That's an, uh, extremely suspect phrasing there, school textbook
That's an, uh, extremely suspect phrasing there, school textbook
129 comments
-
Explanation: For those of you who are not aware of European colonial history in the Americas, the First Nations 'agreed' to move only at gunpoint - when, of course, they were not shot outright and agreements eschewed completely. The phrasing here makes it sound much less like ethnic cleansing, when, you know, it was ethnic cleansing.
-
In Canada, they made these agreements to force my people onto small reservations with limited supports, services or funds. Part of my treaty heritage is that we get an annual payment for signing onto the treaty - everyone gets a bit of money every year. When they signed onto the treaty in 1904, they agreed on giving $2 per person every year ...... we still get that $2 every year. Every other historic agreement with the Royal family or international agreement is adjusted to inflation .... but Indian treaties (they're called 'Indian' because that is what the original term was, so it is kept in use when referring to treaties) they all remained the same.
They can adjust agreements made with Europeans to adjust with the times
They don't, won't or can't adjust monetary amounts when it comes to Indian treaties in Canada.
.... but the main reason why they even settled on these treaties in the first place was that it was planned, hoped and encouraged and expedited to have all 'Indians' either die, disappear or become naturalized as just Canadians with no land rights within a few decades .... 100 years ago!
-
Bank of Canada's inflation calculator only goes back to 1914, and that says $2 CAD from then is worth $54.47 CAD today (39.83 USD, 35.06 EUR) so it does not look like that was any type of good deal back then, nor would it be today even if it increased with the CPI.
Totally shameful what the governments continue to do in regard to native people. It's not like they forget you're there, since I'm guessing they have to approve the payment every time, so it seems to be an active and ongoing choice each time to deliver that slap in the face. Makes it hard to say it was just a mistake in the past but those of us alive now have no responsibility in that.
-
-
A bit more:
If we're talking about US history, this page would be in reference to Europeans arriving in the 1600s. By that time, the population of North America had been dramatically reduced by foreign disease. For the comparatively small number of foreigners showing up, there kind of already was "room" because of that.
Later on, when the US government was actively relocating people, different groups of people responded in different ways. Some decided it would be best to cooperate. Some decided it would be best to stand their ground and fight. None did these things because they freely "agreed" to.
-
Several of these people actually succeeded in prosecuting a war against invading US forces like the Shoshone.
Then, of course, we just reneged on the treaties later when they weren't on a war footing.
-
That's quite a limited perspective. Violence was only one of the coercive tactics that were employed. The way you've phrased this makes it sound like the other ways in which first nations people were removed from their land were not also horrible.
-
-
-
holy fuck, that's intellectually, historically and morally revolting all at the same time
-
This artist writes for The Onion and makes sure to go out of the way to be completely absolutely absurd to make sure it’s always abundantly clear that it’s satire. Like so far it’s a satire of satire. Apparently that still catches some people up though lol.
-
about the cartoonist: https://slate.com/culture/2020/12/sickos-meme-ward-sutton-kartoonist-kelly.html
-
-
-
Found a source for the text book.
If you know anything about the Residency Schools, you'll know that Canada is actually behind the US on this issue. A few years ago, someone shared on reddit their kid taking home an assignment asking the student to list all the positive things that Residency Schools did for First Nation kids.
-
What the fuck? I always thought Canada was like Australia, but fuck that’s next level eh.
Even when I was in primary school so many decades ago, I was learning about the terrible shit we did to Aboriginal people.
-
Hmm depends what you mean by "like Australia". Australia were brutal about how they treated their indigenous population. Straight up to kidnapping their kids and trying to breed them out of existence, last century...
I don't know how they teach it today but I know they still have a long way to go to making things better.
New Zealand on the other hand, while doing some fucked up shit of their own, have gone a long way to teaching the atrocious treatment of their indigenous people and try very hard to embrace and grow the culture of it within the worst populace. Might be a better comparison?
-
Its a balance, the government is trying to push it pretty hard - but thats made some racist areas even more racist in response.
Though Hudson bay company is shutting down and we can all celebrate that
Edit: I just remembered most reserves dont even have fiber internet though it would cost pennies to connect to the existing lines. Yeah no the systematic racism is very much still here.
-
-
-
Demonstration: The final stage of a genocide is the denial that it was a genocide.
-
Idk, that final stage tends to occur quite early on
-
Oh, not PR, actual denial, of everything. First, you get rid of the people, because they shouldn't be there, then you remove any trace they were there, because they shouldn't have been there, and finally, you remove even the memory of there being a removal, because they weren't there, there was nobody there, ever.
-
yea the final stage is more like covering up that there was one
-
-
-
Europeans caused many genocides in the Americas. That's what books would look like if Hitler had won WW2.
-
"Knowing they were responsible for all the problems in the world, the Jews decided to take some time to concentrate on self reflection at the summer camps we built. Their overwhelming guilt caused many of them to work themselves to death"
-
-
The Trail of
TearsTotally Not Forced Displacement & Genocide-
they were tears of happiness on how happy they were that their ancestral homes were now under the stewardship of the colonist
-
As my old landlord used to say, "it looks like white people live here." And then he'd call the house a shithole and have his son make shitty repairs.
