When it came to American History, often the biggest lies our teachers told us had to do with American Indians. I started seeing through this one at a fairly young age--while in Junior High School--due to my interested in archeology which had introduced me to material debunking the idea of the "noble savage" including first hand accounts of Apache raids on settlers in the desert South West, and a very detailed book of the American Revolution that had passing references to how Indians acted. Since then, I've read additional books on ancient warfare and Native Americans, including War Before Civilization by Lawrence H. Keeley (which I review here).
In the video below, Matt Walsh begins by tackling the biggest myth of all--the Trail of Tears--and its importance of propaganda by Leftist activists in the 1960s. After going over the facts of that matter, he then turns to the more general lie of "the noble savage" giving some hard truths about the absolute brutality and savagery of warfare and raiding among the Native American, including over property and territorial disputes (thus killing another bit of propaganda that the Native Americans didn't recognize property). He also notes that the United States was mostly unsuccessful in its fights against the Indian tribes until it adopted their methods of guerilla warfare. Finally, he tackles another of the deeply held "myths" about interactions between settlers and Native Americans--the smallpox blanket myth. Although he mentioned it in passing, I felt that he should have addressed the slave trade among some of the Indian tribes in greater detail, but I guess at 1 hour already he probably felt that the video was long enough as it was.
Because the focus of the video is debunking lies told to attack and vilify America and Americans, it is about American Indians. But similar videos could easily be made to debunk lies about British colonialism or promoting other cultures above that of Christian cultures.
VIDEO: "What Schools Don't Teach You About American Indians"
Matt Walsh (1 hr 6 min.)
Reading Bill O'Reilly's book "Killing Crazy Horse" was a real eye opener for me. Well worth reading. Yes, the Native Americans were capable of very sadistic acts...but it was the accounts of brutality by settlers and soldiers which struck me the most. I expected the European immigrants to be more civilized.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read the book, so I don't know what he says about the brutality by settlers. But it seems to me that an enemy may invite brutality through their own barbarism.
DeleteYup, they want Americans to hate America.
ReplyDeleteYes—to destroy national unity. The same reason they wanted mass immigration.
Delete