"They did not settle a virgin land. They invaded and displaced a resident population. This is so simple a fact that it seems self-evident." - Francis Jennings, historian

It's been a few years since I last opened a history book for school, from what I remember of them, I feel like they don't tell the full story of how the "Europeans created the 'Doctrine of Discovery' to justify their takeover of any territory they "discovered" regardless of whose home it was. From an Indigenous perspective, European claims to Indigenous lands were not legitimate."

After reading through this book and learning more information, the history that I remember learning now feels a bit sanitized and white washed in the way that it is presented.

Part of what I learned in this books was the fact that the word, 'redskins' came about during a time when the early settlers killed and scalped the Native people and saw that the blood made the mutilated skin look red. Or the fact that the early settlers were basically squatters and that genocide happened whether through biological or chemical warfare.

Something else that I learned, but hadn't really considered before, was the way that the Native people had well established routes, whether water or over land, that they used to cross the country.

"Historian Frederick Jackson Turner believed, wrongly, that Indigenous North American cultures had no real influence on the settlers except as roadblocks to progress. He viewed Native cultures as backward and primitive in comparison to the settlers' culture, which he saw as dynamic and sophisticated."