-
-
The Trail of Tears of Joy
-Republicans
-
Wounded Knee according to the American (edit: and Canadian) education systems
-
-
Get ready. This is how all school textbooks are going to be from here on out—if they aren’t already. Probably worse.
-
Well if you mean they slaughtered the fighters, deliberately infected the tribe with smallpox, and marched the survivors out at gunpoint, then sure.
-
There are indeed some cases where there was a willing exchange but in VERY EARLY days before a genocidal critical mass arrived.
-
"Agreed" is doing a LOT of heavy lifting here. Like for values of a long, drawn out war and slaughter coast to coast with many, many broken promises…
-
Followed by a trail of tears.
Must have been happy tears because they got new friends........
-
-
Hey OP, you should name and shame the textbook if you're willing. It could be PII, so only do it if you feel safe with that and it doesn't give away too much, but we should share who/where is spreading lies like this. I'm sure it's supported by the "the left wants to rewrite American history" people.
-
Picture wasn't taken by me, I'm afraid.
-
-
In the Netherlands we call the times where we shipped all the slaves from Africa to America the "golden age".
You can be sure I did not learn much about this in school either.
-
Question is that an American history book. I know it rare to see "first nation" in the states but it has been years sunce i was in school.
-
It's Canadian.
-
-
Many years later they say "go back to your country!"
-
In The Man in The High Castle TV show, kids were literally taught that black Americans moved out on their own accord.
-
I thought they traded their land for a Cadillac ac ac ac, you ought to know by now.
-
Don't forget the natives also begged the settlers to teach them about Jesus so they could be saved!
-
they had a nice neighbourly chat
-
You sure about that? You sure about how come that's why?
-
How old is that book?
-
2025, Florida probably
-
It's not a U.S. textbook. It's Canadian. We don't use the term First Nation in the states
-
-
-
Where is this from?
-
Canadian school textbook in 2017. Unsurprisingly it has some other revisionist history in there about First Nation people. The one called out in the article could almost be an Always Sunny joke it's so incredibly dark:
The book informed children that First Nations peoples "moved to areas called reserves, where they could live undisturbed by the hustle and bustle of the settlers"
-
2017? that's grim
-
-
-
Lol some of these comments are completely ignoring the reality of why it was phrased this way. Its a textbook for school children probably below the age of 10. Do you really expect middle school public education teachers to explain genocide and ethnic clensing to eight year olds? They slowly introduce the truth come highschool when kids are older because its horrific and toddlers have no need for their childhood to be ruined with horrific adult truths. Weren't you allowed to believe pilgrims and Indians cam e together for Thanksgiving for a few years of your childhood?
-
No because I'm native american and was confronted with the reality of genocide and ethnic cleansing everyday
White children can handle it too
-
Most white adults can't handle it because of this.
-
-
Do you really expect middle school public education teachers to explain genocide and ethnic clensing to eight year olds?
"The European colonists forced the native population off of their land" is plenty understandable to a small child
Weren't you allowed to believe pilgrims and Indians cam e together for Thanksgiving for a few years of your childhood?
I was also allowed to believe that gay people wanted to rape me and that farm animals live long happy lives out in meadows. Who the fuck benefits from children being lied to?
-
Do you really expect middle school public education teachers to explain genocide and ethnic clensing to eight year olds?
Yes.
-
Yeah, middle school is literally where it was hammered in for me. I think around ~4th grade we started to get some more serious "We treated the Native Americans really poorly", but I remember very starkly from 6th grade on that we got a pretty robust view of the historical-scale resolution of the genocides, even though they weren't referred to as such. Invasions, broken treaties, massacres, and backstabbing.
-
I hate opinions like this. It pretends that children are too stupid to understand reality. Children are generally far more intelligent and capable of understanding things than people give them credit for. They just need it to be explained to them.
The reason this is an issue is because it creates this idea that it was mutual, and ingrains a mythos that makes it harder to learn the truth later. Sure, you can coddle them and let them believe everything was happy and peaceful as children, but that's how you end up with adults who believe America doesn't have horrors in its past and we were a pure and moral nation. It creates a conservative ideology where things were perfect before and we shouldn't change or try to fix issues.
-
Weren’t you allowed to believe pilgrims and Indians cam e together for Thanksgiving for a few years of your childhood?
Yeah, and it made learning the truth all the more horrific.
What other atrocities should we entirely reverse so as to have a 'pure' childhood?
Maybe we can whitewash Hitler, have Churchill and FDR swap cigars in Munich with him.
-
They slowly introduce the truth come highschool
In US, curriculum's are different from state to state. SOME children eventually receive the truth, and having learned the truth realize they were lied to by their educators and lose trust in the education system. Other children never learn the truth, and instead argue that there was no genocide because thats what they were taught in school. If the country is willing to make bombs that get dropped on children around the world, then surely we can drop a few truth bombs on our own children.
-
I see where your coming from but I don't think whitewashing it is the answer...they could've just stated where the settlements were and that native people were displaced it doesn't have to say anything about genocide and can just cover that aspect of it later.
This just sets the wrong framework for the later education your talking about
-
129 comments