My History Teacher Told Me

According to the majority of Americans, the history of the United States begins with the Pilgrims and their voyage on the Mayflower. Author and history teacher James W. Loewen perfectly recreates many of these people’s childhoods in his book “Lies My History Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong” when he talks about little kids making hand turkeys and construction paper Pilgrim hats and putting on Thanksgiving plays every November (399). His books goes much deeper than simply giving the reader a sense of nostalgia for their younger years, he actually tells them everything they know, or think they know rather, is wrong. He talks about the Spanish, French, Dutch, and English settlers that arrived in the Americas

All elementary history classes do discus in great length Christopher Columbus’s accidental discovery of the Americas during the month of October, but they jump straight to the founding of Plymouth Rock as far as U.S. History is concerned as soon as the months change. Indeed, most youth are lucky if their history classes mention Jamestown by the time they reach High School, and most American adults have never even heard of the lost colony of Roanoke. Even as adults, most Americans are unaware of the Dutch settlers nor of the Russian colonies along the Pacific Northwest (which Loewen does not mention either), but they do know that the French were at least in Canada by the time of the American

History? The reason for the omission of the Spanish, French, Dutch, and Russian colonies is because the United States was founded by British colonists, but that does not explain the omissions of Roanoke and Jamestown which were British colonies. Roanoke disappeared shortly after it was founded, and Jamestown has an extremely dark and unsavory past, one that includes cannibalism, so neither of these colonies are suitable examples of the embodiment of American culture. The Pilgrims, on the other hand, can fulfill this role after a little editing to their history. Since no one actually knows what happened on the Mayflower that caused it to change course, all of the conspiracy theories are simply nothing more than theories. Although they did struggle to survive when they first landed, they did not struggle as much as the Jamestown settlers who were constantly at odds with the Natives. One of the most attractive qualities about the history of the Pilgrims and Plymouth is that they eventually collaborated with the Natives, albeit a little bit longer than the history books would like to admit, but their relationship with the Natives was rocky instead of sunshine and rainbows. As far as the Pilgrims dirty little secret of grave robbing is concerned, that is nowhere near as bad as the cannibalism that took place in Jamestown. After a few omissions here and some rewriting there, the Pilgrims become the