This may mean that this part of the chapter takes place after 1722, or it may mean the author doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Either one is possible.

She refers to all this invading and fighting “adventures” in a small side bar about Braddock.

In a description of the beginning of the French and Indian War, she uses racist descriptions for Natives. “The Indians screamed blood-chilling war whoops.” This.is.racist. These kinds of descriptions are absolutely not acceptable.

The chapter ends with a small, ridiculous, description of Daniel Boone that promotes stereotypes and glorifies westward expansion. “…he could fight and hunt like an Indian.” What exactly is “like an Indian?” This is just a monolithic and romanticized racist trope.

Chapter 4 - This chapter starts a highly racist description of a Mohawk leader...that turns out to actually be Irish and not Native at all. Sir William Johnson was accepted by the Mohawk, but that doesn’t make this description okay. It then says “He was both an English American and an Indian American, and he did his best in each of those worlds. No one on this continent has ever done that as well.” What the heck kind of statement is that? It’s yet another one of those weird opinions the author inserts unnecessarily throughout the text. Apparently he became rich and famous and bought a bunch of land. The book calls him “remarkable,” but he was buying stolen land and becoming rich off of Native resources.

It then describes an actual Mohawk person, Tiyanoga, as “friendly.” This term is patronizing and perpetuates “good Indian/bad Indian” narratives. It also touts his conversion to Christianity as a character trait (as if Natives who don’t are bad or not as good). The author mistakenly calls sachems “kings,” after already calling them sachems. She goes on to explain that the British called them kings. So why not just stick with sachem instead? Her back and forth makes no sense.

Back to William Johnson – it says that he and his wife married in “the Indian way.” There is no such thing. Native nations and cultures are not a monolith. There is no “Indian way” for anything at all.

The chapter does, surprisingly, discuss Benjamin Franklin being influenced by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, but quotes him saying “ignorant s*v*ges” and then continues to repeat this racist phrase several times without discussing the fact that it’s a racial slur. It then says “Was it because the Indians didn’t have written languages and sometimes wore few clothes?” Hm, racist generalizations much? Neither of these things are true and they also lump us all together into a monolith…yet again. The Haudenosaunee specifically had wampum belts which were a form of writing in a sense. This is part of where Franklin got his ideas from, but let’s just pretend these darn Indians couldn’t communicate any other way but orally.

The chapter speaks of Johnson’s army as “some Indian warriors” as if they’re completely insignificant. There is then a random snippet of John Stuart (Indian commissioner of the southern colonies) hating “s*v*ges.” There seems to be no real reason for it to be here other than her love of repeating that racial slur (and essentially calling us that slur) often.

The chapter includes an awful painting of Pontiac’s Rebellion even though that isn’t even discussed anywhere in the chapter.

Chapter 5 - This one starts with a quote from Jeffery Amhurst stating “he really did believe they were s*v*ges.” Seriously, Hakim takes every opportunity she can to use that slur. It’s awful and completely unnecessary in any book, let alone a history text. Of course we also find more racist descriptions of Natives here like Amhurst hating Johnson – “…a provincial – especially one who ran around in Indian garb…” The chapter is quite short, but certainly has room for racism.

Chapter 6 - The top of the second page here has a breakout box of information about Spanish missions which is crassly titled “Indians: Mission Impossible.” How gross cans Hakim get? She keeps outdoing herself. This box says nothing of slavery or cruelty and claims the deaths were all from disease. It says that the Spanish “didn’t intend to kill them.” Except they did. Minor details, right?

Amazingly this chapter mentions the intentional spread of Smallpox via blankets, but then it is followed by a serious amount of absolute hogwash. “The Native Americans needed guns in order to hunt. Many had forgotten how to use bows and arrows. They were soon without food or clothing.” This is absurd. She just makes things up to suit the narrative that she wants to tell…and that narrative is racist and inaccurate.

She again blames only “settlers” for land theft and killing of Natives, but not the US or official government policy. She intersperses this supposedly balanced perspective with racist statements like “The Indians went on the warpath.” I don’t see her saying anything about the English or other Europeans going “on the warpath.” They were respectable soldiers and militaries and governments, of course. This is racist plain and simple.

Chapter 7 - Hakim spends a lot of time praising missionaries and the [forced] conversions of Natives and enslaved Africans and this chapter is no different. It starts with a little story about an “English preacher.”

Of England, Hakim states “…and she has had to keep the English colonists and Native Americans from killing each other,” and then says “The king of England had a great idea for settling the Indian problem.” Hold up. She actually says “Indian problem” without quotes. She, completely unironically, calls us the “Indian problem.” If you aren’t aware, look up the racist history of US policy on “the Indian problem.” If I wasn’t convinced that Hakim is incredibly racist, this would seal the deal.

Of the Proclamation of 1763 the book states “it was just another Indian treaty that would soon be broken” and “The Indians who lived west of the Appalachians were doomed to see their way of life destroyed.” But these statements are said in a very Manifest Destiny sort of way and context. As if this was normal, acceptable, and inevitable.

The chapter praises Daniel Boone again. He is credited with “cutting a path” west with no mention of the fact that he used pre-made Native roads and trails. He didn’t “cut a path” anywhere, he followed someone else’s as he invaded their land. It praises invaders (settlers) again and says “they were tough enough to build homes in a strange, raw world.” There was nothing “raw” about this continent. It’s just more baseless praise of invaders. The end of the chapter has a picture of a racist comic/drawing from 1764 with no explanation of its racism and harm.

Chapter 8 - This one is short and doesn’t say much about Natives, but it certainly has more rude opinions of people from the author. She calls a French man’s name “strange” here. She also uses the phrase “Indians had attacked.” She uses this terminology regularly for Natives who were defending themselves, but rarely (if ever) of the Europeans committing genocide. It ends with the claim that Natives were “forming a new kind of society” with the Europeans. The same Europeans who were stealing land and committing genocide…but sure, we were just happily “forming a new kind of society” with them. This history is anything but actual history.

Chapter 9 - Natives start disappearing from Hakim’s version of history here. We are occasionally mentioned (mainly to fit her narrative), but it happens less and less.

But don’t worry! She still says plenty of horrible things. This chapter is horrific.

It is titled “A Girl Who Always Did Her Best” and is about a female slaver/human trafficker. I’ll highlight some of the worst parts here.

“It wasn’t only plantation owners who worked hard…” She calls them “plantation owners” instead of slave owners (which are more accurately – slavers and human traffickers). Hakim spends a lot of time in her books praising human traffickers as great and hard working. This one talks about how great this young woman was and how busy and not lazy she was…while ENSLAVING HUMANS to do all of the real work. Sure, that’s not lazy.

“Yes it [trouble with England] would develop, in part because of that independent American spirit. The colonies were producing strong mindful people… Eliza P. wasn’t the only person learning to use her mind on a plantation. It was good training for those who intended to run a nation. George Washington was running plantations and so was Thomas Jefferson.” She says this as if it’s a good thing. These were HUMAN TRAFFIKERS (“slave owners”)!  She is praising people who enslave other humans as learning to “use their minds” and calls being a human trafficker “good training.” This is disgusting.

