s*** your teacher told you

[bmags]

We were talking about 1491 and 1493 in the Dem thread. It takes about 5 pages into either book to be floored by how much more we know about these historical periods compared to when we were kids. But a few stories I've read of just untruths TAUGHT in school have really just bothered me.

 

The one that doesn't bother me as much:

• Back then, the they thought the world was flat, until Columbus proved it was round. I learned this was an inaccurate account probably in high school. But then in 1493 you learn about just how stupid Columbus actually was. He thought the world was pear shaped, with a nipple on the very top where the divine were chosen to live. But because of it's pear shape it was closer to China then realized. And when the King and Queen of Spain brought this theory to the scientists they laughed it off. The only reason he was able to make this voyage was the desperation to trade with China's riches, and Columbus's stupidity. But what an odd lie to continue to teach? No?

 

The one that still bothers me:

Robert E Lee didn't believe in slavery bought fought with the south because he believed in their cause. I only learned this was false last year, and it really angered me. The above lie surely tried to simplify things for a younger audience. This one tried to complicate it. But it just was false. And why would it be created?

 

Anyway...you guys have more?

[Milkman delivers]

We were talking about 1491 and 1493 in the Dem thread. It takes about 5 pages into either book to be floored by how much more we know about these historical periods compared to when we were kids. But a few stories I've read of just untruths TAUGHT in school have really just bothered me.

 

The one that doesn't bother me as much:

• Back then, the they thought the world was flat, until Columbus proved it was round. I learned this was an inaccurate account probably in high school. But then in 1493 you learn about just how stupid Columbus actually was. He thought the world was pear shaped, with a nipple on the very top where the divine were chosen to live. But because of it's pear shape it was closer to China then realized. And when the King and Queen of Spain brought this theory to the scientists they laughed it off. The only reason he was able to make this voyage was the desperation to trade with China's riches, and Columbus's stupidity. But what an odd lie to continue to teach? No?

 

The one that still bothers me:

Robert E Lee didn't believe in slavery bought fought with the south because he believed in their cause. I only learned this was false last year, and it really angered me. The above lie surely tried to simplify things for a younger audience. This one tried to complicate it. But it just was false. And why would it be created?

 

Anyway...you guys have more?

 

According to many of the History Channel specials I've seen, Lee owned slaves, but he was torn at the onset of the war on which side to fight. I can't recall the reason that he might have wanted to fight on the North (perhaps it was his history at West Point?), but there was something.

[bmags]

But that's different than trying to make him seem more noble by saying he disagreed with slavery.

[Milkman delivers]

But that's different than trying to make him seem more noble by saying he disagreed with slavery.

 

Oh, I know. I'm just adding that little part and kind of hoping someone shows up with an expanded answer.

[StrangeSox]

I'm going to copy a friend's review of 1491 since its written better than I could and covers my thoughts pretty well:

 

Charles C. Mann would like to let you know that almost everything you know about the Americas before European contact is wrong in 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (Amazon link). Mann is a journalist who, after learning bits and pieces of new research into pre-contact American history, decided to summarize these findings. He draws from history, archeology, anthropology, ecology, genetics, linguistics, and many other fields to present a detailed but high-level overview of this untold history.

 

The central point of the book is to rebut various misunderstandings about the history of Native Americans: that they had no history, primarily, but also that the continent was a pristine wilderness only lightly touched by human cultures which had not progressed beyond hunting/gathering or at best neolithic agriculture, and whose technological backwardness doomed them to conquest. Such an account is accepted even by “sympathetic” students of Indian1 history, but it’s all wrong. Besides refuting these factual errors, he also refutes a thematic error: the portrayal of Indians as passive recipients of European actions, either as enemies or victims. Mann shows the the first peoples of the Americas were active in history, and highlights ways in which contact between the Old World and the New was a two-way street.

 

Mann attacks the standard historiography of pre-contact America – the story that appears in his son’s textbooks, which inspired him to write 1491- on three fronts: population, cultural antiquity, and ecological footprint. In the three major sections of the book, he shows that the Americas were thickly populated by people with ancient, innovative cultures and who shaped and controlled their landscapes with methods as effective as any Eurasian agriculture. Along the way are the “revelations” of the book’s subtitles. Probably the most encompassing and telling comment about the book I can make is that I never expected to be so engrossed by a section on the mechanics of a calendar system. It’s a testament to Mann’s ability as a writer and storyteller that he can deliver engaging exposition of the most esoteric topics.

 

Early European accounts and archeological findings indicate that the Americas were not a sparsely settled land: explorers describe coasts swarming with people, towns and villages so close that three could be seen from one, and so many people that they might contain the majority of humanity. Recent findings are more modest, but estimate that the Americas could have been home to 20% of the human population in the 15th century. Mann develops a “master narrative” of contact which explains the apparent emptiness later explorers would find, based on disease. Most people are familiar with the basic idea of the effects of plagues inadvertently unleashed by European explorers, but Mann argues they are central. Due to a quirk of heredity, native peoples may have been especially vulnerable to animal-borne diseases, and 50% to 90% of the original American population may have died. Following the social breakdown such an epidemic would cause, factional rivalry made alliance with the strange, pale newcomers an attractive option, giving Europeans a political vector for conquest. In modern New England, Mexico, and Peru, this story unfolded in different forms.

