Lies
My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen, 1995, Excerpts
Profit was the
primary reason most Mayflower colonist made the trip. As Robert Moore has
pointed out, “Textbooks neglect to analyze the profit motive underlying much of
our history.”
In 1623 the British
indulged in the first use of chemical warfare in the colonies when negotiating
a treaty with tribes near the Potomac River. The British offered a toast
“symbolizing eternal friendship,” whereupon the chief, his family, advisors,
and two hundred followers dropped dead of poison.
Textbooks omit the
facts about grave robbing, Indian enslavement, the plague, and so on, even
though they were common knowledge in colonial New England. The Early Virginians
engaged in bickering, sloth, even cannibalism. They spent their early days
digging random holes in the ground, haplessly looking for gold instead of
planting crops. Soon they were starving and digging up putrid Indian corpses to
eat or renting themselves out to Indian families as servants – hardly heroic
founders that a great nation requires.
Pocahontas
[Disney], The Virginia Company Song, 1995
On the beaches of
Virginy
There's diamonds like
debris
There's silver rivers
flow
And gold you pick
right off a tree
With a nugget for my
Winnie
And another one for
me
And all the rest'll
go
To The Virginia
Company
It's glory, God, and
gold
And The Virginia
Company
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