Hakim praises enslavers and plantations constantly in these books. She regularly calls the west a “wilderness” even though it wasn’t, as we’ve established several times. She credits invaders with “blazing trails.” There is a drawing of enslaved Africans in this chapter that is labeled as “workers” in her caption.

Honestly, my mind is absolutely blown that this gets passed off in schools as decent “history.”

Chatper 10 - There is no mention of Natives in this chapter. Her biases are strong, though, as she talks about how great the US is at human rights and says that the US is better than most of the world.

Chapter 11 - Again, no mention of Natives. We’re just slowly “disappearing.”

She uses the term “New World” here without acknowledging the Eurocentric bias of that term. She says the American Revolution was pretty much only about taxes, not the proclamation of 1763 which was a large part of it as well. She says the colonists “dressed up as Indians” for the Boston Tea Party without discussing stereotypes or why they dressed that way. Because why would she include that?

Chapter 12 - This chapter is full of weird praise for people like Sam Adams, Thomas Paine, Patrick Henry, etc. She elevates them above others to some god like status. “Sam Adams was different from other rebels in other times…he was inspired by a grander idea…where people could be free of kings and princes.” This is purely opinion that isn’t really based in reality. The cherry on top here is “A nation where, for the first time in all of history, people would truly rule themselves.” This is patently false. This wasn’t a new idea, they weren’t the first to try it, it wasn’t the first time in “all of history.” The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is currently the oldest living democracy in the world, but democratic societies have existed in the world long before the US, including other Native nations. And “people” ruling “themselves” – meaning white land owning men? Because not all people in the US could have a say or were represented here. The “people” were certainly not ruling “themselves” – white land owning men were ruling the people. Many people weren’t considered human to these so called “founding fathers.” Nothing about that statement is true. She says “Sam Adams had a great dream that was for all people” – except non white people, women, etc. Again, “all people” here means white men.  This “great dream” wasn’t for Natives, Black people, or even women.

There are no Natives mentioned here though, of course.

Chapter 13 - Same as chapter 12, but different people. Same baseless opinions and same lack of Natives.

Chapter 14 - No Natives. I’m seeing a theme. We don’t exist in textbooks much at this point until the 1800s, then we disappear from textbooks again by 1900.

Chapter 15 - “Into the fort they went – Benedict Arnold like a proper soldier and Ethan Allen and his men howling war whoops like Mohawk Indians.” This is racist. It is stereotype and another comparison to animals (“howling”).

“They knew that most American Indians seemed to live a free democratic life in self governing tribes.” Pretty sure just a few chapters ago she claimed that this had never happened before in history. Here she surprisingly acknowledges historic records of Native influence on US government ideas, but still continues to claim it is new and unique and had never been done before. It’s full of constant contradictions.

Chapter 16 - Hakim calls Washington’s actions during the French and Indian War “adventures.” Wars are horrifying, they are not adventures. There is no mention of the fact that the Haudenosaunee called him “Town Destroyer” because of those “adventures.” She praises him and talks about how great he was.

Of R.H. Lee she says “he was a slave owner that hated slavery.” No. Just no. If he hated it, he would have set enslaved people he “owned” free. Not only did he not do that, he bought and sold humans, said he did so to benefit himself (his family), rented out enslaved people for profit, and died with more people enslaved than he started with. He stated politics were the “science of fraud” yet was only ever a politician. He was a flaming hypocrite that made good speeches while taking actions to benefit himself only. 

I know this is off my usual topic, but I can’t stand untruthful glorifications of these “founding fathers.”

There is no mention of Haudenosaunee involvement at the Continental Congress. No mention of Natives at all.

Chapters 17, 18, and 19 - No Natives mentioned. Of the last twelve chapters, one has mentioned Natives briefly.

Chapter 20 - No Natives, again. This one repeats the same lies “a free nation, a great nation, a nation run by its citizens – something that had never before been done.” No mention of “merciless Indian s*v*ges” in the documents, but plenty of glorification of “all men are created equal.” I’m surprised she didn’t take the opportunity to call us “s*v*ges” again.

Chapter 21 - No Natives mentioned.

Chapter 22 - “When it was necessary, women put guns to their shoulders. Those on the frontier were used to doing it. Many had fought Indians in those terrible raids in which right and wrong were often on both sides.” Gross. There was definitely a wrong side here. Imagine this sentence about Nazi Germany or something? It’s just gross.

It mentions the Mohawks siding with the British without any real explanation as to why.

Chapter 23 - “Remember the world in the 18^th century was like a ladder, where everyone had a particular rung to stand on.” This is not only used to excuse the horrible actions of people, but it is a false statement. This may have been a true perception of many people in Western culture, but not the whole world. This completely ignores world Indigenous societies.

This chapters calls the idea of equal rights “new” and goes on and on about how people wanted equal rights for all, even though that isn’t entirely true.

Chapter 24 - There are no Natives in the actual chapter, but there is a small breakout box called “War and Peace Pipe.” The whole “peace pipe” thing is a stereotype.

Chapters 25, 26, 27 - These are about the American Revolution and full of praises for horrible people, but no mention of Natives.

Chapter 28 - “…the Indians, who were being paid by the British for American scalps, were creating havoc on the frontier. But no matter which side they chose, the Native Americans would be losers.” What a horrible way to phrase that. Also, I’m pretty sure Natives weren’t the ones “creating havoc.” Europeans invading and starting wars did that.

The chapter contains a common monolith of the so called “Native American way of life.” There is no such thing.

“They believed what they were told – the Indians were s*v*ges.” Her favorite racial slur again. I don’t recall her ever mentioning European-Americans having bounties on Native scalps or calling them s*v*ges.

It talks about how the colonists considered “Indian fighters” heroes. “Mostly they just wanted to push the Native Americans west to free new lands for the settlers.” No, they wanted us dead and gone.

There is a whole lot of praise for George Rogers Clark, who was horrible. Of him it says he “…could talk to them [Natives] in a way they understood” as if we were dumb. It then praises him for “capturing” the Ohio valley from Natives. She clearly thinks very positively of invasion and colonization.

Chapter 29 - Here she claims the ideas in the constitution were “new.”

“No nation had even tried to do it before.” This is a commonly repeated lie throughout these books.

This part claims that the ultimate goal of the US has always been “freedom and equality for all.” This is not true, and we know this from primary documents. Their own words. The fun part is where she calls systemic oppression and racism “mistakes.”

There is no mention of Haudenosaunee at the Constitutional Convention or their influence on any of it.

No Natives mentioned.

Chapter 30 - This is about Russians on the west coast, but there is no mention of them enslaving the Aleut.

Regarding the Spanish in California – “but most terrible for the Native Americans, who watched as their old world was destroyed” – no, they were murdered. She claims the Spanish were trying to “spread Catholicism in the west.” No mention of genocide.

Chapter 31 - “Americans formed guerrilla bands and fought as the Indians did – with raiding parties.” This is the only mention of Natives.

It wouldn’t be complete without more drivel about being “founded on ideas of freedom and equality.”

