That might be revisionism from the perspective of the history you get from Disney movies but I don't think Mann is at all out of mainstream history here and I t

That might be revisionism from the perspective of the history you get from Disney movies but I don't think Mann is at all out of mainstream history here and I think you're doing him a disservice by comparing him to your friend. I'd hope anybody doing an american history course in US high schools these days would know that, say, the Iroquois practiced farming though the bits in 1491 about the way they burned out underbrush to encourage large animals deeper into the forest or tried to encourage Chestnut trees over others was new to me. And people like Ben Franklin certainly wrote about Indians as models of liberty, in his case in contrast to the Germans he though were subservient by nature. And Rousseau certainly had a lot to say about them. What ended up being the US political system had many influences. I think the Corsican 1755 constitution is an underrated influence but also the lack of hereditary nobility among the natives. I think it's easy to underestimate how natural a nobility seems when all the societies you know have it, until you meet one that doesn't.