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.
this post was submitted on 30 May 2025
1140 points (99.6% liked)
A Comm for Historymemes
2623 readers
828 users here now
A place to share history memes!
Rules:
-
No sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, assorted bigotry, etc.
-
No fascism, atrocity denial, etc.
-
Tag NSFW pics as NSFW.
-
Follow all Lemmy.world rules.
Banner courtesy of @setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Don't forget the natives also begged the settlers to teach them about Jesus so they could be saved!
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
they had a nice neighbourly chat
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.
We recently had an issue where students were taught slaves in the US were taught valuable job skills also a teacher was asked to teach both sides of the holocaust
load more comments
(3 replies)
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?
load more comments
(3 replies)
load more comments
(5 replies)
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.
Based on the map and the use of "First Nations," this is a Canadian textbook. I have no doubt this happens (and worse) in American textbooks, though.
load more comments
(9 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
Hey in some parts they moved because Europeans ruined the hunting grounds and devastated the local ecology.
load more comments
(1 replies)
In The Man in The High Castle TV show, kids were literally taught that black Americans moved out on their own accord.
That's an, uh, ~~extremely suspect~~ laughably wrong and evil phrasing there, school textbook
Ftfy
Yep this isn't a mistake; it's a malicious lie.
Demonstration: The final stage of a genocide is the denial that it was a genocide.
load more comments
(3 replies)
Elementary School and High School versions of were so different.
Kids learn a fairy tale, High Schoolers learned about genocide.
Japanese schools censorship of their atrocities during the WW2 is legendary. The prevailing understanding there during their 3 years occupation of Indonesia from 1942 to 1945 is that they're liberating Indonesia from the Dutch and the 3 years were setting up Indonesian independence working with local people.
Here in England, I certainly didn't learn that we were the proud inventors of concentration camps, back in the day. Granted it's forty years since I was in history class, but I doubt that's changed.
It was just what you did back then. By it, I mean colonialism, murdering and enslaving native populations, persecuting literally anyone and everyone. It's just what you did. I almost kinda wish schools took that attitude and went on to describe the atrocities, versus brushing over things. People were savages for a long, long time. Still are. But perhaps if we identify the savagery, we can get better. I do think we are definitely better than our ancestors, and I like to think a few generations down the line will talk about me like old racist grandpa, you know? Because that'll at least mean we did a good job trying to fix it.
Many years later they say "go back to your country!"
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.
There are indeed some cases where there was a willing exchange but in VERY EARLY days before a genocidal critical mass arrived.
Well if you mean they slaughtered the fighters, deliberately infected the tribe with smallpox, and marched the survivors out at gunpoint, then sure.
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"
view more: next ›