“And upside down it was. David had licked Goliath. The colonies would soon be states; the infant New World was growing up… A new nation was being formed: a nation that would try not to make the mistakes of its European parents. A nation that would be founded on the ideas of freedom and equality.” She says this so much, it’s like she’s trying to convince herself it’s true.

Chapter 32 - No Natives

Chapter 33 - This chapter is all about the Euro-Americans dividing up land that isn’t theirs.

“Once again, the Native Americans were going to be pushed off their lands.” There is a brief mention of disease and gun deaths, but no mention of genocide or intentional US policy.

Chapter 34 - Regarding Jefferson – “He filled Monticello with collections of things he found interesting, like books, animal bones, and Indian artifacts.” Artifacts, as if Natives were not living cultures existing and using those items in that present time. Just like when people call our cultural items “artifacts” today. No, they are not “artifacts.”

Later on in the chapter there is some false information about religious freedom and separation of church and state. It claims that nowhere in the world had ever allowed complete religious freedom. I’d like to see the facts to back that up. I’m sure she can’t actually produce any. Regardless, the US still has never actually had complete religious freedom either. Native religions were illegal until 1978 and we still face regular legal barriers to actual religious freedom.

Chapter 35 - She keeps claiming certain men who were enslavers/human traffickers “hated slavery.” Sure, they “hated slavery” …but they just kept enslaving people ...because that makes sense.

There’s a random statement about being afraid of Natives – “Bartram went off into the woods, where the mountain lions didn’t scare him, but some of the Indians did.”

Chapter 36 - No mention of Natives, but the Eurocentric use of the word “people” shows up here.

Writers like Hakim often use the word “people” as a reference to Europeans/Euro-Americans as if they represent all people. They specify other types of people, but “people” is usually used to mean white people. They think they’re using the term universally, but who they’re actually talking about are Europeans/Euro-Americans. “…and people didn’t take baths. They thought it unhealthy.” No, not all people were like that. Native nations throughout the Americas had advanced understanding of hygiene and this was an important cultural value. Don’t the universal term “people” when you mean a specific subset of people, okay?

Chapter 37 - No Natives.

It claims the US constitution is the “best in history.” Otherwise, it is an odd chapter about fancy parties and delegates.

Chapter 38 - No Natives

Chapter 39 - This may be beyond my expertise, but there is a terrible ending to an explanation of the 3/5 compromise here. It claims that the “men who wrote our constitution wanted to be fair.” Because counting humans as only 3/5 of a human is “fair.” Okay.

There are a lot of inflated claims about the US constitution. It says the constitution is more than 200 years old but still “great.” “No other country has ever had a governing document that has worked so well for such a long time.” Ahem...the Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace. There are probably several others.

“They wanted to guarantee basic human rights and freedom” – except for Natives, Black people, Asian people, women…

“No nation had ever done what those men hoped to do.” I think you already know my answer to this.

No Natives here.

Chapter 40 - “They say that the Founders didn’t mean women, who were not allowed to vote. And they didn’t mean Native Americans or blacks. Now, hear this, because there is more than one side to this question, and you will need to form your own opinion. I don’t agree with the experts. I think that when the Founders said “we the people,” they meant all the people.”

What.

Read that again.

Wow. We have the dog whistle “more than one side” argument here and patently false claims that the “founders” meant “all the people” even though they intentionally excluded Natives, Black people, women, etc and called us “merciless Indian s*v*ges” in their founding documents. Good thing these experts mentioned are actually the experts. Clearly, she is not.

How much more does one need to be convinced that these books are racist and completely inaccurate?

The rest of this chapter is drivel made up of her baseless speculations about this.

This chapters reinforces the idea that humans can be property, calls land theft “rivalry over land” (as if we simply had a rivalry with invaders over our own land), claims they were “compromising” as if that’s valid to avoid issues with people who weren’t as “progressive” as them, etc.

“Native Americans usually began their treaties with that phrase, “we the people.”” This may be correct about some nations, but this is a monolithic statement that lumps us all together into one group as if  we are all the same. She does that constantly.

“The settlers wanted Indian lands. They would have them. Could a way have been found to share the land and please everyone?” That’s like saying I walked into your home, stole your home and everything in it, attacked you, killed people, and then asked if there was a way we could “share” your home and belongings.

It claims that the Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship to everyone born here, but this is not true. That was passed in 1868, but Natives were not “granted” citizenship until 1924.

There’s an odd caption with a picture that says Washington “owned slaves himself” and then that “he was willing to allow slavery in order to get the constitution approved.” He enslaved people…he wanted it as much as the rest or he wouldn’t have been an enslaver.

“The Framers did not come up with a fair way to share the land with the Native Americans.” That’s because this wasn’t their land to “share.” There is no such thing as a “fair” way to share stolen property.

“Most of the delegates didn’t want slavery. They knew it was wrong.” Almost half of the delegates were enslavers. There were some that were largely anti-slavery, but were still willing to compromise and allow it, so…I don’t see that as a good thing.

The last few pages of this chapter are full of false and ridiculous information about slavery.

Chapter 41 - No Natives mentioned.

Chapter 42 - “In this country, when a candidate loses an election for president, he doesn’t become spiteful or nasty. He pledges to help the new president.” I had to audibly laugh out loud when I read this.

 Fourteen out of forty-two chapters mention Natives. That’s it. This book takes place in the 1700s in our homelands where we were fighting off large scale invasion, but twenty-eight chapters don’t even mention us. Of the fourteen that do, only seven or eight do in any significant way. It’s not that we should be mentioned in literally every single aspect of history, but we are a significant part of history and also contemporary society. Especially considering this is our land and treaties still matter. The US literally would not exist without us and those treaties. A US history book that takes place entirely in the 1700s should have a lot more information about Natives. I wouldn't trust Hakim to write it, though.

I may sound more and more jaded as I review these books, but that’s because they’re horrendous and hard to read. I stand by my statement on the first and second books – this book is a dumpster fire.

Curriculum Review: A History of Us - Making Thirteen Colonies - by Joy Hakim

To stick with the theme of my review of the first book in the History of Us series by Joy Hakim – this book is also one of the worst history books I have read. I suspect that will be the case for the whole series. This book is also full of incorrect information, baseless opinions, and contains a significant amount of bias. It is from a Eurocentric/Euro-American viewpoint. She uses the word “Indian” throughout this book, the same as the first, instead of using correct or more acceptable terminology. Here is a chapter by chapter breakdown:

The dedication page at the beginning has a poem by Stephen Vincent Benet titled “Indian.” It is racist. It is supposed to be sympathetic to Native peoples and how colonization happened to us, but it just perpetuates stereotypes and falsities instead. It ends with “The Indians were here.” We are still here. Why not pick a poem by a Native poet? Or a poem that doesn’t have anything to do with us?

Page 8 has a large quote from John Smith. It is there without explanation or context. It contains a racial slur, but has no discussion around it about that slur or why it is harmful.

