"Readers might be fascinated if textbook authors presented two ore more of the various possibilities, but, as usual, exposing students to historical controversies is taboo" (87 Loewens). This quote personifies the perspective in which James Loewen has written this article. His main argument is that high-school and elementary school textbooks tell the story of Thanksgiving, as best fits, to suit this countries "vision" of a perfect history. They conveniently omit facts about how the "first settlers" or "pilgrims" were not really the first to settle in the new world, how earlier settlers brought diseases with them which in turn nearly wiped out an entire civilization single-handedly, and how the English settlers later finished the job. Loewen argues that such facts are absent because our history is one of "deliberate forgetting instead of one which strives to gain historical perspective" (Loewens 96).
One pertinent piece of information that Loewen interjects is the extreme depletion of the Native American People in the 16th century, before the "pilgrims" even set foot on the "New World", due to a major plague. I myself, being a product of the American public school system, had never read (in any school related textbook) of such a plague in all 12 years of school and 4 years of "higher education" until this day. Loewen also explains that the 90-95% deterioration of the Native Americans is just an estimate which is fairly difficult to prove, though he does write of accounts which were published with close to the same numbers such as those included in J.W. Barbers Interesting Events in the History of the United States. Barber wrote "The Massachusetts Indians are said to have been reduced from 30,000 to 300 fighting men." Yet another interesting fact which Loewen sheds light upon is the 16th century Spanish settlements which had been established in the "New World" prior to the "pilgrims" landing on Plymouth Rock.
