The Cleansing of American History

I was reading Nick Coleman's column in the Star Tribune today about some pieces of history from the 1862 Uprising that was intentionally not on display at Fort Snelling in St. Paul and it got me thinking. Why are we reluctant to teach our children what really happened in our expansion west?

We teach them about honesty and always telling the truth, but we are less than truthful when we explain our past. When it comes to some of the more unsavory events, we get out the scrub bucket and soapy water, and cleanse the data. In the end after it is nice and clean, we end up riding in on our white horses and save the day. Why not teach our children what REALLY happened - the good, the bad and the ugly. Heaven knows we have enough ugly in our past.

We all know that several thousand Indians died as a result of several white man's diseases. Were all those deaths unintentional? After all from a media standpoint, wouldn't it look better to report a thousand Indians died from disease rather than from gunshot wounds? The result is the same - a thousand dead Indians. It would have been nothing more than an old form of biological warfare.

And why was it when the Indians attacked our settlers, everyone was appalled - massacre! It was the white man who was invading the Indians' territory. They were just protecting their land.

The Battle of the Little Bighorn is another example. Why was it O.K. for Custer to kill Indians, but it was not O.K. for the Indians to kill him and his soldiers? He was taking their land away from them, right?

Now turn the tables. When terrorists try to invade and kill our people, it creates a national outcry, but we are doing just what the Indians were doing - protecting our land.

We did the same thing in Vietnam. The number of American casualties were routinely underestimated while the number of Viet Cong killed exaggerated. Why did we do that?

Maybe it depends on which end of the gun you are on - if you are the one catching the lead or throwing the lead.

I think we should educate our children with the facts and explanation, so they have a broader (and more accurate) picture of the past. Just my thoughts. Now back to the washing of data.