The books are supposedly secular and are used in public schools and online public schools, however the Preface opens with a Bible story as if it is commonly accepted history. It is full of religious, incorrect, and biased terminology, and possibly offensive terminology. It states the US was founded on Greek democracy and makes no mention of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy’s influence on the founding of the US. Her discussion on the Middle Ages only includes Europe, not the whole world. There was much going on in the world during that time period outside of Europe. Apparently, that doesn’t matter. She claims that “seagoing explorers” proved the world was round. It was already known for centuries before this period that the world is round. She then perpetuates the “melting pot” ideology in several problematic ways. She continues the idea that the US was a grand experiment, and no one had ever done anything like it before, as she did in the first book. Invasion, colonization, conquest, slavery, exploitation, and democracies had all been done before. “Can people who don’t look alike build a free and equal society together?” – the colonists did not do this, but this series continues to push this notion that they did.

Chapter 1 – A Sign in the Sky -  Here we find the idea that “modern science” is from Europeans. This chapter is mostly about Europe. It claims that the colonists were coming up with a “new way of governing, a new way of looking at the world.” Colonization, forming colonial governments, and democratic governments had all been done before, none of these things were new. It says that the changes for the “Indians” were tragic, but then praises the colonists for their “brave men” and calls it “awesome.” The idea of this being tragic to Native peoples is basically a side note as if we don’t matter at all. Genocide is never awesome, no matter who “benefits” from it.

Chapter 2 – Across the Ocean - There is frequent use of words like “brave,” “adventure,” and “new world.” It says the 1607 colony of Jamestown was the first attempt and an English colony, which is false. “They were going to a New World, where there were strange animals, deep forests, and people said to be wild.” This is not an okay way to describe Native peoples at all. Her attempt at making it sound mysterious and adventurous just turns out to be racist. She completely undoes what she previously described in the preface as “Indian civilizations” by using the term “wild.” She calls the Americas an “untouched garden of Eden.” Again, you can’t mention civilizations already here and then call the place “untouched.” It’s nonsense.

Chapter 3 – The First Virginians - This chapter is about the Powhatan (which was actually a confederacy of nations, but “wild Indians” didn’t have politics like that of course). They were not the “first Virginians” because they were not Virginians. They have their own names for themselves. She uses the word “s*v*ge” here regularly in an attempt to make the word sound acceptable when describing people. She says, after repeatedly using the word to describe things like stories and life, “They called the natives ‘s*v*ges,’ but meant the word kindly.” No. Just no. That word was never meant kindly toward Indigenous peoples of the world. She then goes on to use the word herself to describe us in a completely serious, non-ironic, way. “But, later, when others met those great s*v*ges…” This is disgusting. She describes the area now known as Virginia as a paradise but does not explain that it was a carefully cultivated food forest. The Native peoples had practiced sustainable land management techniques that encouraged healthy and abundant growth of foods around them for an exceptionally long time by this point. They were master stewards of the land. This was not an “untouched wilderness” as it is commonly described in this book. This context is vital to understanding a whole lot about early colonization and its impacts, but it is completely ignored. These books go into so much detail about what was happening in Europe that led to the colonizing of the Americas, but hardly gives any details about the Indigenous peoples leading up to the same events and the impacts it had on us. This chapter also has multiple contradictions. It talks about the abundant foods, big farms and gardens, storehouses of corn, all the animals anyone could ever hunt, etc. It then claims the Powhatan sometimes went hungry, which doesn’t make sense based on the way she describes the food sources in the area. She also claims that they overhunted deer so that deer became scarce. Natives, in general, hunted sustainably. It was not until the English interrupted Indigenous food systems and trade networks, and created a system of dependency on them, that overhunting became an issue. This didn’t happen until much later, not in 1607. When she describes European children later in the book, she indicates they learn and get education. When she describes the Native children in the area around Jamestown, she says they “helped their parents” and “played.” She does not acknowledge Indigenous forms of education as education. Instead she diminishes it to play and “helping.”

Chapter 4 – English Settlers Come to Stay - On the first page of this chapter we find the sentence “…the Englishmen were attacked by Indians, who came ‘creeping upon all fours…like bears, with their bows in their mouths.” Real historical quote or not, the way she uses it is to add description to the story instead of addressing the issues with the quote. She uses a racist description, supposedly from primary sources, but does not address it as such. She repeats herself in this book often, using the slur “s*v*ges” to describe Natives. Not as quotes from primary sources, but just uses it herself. She often states the same thing she states here: “They thought of the Indians as s*v*ges.” She says this so often it feels like she agrees. This sentence again contradicts her earlier claims in chapter three that the slur was used “kindly.” We find the term “Indian prince” used here, which isn’t seen very often. Usually it is used for women only as “Indian princess.” Regardless, princes and princesses didn’t exist in Indigenous societies. This was a European concept misapplied to other cultures that they didn’t understand. It is inaccurate to use it in a history text to describe real people. She describes the abundance of food that the colonists “found” without describing or explaining the careful land management and cultivation it took to make it so abundant.  This entire curriculum is Eurocentric, but I want to point out an example as a matter of perspective. “Jamestown was almost an island, with a narrow sandbar link to the mainland. It would be easy to defend against Indian raids or against ships…” The word defend here is interesting to me, because from my perspective as a Native person, the Native nations were the ones doing the defending. From our perspective, the description about the chosen location for Jamestown would read something like this: “The place they called Jamestown was almost an island, with a narrow sandbar link to the mainland. It would be difficult to defend ourselves from this invasion due to their location.” This is supposing it would actually be difficult. The word defend depends on what perspective you’re telling it from. Why were Native peoples “raiding” Jamestown? This curriculum does not attempt to explain this, or any Native perspectives at all. It is written as if the Euro-American perspective is true history.

Chapter 5 – John Smith -This chapter starts with glowing praises of John Smith. It immediately tells the false story of Matoaka (Pocahontas) that many people think is the true story. It’s a myth, but it is presented here as if it is true. I wonder if the author even knows it is false? I would expect that someone writing a history curriculum would do enough research to find out that it is not accurate. She uses the incorrect term “Indian princess” as well, which is typical in the false Pocahontas narrative. She states that Smith “might have exaggerated a bit” but that the stories are essentially true. This isn’t the case about all of Smith’s writing. She doesn’t use the names of specific Native nations typically, just “Indians” and “Native Americans.” Native Americans are not a monolith. Every nation is different and has different histories. We are often written about, not just in these books, in the generic terms of “Native Americans” rather than specific language that indicates who exactly the story is about. This perpetuates the idea that we’re all the same. We get “English” and “French” and “Spanish,” but we can’t be bothered with the actual names of the Native nations involved. This would be like writing a European history book and just saying “Europeans” throughout no matter which people group or country is being talked about.

Chapter 6 – The Starving Time - She really likes to quote people calling us “s*v*ges.” It gets old quickly. It really shouldn’t be in the books at all except to explain that it is a racial slur and harmful but was used in primary resources that students may read. There is absolutely no reason to repeat it throughout the book, especially when not quoting a primary source. She does this anyway. This chapter really doesn’t mention Natives much except to speculate if the Starving Time was an “Indian war” against the colony (and to call us a racial slur). There is documented cannibalism of Europeans eating a Native person, but it is a footnote as if it isn’t significant. In her books, she mentions Natives supposedly being cannibals multiple times, not as footnotes, even with little to no evidence of such. Europeans though? She doesn’t call them cannibals even when they were.

