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"The concept of tourists flockingto American Indian archeological sites may seem strange if you learned in school—like this author did—that America was sparsely

"The concept of tourists flockingto American Indian archeological sites may seem strange if you learned in school—like this author did—that America was sparsely inhabited wilderness before Europeans arrived." Are people actually taught this? I don't think I was. Perhaps on some level there was an unspoken assumption of this but I really don't remember anyone ever explicitly making this argument.

dredmorbius 10y ago
From conversations I've had with Americans raised in the American schools system, at least through the 1980s and even early 1990s (I'm less certain of more recent experience), yes, that's quite common. Public school history education is grossly misbilled. Between the politics, poor understanding of many (though not all) teachers, texts, and more, it only provides the barest outlines of reality, and often only a highly distorted image of that.
merpnderp 10y ago
Not only are they taught this, it is still the prevailing theory, with the number somewhere between 2 and 20 million people for the US and Canada. The cold hard truth is there isn't enough evidence to make anything but wildly rough guesses.
mch82 10y ago
I was not taught this. As a young student I was first taught to be thankful to the Native Americans for helping the first European settlers learn how to farm and live on the continent. That idea is enshrined in the national holiday of Thanksgiving. Later, as teenage students, we learned more of the gory details of the displacement of Native Americans. There's no way to undo history, but we definitely learn that behavior was wrong. The evidence, in the form of renamed sports teams, place names, and the pending $20 bill redesign, along with tourism numbers that far exceed those implied in "Why Do Tourists Visit..." article, all indicate that attempts to teach Americans about the tragedy of our past behavior are making a positive difference.

dredmorbius 10y ago

From conversations I've had with Americans raised in the American schools system, at least through the 1980s and even early 1990s (I'm less certain of more recent experience), yes, that's quite common. Public school history education is grossly misbilled. Between the politics, poor understanding of many (though not all) teachers, texts, and more, it only provides the barest outlines of reality, and often only a highly distorted image of that.

merpnderp 10y ago

Not only are they taught this, it is still the prevailing theory, with the number somewhere between 2 and 20 million people for the US and Canada. The cold hard truth is there isn't enough evidence to make anything but wildly rough guesses.

mch82 10y ago

I was not taught this. As a young student I was first taught to be thankful to the Native Americans for helping the first European settlers learn how to farm and live on the continent. That idea is enshrined in the national holiday of Thanksgiving. Later, as teenage students, we learned more of the gory details of the displacement of Native Americans. There's no way to undo history, but we definitely learn that behavior was wrong. The evidence, in the form of renamed sports teams, place names, and the pending $20 bill redesign, along with tourism numbers that far exceed those implied in "Why Do Tourists Visit..." article, all indicate that attempts to teach Americans about the tragedy of our past behavior are making a positive difference.