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TCinLA's avatar

I recall in Eighth Grade Colorado History (the "official" course) reading about what was then called "the Battle of Sand Creek," in which the valorous white people fought the dastardly Inidans and managed to kill many of them with few losses to the valorous white people. When I raised my hand and said from my reading of battles (I at the time had a College Freshman reading level and was already reading history books for recreation) it sounded like a massacre, I was once again sent to "polish the bench" in the Assistant Principal's Office (I did a lot of bench-polishing back then, which I didn't mind at all since they didn't seem to mind me bringing a book along to read - I don't think I got a report card in 12 years of public miseducation that didn't include "does not respond to properly constituted authority.")

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Allen Hingston's avatar

The son of an acquaintance, years back, wrote a well research highschool paper on the War of 1812-1814 from the perspective of the First Nations who were the true losers of the war. Canada won as we kept the Americans out; the Americans won as they freed up the mid west from British control to settlement. Only the indigenous lost. He got a failing grade but his dad was so proud of him

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TPJ (MA)'s avatar

Thanks Allen. Hingston from Kingston, by any chance?

"The French and Indian War," or, as it's called in Canada, The British and Indian War.

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Ellie Kona's avatar

French colonials versus English colonials, each recruiting Indigenous allies in quest of supremacy over the revenue-producing resources of the land (e.g. beaver skins, tobacco) for profits of the corporate investors on behalf of the sovereigns of France and England.

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Stuart Attewell (Paris, Fr)'s avatar

Yes but the French wanted to work with the locals through "comptoirs" and create trade whilst the English were there to stay "en masse" and eliminate the middlemen.

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Ellie Kona's avatar

Yes, the French went for assimilate, the English more for annihilate, or at least for apartheid. A coureur des bois ("runner of the woods") was a French-Canadian trapper and/or trader with First Nations peoples. Some married Indigenous women and made Métis families and communities in the outback. So the practices vis-à-vis the middlewomen were very different, though Métis were subjected to racist persecution. Oh right, the English won the Battle of the Plains of Abraham and turned New France into Canada!

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Allen Hingston's avatar

The French and Indian war was 50 years earlier than the War of 1812-1814

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TPJ (MA)'s avatar

Indeed, but does the War of 1812 have another name in Canada? If so, I'd highlight that contrasting viewpoint too.

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Allen Hingston's avatar

No. That is how it is known in Canada. Is it the same in USA?

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Ted's avatar

From this era of and up to, read: Tecumseh, A Sorrow in My Heart -Alan Eckert

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Pamsy's avatar

Good on his dad!

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daria (MID)'s avatar

The Sand Creek Massacre should be taught in every history curriculum, (as should the Ludlow Massacre).

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TCinLA's avatar

The good news is, Colorado History books in school now teach it as the Sand Creek Massacre and the site is listed as such with explanatory material.

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TPJ (MA)'s avatar

Good show, Daria. Thousands of readers will now scramble to look up "Ludlow Massacre," one of the worst incidents in America's labor wars.

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Lynell(VA by way of MD&DC)'s avatar

And here you are today, TC, for which I am seriously grateful. Really!

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Ally House (Oregon)'s avatar

Somehow I am not surprised....

That is intended as a compliment of the highest order.

Signed, "who never lives up to her potential"

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Pamsy's avatar

Ditto! Speakers of truth to authority are generally frowned upon.

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R Dooley (NY)'s avatar

That sounds like a great opening scene ... very engaging.

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Claudia Deyton's avatar

Good for you!

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LouAnn N.Y/ MA./ FL.'s avatar

I Love you TC!!!! I had a Good chuckle reading your last sentence🤣I NEEDED that❣

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Pamsy's avatar

And oh how polished those benches were!

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