Chapter 7 – A Lord, A Hurricane, A Wedding - This chapter states that the colonists “fought back” against the Natives. Again, this is an example of Eurocentrism. Native nations were defending themselves against invasion. They were the ones “fighting back” against the colonists who insisted on claiming land that wasn’t theirs and taking whatever they wanted. To write about it more objectively, one could simply state that the colonists and Natives fought, but saying the colonists “fought back” is disingenuous at best. The chapter states that the new settlement of Henrico had a “visitor” when referring to Pocahontas being kidnapped and brought there. It flippantly states “unfortunately she was dragged there.” Doesn’t that mean she wasn’t a “visitor”? That is not how visiting people works. It describes Pocahontas being kidnapped but then quickly shifts to a nice, happy, positive sounding story about how they “taught her the Christian religion.” I’m not sure I call it “teaching” when you kidnap someone and force them to live how you want. The story goes on to say how she fell in love with John Rolfe, how wonderfully she was treated, and how great her life was. It heavily praises the forced assimilation and removal of Matoaka (Pocahontas) from her home and people. It is gross. It says she was treated as a celebrity in Europe but describes how they pointed at her in public as if it is a good thing. It’s an odd description. The end of the chapter is also quite gross. “The Indians will attack. They will kill settlers, burn their homes, and try to drive them from the land.” Where is this kind of description for how the Europeans treated Native peoples? How they invaded, killed, mutilated, enslaved, and raped them? Any time Europeans did something awful, she either doesn’t write about it, glosses over it, just says they were “arrogant” or claims “there’s some good and bad people in every group” and calls Natives bad again, too.

Chapter 8 – A Share in America - Settlers and colonizing is written about in a positive way and is called an “adventure” at the start of this chapter. It claims that some English wanted to save Natives from the Spaniards. “In England, people have read stories about the way some Spaniards treat the Indians; how they make them dig gold, how they starve them, how they make slaves of them. Good people are horrified.” This is simply not accurate. The English were extremely cruel and brutal to Natives like the Spanish were. The English enslaved, murdered, starved, and exploited Native peoples. The colonies would not have existed without that exploitation. Religion was used to justify their actions, like it was by the Spanish. They celebrated days of feasting and thanksgiving after slaughtering whole Native towns – men, women, and children. Some English may have felt differently, maybe saw Native peoples as needing religious salvation instead, but that doesn’t make the English any better than the Spanish because some Spanish did the same as well. This comparison of the English being better is false. She then goes on to use the word “powwow” in a stereotypical way. “An Englishman named William Tucker arranges a powwow with the Pamunkey Indians.” This is not what powwow means nor is it how the word should be used. This is typical US language that relies on stereotypes like “sitting Indian style” or “like a wild Indian.” She then talks about “English schools” verses being “trained in the Indian way.” Aside from the fact that there is no such thing as “the Indian way” (we are not a monolith), the idea that the English method of learning is education while the Native method isn’t acknowledged as such is an issue. Native education is not seen as education here. She calls it a “strange land” and “wilderness” again and then starts using stereotypical descriptions of Native people based on nature themes.

Chapter 9 – Jamestown Makes It - “At last the settlers found gold. Gold in the form of a leaf.” This is the opening of chapter 9. “Found” being the key word here. Tobacco, which is what is being referenced, is a sacred plant to many Indigenous peoples and was cultivated for thousands of years around the Americas. It was and still is used in ceremony and prayer. To say that the colonists “found” tobacco is absurd. The plant had already been brought to Europe by the Spanish a hundred years earlier so Europeans were already familiar with it. The colonists in Jamestown exploited the land and the Indigenous peoples, from which it came, to make tobacco into a cash crop. They did not “find” it.  She goes into the topic of labor in the colonies. The author completely skips over the enslavement of Indigenous peoples. She then downplays slavery in the colonies with a discussion on indentured servitude. While indentured servants were a real part of this history, the way she writes about it completely glosses over actual slavery. She says Africans were kidnapped, shipped, and sold, but then says they were indentured servants. The fact that they were kidnapped, sold, and forced to work against their will makes this slavery. She starts to touch on slavery, but then says it seemed like a “good idea to people who were desperate for workers.” This isn’t anywhere close to the horrible way she writes about slavery later in the book.

Chapter 10 – 1619 – A Big Year - The start of this chapter is all about praising the English for not “giving up” and being hardworking, determined people. Not only is this curriculum extremely Eurocentric, she clearly thinks more highly of the English than anyone else. This is evident in the way she writes about other Europeans throughout the series, especially in the first few books. She praises the year 1619 as a great year of “firsts” including the ‘first boatload of Africans” as if it is a good thing. She states that the English made the first representative government in North America. She then contradicts herself and says “Whoops! Hold on, that isn’t quite right” and goes on to say that some Native nations has representative governments. (This is briefly covered in the preface, which she contradicts several times throughout the book as well). Then why write it that way? Why say something false first? This odd writing style is found throughout the series. She makes false claims, contradicts herself with a “whoops,” and then goes on to affirm the false claim in some way. This entire chapter is just about how amazing and awesome and smart the English were. 

Chapter 11 – Indians vs Colonists - Yet again, this chapter starts out with a false claim. The claim is that since Columbus, the Europeans and Natives meet as friends at first. Colonizers never came as friends. Colonizing isn’t a friendly act. Colonizing is in opposition to friendliness. They came, since the time of Columbus, to take over and impose their own wills wherever they went. They came to claim the land as their own and kill anyone in the way. They did not come as friends. She talks about how the relationships would change and “something would happen” so that the Natives would “strike back.” She writes about this idea very nonchalantly, as if what happened to Natives was no big deal. She then says that there were basically good and bad people “on both sides” and they all “went too far” with how they treated each other. She essentially makes the claim that Native people defending their own nations, peoples, and lands is a bad thing to do. It is heavily implied in the way she writes. She states “Indians were hunters” as a blanket statement with no mention of agriculture that the English have been enjoying so much. The topic of racism comes up and she states, “Some of them [whites] wanted to kill all the Indians.” But then it turns around and equates this to Native self-defense as if it is also racism. The chapter ends with the idea that sharing stolen land was the fair thing to do. If you invade my home and say the fair thing to do is that I need to share it with you, it isn’t going to end with me sharing my home with you. That isn’t what “fair” means. I’m guessing she wouldn’t make the same suggestion if someone invaded England.

