Well, obviously we aren't taught as poorly as the students of a certain history teacher are (*coughcoughBillyCollins'snotquitepoem*), but it cannot be denied that all people experience bias in some way, shape or form. This includes people who write history books (and more importantly includes the people who teach history using said history books). History is written by the winners, so we do not really get the full picture from history.
A fairly good example of this is the whole deal with the colonization of America. If you think about it, American history is more or less made upon the mass grave of a population of Native Americans that, according to some estimates, was comparable in size to that of Europe. But we don't exactly remember that very well.We learn that European settlers came to America and wrecked shop with smallpox and gunpowder weapon wielding troops but we don't remember the sheer destruction that Europe caused upon the natives as well as we should. In fact, history skates over many facets of the colonization of America. For example, remember the idea of Manifest Destiny? Of course you do. It was great for Americans. But do you remember what Manifest Destiny meant for Natives? It meant that Americans believed they were entitled to ancestral land that the natives had used for centuries.
It didn't help that they were....oct-icimated.
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| Technical terms, thanks to Crash Course US History |
At least we know that the history we learn wasn't ultra far off right? I mean, we remember the Roaring Twenties as an ultra lavish time period in American History, and the Great Gatsby seems to confirm that (Since it was written in 1925 it is technically a primary source). Ahh well.
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