Chapter 12 – Massacre in Virginia, Poverty in England - We get the term “Indian prince” here again, which does not exist. She then indicates this “prince” had been taken to Span and “educated” there. She uses educated in a way that implies Native people are not “educated.” Just because traditional forms of education look different than European education, does not make it not education. Then we get to a story about a “massacre” that Natives committed against the English. This is the first time the word “massacre” shows up in the book and only one of two times it shows up at all in the book. This word was never used in the first book either. Instead of mentioning all the ways Europeans have massacred Native peoples up to this point, she uses the word for the first time to talk about the Powhatan defending themselves from invasion. She uses patronizing language like “pretended to be friendly” and says they murdered the English. The type of language used here is never used to describe all the ways the Europeans slaughtered Native peoples from 1492 to this point. When speaking of more colonists coming, she says “Heat and germs and Indians will kill most of them, yet they keep coming.” The way she writes about Natives killing Europeans is very biased and she never discusses the genocide that the Europeans brought here. She then praises the “American dream” and says this is the “land of opportunity.” These are terms of propaganda that ignore the violence of colonization and the exploitation that the US is based upon and would not exist without. On the last page of the chapter is a description of slavery. It’s gross, but her methods of discussing the topic get worse throughout the book. Here she explains why viewing Africans as inferior was wrong, but she does it based on Eurocentric standards rather than because they are human. She compares drug abuse to chattel slavery and then claims that the US is superior to the world. She says US slavery was horrible, and then uses the word “but” to follow. There is no “but” that should ever follow that statement. She says, “but the American system of government lets us correct mistakes…of that we can be proud.” She can’t stand to say anything bad about the US to the point that she’s dishonest about its history.

Chapter 13 – The Mayflower: Saints and Strangers - Even though the colonists on the Mayflower were called Separatists and Saints, she says they “had a new name: Pilgrims.” This term wasn’t used to describe the colonists until 200 years later, so they did not have a “new name” when they came here. They also did not take the trip as a pilgrimage as she claims. They knew the land was inhabited and they knew it wasn’t theirs, but they believed that God said they could kill and invade any land that wasn’t controlled by “Christians.” This wasn’t about religious freedom for anyone but themselves and it wasn’t a pilgrimage. She says “they believe that God has made the land theirs for the taking” but does not make any attempt to mention that this is wrong or why. She states it as if it is just fine.

Chapter 14 – Pilgrims, Indians, and Puritans - This chapter has the familiar Thanksgiving story. She presents it as fact. The problem is that it is a myth. Before we get to that story, she calls the colonists “industrious” even though they had no idea how to survive and would have all died without help. She even states this fact immediately after calling them industrious. She tells a false story of Thanksgiving as if it is true history. Her explanation “thanksgiving” celebrations in the Americas does not include traditional harvest feasts by many Native nations, it is only about Europeans. She gives a simplistic description of the Wampanoag, but never calls them Wampanoag…only Indians. She includes a historic painting of this so called “first thanksgiving” that portrays the myth and has many stereotypes and inaccuracies. There is no discussion on the problems in the painting, which would be a responsible thing to do when including such an image.

Chapter 15 – Puritans, Puritans and More Puritans - This chapter doesn’t mention Native Americans; however it still has issues. In yet another example of eurocentrism she says “But don’t be too hard on them. Almost no one else believed in it either.” The word “them” is the colonists and “it” is a reference to religious freedom. She says “no one else” believed in religious freedom at the time. Who is “no one”? This is clearly a reference to Europeans, but she doesn’t say that. The default of people here is European. This does not acknowledge places in the world that have had these ideas at various times in history. This is typical of her writing. When she says “people” she means Europeans and when she says “no one” she means not Europeans.

Chapter 16 – Of Towns and Schools and Sermons - She lumps “Indians” in with animals again at the beginning of this chapter. She says the colonists used “abandoned Indian fields” that the “English settlers found and took.” These fields were not “abandoned,” the people were killed or died of European diseases. This is not an honest way to explain what happened. The colonists did not “find” the fields, they knew they were there at this point. The rest of the chapter doesn’t mention Natives, it’s mostly praise for the puritans and how they could “think well.”

Chapter 17 – Roger Williams - Native people start to slowly disappear from her narrative here. They no longer have much of any part in her “American” story. I can’t wait to find out how little she mentions us in books three through ten. She mentions something about Roger Williams and a Narragansett leader (Canonicus) not judging people by their skin color as if skin color is the problem that Native people had with the colonists. Skin color had nothing to do with this for Native peoples.

Chapter 18 and 19 – There is no mention of Natives in these chapters. This is the time where the Pequot Massacre of 1637 took place, but it is not mentioned at all.

Chapter 20 – Of Witches and Dinosaurs - “If you are an American, you are a descendant of the Puritans.” It goes on to explain she means laws, not blood, and that these are some of the best laws “we” have. “You see, the Puritans hoped to build a place on earth where people could live as the Bible says they should, a place where people would be truly good.” This is extreme bias and isn’t accurate. Regardless if she meant law or heritage, everyone in the US is not “descended” from the Puritans. The remaining Puritan influence on laws are “blue laws” like the ones that prohibit alcohol sales on Sunday or shopping on certain holidays. And to say they were trying to build a place based on the Bible as a reason for why their laws were the best laws is absurd. Many of their laws and actions were harmful. Never mind that the past few chapters have been explaining awful things they did and believed, she’s now praising their laws? The rest of the chapter explains how their beliefs and practices had massive flaws and how bad they were at following their own beliefs in the Bible. It’s completely contradictory. Before going into the Salem Witch Trials on the next page, she says “…they thought they should act like God’s elect and lead good lives. And that’s why we can be happy they were among the first colonists. They really tried their best to be good. They worked hard, they believed in learning, and they did what they thought was right.” Her warped personal opinions do not belong in a history book, but here we are. She inserts opinions into every chapter. The opinions here are particularly egregious. So despite all the horrible things they had done and that she continues to describe, we should be “happy” they were the “first” colonists? Because they “tried?” Doing what they “thought was right” led to massive amounts of destruction and damage for centuries. If their actions were attempts at being Biblical, they failed miserably. As she then describes the Salem Witch Trials, she says “everyone” in reference to Puritan beliefs about witches. She is using the word “everyone” to refer to only a small group of European people. There are no Natives in this chapter.

Chapter 21 – Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Maine -  After spending half a chapter describing how awful the witch trials were, she says of the Puritans: “mostly these were good, strong, intelligent people.” She continuously contradicts herself in this way. She can’t stand to say anything bad about the English without following it up with something like this. She indicates how great it was that the English came to the Americas and that if they disagreed with each other there was “plenty of room in America” to just start a new settlement. There was not “plenty of room” for them to invade and claim as their own. It was not theirs. The only reason they thought there was “plenty of room” was because of the genocide they committed and the diseases they spread. She essentially says that land theft (claiming land) was a contest. “The biggest losers in this contest were the Indians.” Calling genocide and invasion a “contest” is gross. In a section titled “land greed” she explains that Europeans “couldn’t believe their good fortune” in regard to the land here. That wasn’t “good fortune,” it was theft. We get the wilderness myth again when she says almost all the land was “tamed.” There is no acknowledgment of Indigenous land management, it simply says that Natives lived with nature. There is a lot of false information about Native religious beliefs and views of land. She perpetuates the “harmony with nature” mythology that pervades US ideas about Natives. The way she writes about cities and suburbs requiring the forests to be cut down completely ignores the many cities Native civilizations built. “Can we have cities and also sheltering woodlands and clean rivers and abundant wildlife? Yes, but it isn’t easy.” Easy or not, Natives had done this already, but there is no acknowledgement of this. Other than this faulty discussion on “land greed” and an indication that Natives had to be “pushed off” the land for colonization to take place (while talking about how great colonization is) without mentioning killing them for it, there is no mention of Natives.

Chapter 22 – King Philip’s War - This chapter again mentions “pushing the natives off the land,” but not the atrocities done to do this, like massacres and deception. It completely ignores the 1637 Pequot Massacre (later mentions it as the “Pequot War” while blaming the Natives for it). It says there were 50 years of peace in Massachusetts while Massasoit was alive. While there may have been some peace, any peace was uneasy at best. She writes about it as though they lived in harmony and friendship. They did not. The Wampanoag didn’t trust the English and vice versa. While Plymouth Colony wasn’t directly involved in the Pequot Massacre, other English colonies were. She doesn’t specify any colonies here, she just says the English when talking about the supposed peace. There was not complete peace with all of the English/colonies and the various Native nations in the area. She indicates that Massasoit and other Wampanoag were “awed” by the English, which is not true. Perhaps the English thought this, but if they did it was due to arrogance or cultural misunderstandings. While describing Metacom’s unification of Native nations and leaders in the area against the English, she says “There was no history of Indian unity.” So the Haudenosaunee Confederacy didn’t exist? None of the other many Native confederacies didn’t exist either? Even the Wampanoag were a confederacy.  She claims that this is because Natives were too different from each other to unify. According to her, it is because our different nations were descended from “different waves” of people over the Bering Strait. She calls us “immigrants,” which is used to deny our claims of being Indigenous.  While it is true that Native nations are all different, many have quite a bit in common and have histories of allyship and unification, and none of this has anything to do with how the Americas were populated in the first place (which wasn’t by the Bering Strait). Clearly, she has no understanding of Indigenous political history in the Americas. When talking about wars, she says, “If you have read about Indian wars – with scalpings, torched villages, tomahawks, and war whoops…” Stereotype much? These are harmful stereotypes. Stereotypes do not belong in history books. History books are quite full of them, but they still don’t belong there. She blames Natives for the Pequot massacre and King Phillip’s War. She blames Natives for the colonists “fearing all Indians” and for the colonists attacking the Narragansett. She plays the “both sides” trope here calling them all “brutal.” She calls the fights of the English “battles,” but calls the battles of the Natives against them “Indian raids of revenge.” She says many colonists were “innocent.” She says that Natives weren’t used to “long wars” (after saying they fought over land in the last chapter), but only “quick raids.” She says the got tired of war, so their unity ended. She claims that guns “seemed scary” to the Natives…in the 1670s when Natives had been using guns for quite some time.

Chapter 23 – The Indians Win This One – The title of this chapter bothers me. It isn’t because the statement isn’t true, but because it’s patronizing. Beyond the title, the chapter is unsurprisingly full of issues. The description of Spanish missions is extremely sanitized and comes off as if they were benevolent in some parts. “Indians lived in the missions and did most of the farming and building. The priests taught them to read and write and to become Christians.” Except not. Missions were a violent system of slavery and forced conversion. The Spanish were cruel, and the missions were extremely harmful. She admits that the Pueblo peoples essentially believe in freedom of religion or religious tolerance, contradicting her earlier claims that Natives did not (never mind that was a generalization in the first place). It is odd how she spends so much time praising the English and excusing their horrific behavior but writes about the Spanish as if they were some of the worst people in the world, just above Natives. She did this in book one as well. “Popé talks to leaders in all the pueblos. He even meets with his people’s ancient enemy, the Apache.” The Apache cannot be an “ancient enemy” of the Pueblo people because they did not move into the region until around 1100-1400 AD. They were enemies typically, but not “ancient enemies.” (The word Apache means comes from a Zuni word for “enemy.” We call ourselves Ndé.) The chapter ends with the statement “If there is a way for them to live in harmony, no one seems wise enough to have found it.” This has nothing to do with wisdom, it has to do with Native nations defending themselves from invasion, like any country would do. The way to live in harmony is to not invade and colonize other people through genocide, enslavement, starvation, and forced conversion. No, there is not a way to live in harmony when someone is violently invading your nation and colonizing it, and that is entirely the fault of the colonizers. It is not the responsibility of oppressed peoples that are defending themselves and their homelands to live in “harmony” with their invaders.

Chapter 24 – What’s a colony? – To give context to the next quote, this chapter makes a comparison between a colony’s relationship to the home country and the relationship between renters and landlords. “Neither the landlords (Europeans) nor the renters (colonists) ever considered the Indians, who thought the land was theirs.” Not only does this comparison make no sense because the colonists were, in fact, also Europeans, but notice the word “thought.” She says we “thought” the land was ours. This is a not so subtle method of undermining Indigenous land claims in the minds of young children. It’s propaganda. This land was and is Indigenous land. It is ours. She continues by talking about how the colonists had to “start from scratch.” They had to, she says. The didn’t have to colonize and end up in that position, but they did. They chose to. Then she says they sometimes lived in “Indian wigwams” while talking about “starting from scratch.” Living in the stolen house of someone who died as a direct result of your being there is not “starting from scratch.” This makes it seem like Native homes, which were engineered specifically for their environments, are no better than crappy shelters and caves, which are also described. It describes it as if these homes are not fit to be homes. The implication is that they’re uncivilized (I hate that word). This chapter also repeats the myth that the Natives thought the Europeans were “gods.” This is a myth, as pointed out in the review of book one. They did not think this.

Chapter 25 – Silvernails and Big Tub – There is very little mention of Natives in this chapter. She belittles the Dutch, like she does the Spanish. Only the English are worthy of admiration, and excuses for their behavior, according to the way she writes. The chapter repeats another myth that is taught to children all over the US and most adults still believe it today. This myth is that Manhattan was sold for $24 worth of beads (and goods). It was not. Some simple online searching can turn up multiple reliable resources that explain why this is not true. But the way she writes about it makes the Natives sound naïve and unintelligent. She severely downplays slavery and essentially says that it made economic “good sense.”

Chapter 26 – West to Jersey – There are no Natives mentioned in this chapter. She continues her pattern of belittling everyone else except the English as well as praising the English.

Chapter 27 – Cromwell and Charles – There are no Natives in this chapter. It is odd how she describes English people and excuses their actions. She calls Cromwell a tyrant while also saying he was great. The chapter discusses dividing up the land as “gifts” without any mention of the Native nations already there.

Chapter 28 – William the Wise – She spends this chapter talking about how great William Penn was and about his good treatment of Natives, while completely ignoring the fact that he took their land and claimed it as his own. There are otherwise no mentions of Natives in this chapter. She uses the word “Negro” not as a quote, but her own description as if it is acceptable.

Chapter 29 and 30 – There are no Natives mentioned in these chapters.

Chapter 31 – Carry Me Back to Ole Virginny – I normally try not to stray from my areas of expertise and stick to the topic of Native representation. The next few chapters, however, are so bad that I feel the need to make some comments. If I get anything wrong here or if I’m out of my lane, please correct me. This entire chapter downplays chattel slavery in the US. She calls plantations “large farms” and that’s it. No discussion on what plantations were in this time and place. She says that slavery “ruined many white farmers” as if this was just as terrible as slavery was for enslaved people. She makes the situation out to be competition between farms that enslaved Africans and other farms that did not. She uses the word “compete” even. She makes it out to be a better decision to become enslavers than to become “poor whites” with no discussion on how morally depraved that is. The white people’s other options would be to “move” west and “perhaps fight the Indians for that land” as if there is nothing wrong with this option either. It is all very flippant. She says that these white farmers recognized that slavery was wrong but were “trapped” in a “bad system” and essentially had to keep enslaving people. She also says “every ancient society had included slaves” as a justification of this. This is not even an accurate statement. It is a broad generalization that is incorrect. She explains that some enslavers were “protecting” the people they kept enslaved from starving due to lack of jobs or from being kidnapped again, as if they were doing them a favor and being kind.  She asks the readers what they would do if they had to choose between being an enslaver or being poor. This is a disgusting question to ask students. As if it couldn’t get worse, she tells students to “Imagine that you are a slave owner” and says “you can” do all sorts of horrible things to humans like beating them. After that, she talks about enslavers feeling “great responsibility” for the people they’ve enslaved. She ends the chapter with praising enslavers in Virginia for thinking of and writing the most about freedom (never mind that they took most of their ideas from the Haudenosaunee).

Chapter 32 – The Good Life – The chapter is about plantation owners, so this title is especially gross. Apparently being an enslaver isn’t “easy” and you had to be “industrious and intelligent” to do so. She spends much of the chapter describing how nice and wonderful plantations were. She praises enslavers and says “Can you see why it is hard work to run a plantation well?” I’m pretty sure being an enslaver is the epitome of laziness. She calls the enslaved people “workers” and mentions nothing of the horrific conditions they were forced into. She says being a plantation owner’s daughter was “fun.” This whole chapter is about how wonderful plantation life was and says “life is good to you.” Who is “you?” She is all about “imagining” things, so imagine Black children reading this. It’s appalling.  

Chapter 33 – Virginia’s Capital – The way she writes about the Indian Act of 1714 makes it sound like it was benevolent. As if it was such a wonderful thing to set up schools to brainwash and colonize Native children. Other than mentioning that colonists wanted to fight “Indains,” there are no Natives mentioned in this chapter.  

Chapter 34 – Pretend Some More – Here we are back to “imagining” what life was like. Along with telling kids to pretend that they’re “slaves,” she says that enslaved Africans lived better than peasants in Europe.

Chapter 35 – Carolina: Riches, Rice, Slaves – She calls South Carolina, which was made wealthy entirely off of the exploitation of stolen Indigenous lands and the enslavement of Africans (and Native Americans), “the most elegant society in the colonies.”

Chapter 36 – Carolina: Dissenters and Pirates – there are no Natives mentioned in this chapter.

Chapter 37 – Royal Colonies and a No-Blood Revolution – There are no Natives mentioned in this chapter. Here she really starts to call the colonies “America” and the colonists “Americans.” In reality, “America” is what people in the rest of the world call two continents, not the United States.

Chapter 38 – A Nasty Triangle – In this chapter we come back to more gross descriptions of slavery. She talks about kidnapping and enslaving people as if it was simply economic trade along with goods like sugar and tobacco. “Then onto Africa where they exchanged guns and cloth for men, women, and children.” Olaudah Equiano’s time as an enslaved person is referred to as “adventures.” On the last few pages there is a long, strange description of why the Europeans didn’t “discover” interior Africa and colonize the continent in the same way as the Americas. It is made up nonsense and extremely racist. She indicates that the Europeans didn’t do this because the African warriors were “too strong” and implies that they were able to colonize the Americas because we, Natives, were weak or not strong enough to stop them. By saying that the Africans were not “anxious” to have “outsiders come and explore or settle” she is implying that Natives in the Americas were. None of this is remotely true. The real reasons have to do with the environment, fear of “African diseases,” and their motivations.

Chapter 39 – Four and Nine Make Thirteen – There is little mention of Natives here. It says that the colonizers “discovered” that Georgia was full of “Indian villages” and “Indian mounds.” It ends with a discussion about the “frontier” beyond the colonies that is all about owning land and claiming land and being “really free” out west with no mention of the Native nations there.

Chapter 40 – Over the Mountains – Of log cabins, she says “they were just right for places that had a lot of trees and not much else.” Not much else? This is perpetuating the “wilderness” mythology. There were Native nations and civilizations and infrastructure that the Europeans were too ignorant to recognize. People going west are described as “trailblazers,” rather than invaders that used Native made routes and trails. “They had to fight Indians and other settlers for their land. They were a tough breed…” The had to invade and commit genocide for their land. Clearly this is a super non-biased way to write about this part of history. Can you imagine my eye roll?

Chapter 41 – This opens with a lot of “had to” regarding invading the rest of the continent instead of acknowledging the racist and entitled choice to do so. Europeans didn’t have to do any of these things. It calls self-defense on the part of Natives, “Indian attacks,” yet again. After writing an entire paragraph about “Indian attacks” and “Indian territory,” she contradicts herself with “some people want to go where no one has gone before.”  So…no one has gone there before, but it’s full of “Indians” ready to “attack.” Hmm. They are “brave” and want to “explore” and have “adventures.” It’s all praise of this invasion. This chapter is loaded with biased terminology like “unknown wilds,” “Indian hunting grounds,” “attack,” and stories of Natives “capturing” people that then need “rescued.” “Indian hunting grounds” is yet another way to deny the Indigenous people claim of land and territory. These were not “hunting grounds,” they were homelands where people lived. Then we get the Daniel Boone mythology and it ends with “Daniel Boone was a real American hero.”

Chapter 42 – The End – and the Beginning – The conclusion of the book is building up to book three with enticing phrases like “…this vast, inviting land promises hope…” and says that the land and resources here are for “everyone.” More propaganda. It is a good conclusion for a book full of propaganda and racism.

I want to explain why I point out “there is no mention of Natives in this chapter” instead of just skipping it. Excluding Natives from history is as “American as apple pie.” We disappear from the textbooks and stories and are said to have disappeared ourselves. We become so insignificant in the mentality of modern Euro-Americans that we aren’t included in history as books move through time. We become invisible. 87% of textbooks don’t mention us past 1890. We are still invisible today and this has a massive impact on us and our continued oppression. Erasing us from history is an intentional and vital piece of US propaganda. The reality is that we should be included in every aspect of US history, because we have been part of it since its beginning, willingly or not. I have taught thousands of US school children about Native peoples over the years. I am regularly confronted with questions of my existence. “Are you a real Indian?” even though I introduce myself as a Native woman. “Are you from India?” because they don’t understand that Natives didn’t all disappear. I have been told by children and adults that they thought we didn’t exist anymore. Reclaiming Native Truth is a project that found that 40% of adults in the US don’t know that we still exist. Hakim actively participates in this propaganda in the way she writes this series. My reviews will most likely get shorter and shorter as I move through the books because we will disappear from them completely. I always point it out because I want you to notice.

I continue to recommend staying far, far away from these books and telling others to do the same. They are absolute trash.