 

Mann follows up this sobering account with an exploration into the antiquity of human habitation in the Americas, going over the history of archeological debate on the subject. Apparently, the Americas have been inhabited so long that they should not properly be known as the “New” World: during the Ice Age, Europe was uninhabited while humanity in the Americas flourished. This leads into an account of Indian cultural development. Cities in the Americas with high populations existed at roughly the same time as Egyptian civilization developed, such that two of the “Cradles of Civilization” are in the Americas: the Olmec in Mesoamerica and Norte Chico in Peru. Norte Chico itself is a puzzler, different from any other Cradle in that it maintained high population on an arid coast with little potential for agriculture. Its inhabitants lived on fish, and the inland production of textiles from cotton (one of the few crops that its irrigation systems supported) created a “hydraulic” political relationship between the coast and the inland. Strange patterns, unlike anything seen in Eurasia, are a general theme of American civilization. For example, ancient Cahokia, in what is now Illinois, was a city composed of religious centers and the homes of farmers, rather than the familiar model of rural farmers supporting urban specialists. The development of indigenous American civilization had no pattern to follow, and went on its own strange path.

 

This strangeness is the centerpiece of Mann’s argument against the “light touch” conception of Indian habitation. Far from being “noble savages” who lived in harmony with nature, the original inhabitants of the Americas reshaped the landscape utterly. In North America, seasonal controlled burns maintained pastures and cleared underbrush. The forests of the east coast were, according to early European accounts, like “parks,” with clear space between all the trees, perfect for causal strolling. Or, rather, hunting: Indians did not practice animal husbandry, they turned whole forests into game parks. In Amazonia, long considered an agricultural dead zone, a “wet desert” with soil too poor for farming even when cleared, another type of strange agriculture flourished. The people of the Amazon created preta terra, “dark soil,” an artificial topsoil that is amazingly fecund, and used it to create orchards which are still in use today. Even traditional farming took a different course: the milpa, more like a garden than a field, in which multiple crop types grew side by side, reinforcing each others’ nutritional needs and sustainably keeping the land fertile. Early European accounts did not even recognize these as farms, thinking the land naturally produced abundant food. The later European descriptions of pristine, untouched nature are, in fact, inadvertent European creations: when disease wiped out the majority of the native population, there was no one to maintain this artificial landscape and it reverted to a wild state.

 

In terms of style, while the occasional “personal narrative” sections are a bit too journalistic, the prose is clear and engaging, and as noted, Mann has talent for explaining the most arcane and esoteric points. Most surprising of all, though, is that despite being a “popular” history, 1491 is very well cited. Striking a balance between readability and reference, every page of the text has a corresponding section in the end notes, allowing the reader to follow the paper trail for any item of interest. Even so, Mann’s narration of historic events which must have been reconstructed from archeological artifacts leaves one wondering how the researchers Mann is summarizing arrived at these conclusions. While Mann is often careful to note where his descriptions are speculative and occasionally explains methods (such as a brief but effective explanation of carbon-14 dating), an appendix on methodology would have been useful.

 

In some ways, it seems like Mann goes a bit too far in attempting to correct misunderstandings of pre-contact America, and puts unnecessary effort into lionizing rather than simply revising. His last section goes Indians’ contributions to European culture: the freer, egalitarian lifestyles of North American tribes might very well have influenced European settlers used to rigid, severe social hierarchy, creating the cultural foundations of the American ideal of liberty. It is known that settlers would often “go native” and refuse to return to European colonies. But his argument that a difference in native culture, between northeastern egalitarian tribes and more authoritarian southeastern tribes, could have contributed to the north/south divide on slavery is too much. He acknowledges the role of geography on the economy, but it’s hard to imagine that hierarchical and authoritarian tribes in the rocky northeast would have led to vast, labor-intensive plantations, whereas the south might have gone down some gentler non-agrarian path with a more enlightened native culture to learn from.

 

Similarly, Mann sometimes seems overly defensive in preempting criticism. In a chapter on the Inca, he describes their origin legend, of a founding family’s migration from the Lake Titicaca region. The Spaniard who recorded this story dismissed it as absurd, and Mann comments in reply that a migration from the Titicaca region is quite plausible. But why even go through the effort, when the chronicler’s comment is so bizarre, and there really is nothing strange about a legend encoding a history of migration to begin with?

 

Then again, such a “hyper-corrective” stance is understandable, given the dominant narrative Mann is challenging. When describing the Aztec practice of human sacrifice, he is careful to contextualize the death toll in terms of capital punishment in Europe, and from there one can see that while horrible, Aztec ritual was not unique in barbarity. An Amazon review of the book chiding Mann on this very point, for not going into lurid detail about the blood and gore, only validates Mann’s point. Dwelling on the gruesomeness of human sacrifice adds nothing to our understanding of the Aztecs. We already know they did it, we already know it was bad. In a world of death and brutality, such a focus tells us nothing about the Aztecs that hostile accounts of Native American history don’t already. Everyone hears about Aztecs cutting hearts out of chests. No one hears about the complex tradition of philosophy and literature which flourished in Aztec society. The strength of 1491 is to expand our knowledge, not to reiterate tired old polemics.

 

And it is on that last point that the great tragedy of the story Mann tells comes to light. No one knows about the Aztec intellectual tradition outside of a few scraps preserved by the conquistadors, no one knows anywhere near as much about Indian cultures as we could. Cut down by disease, stifled by conquest2, we lost the contributions of a whole hemisphere of people. When one considers the passive cultural effect of Indian liberty on settlers in North America, one realizes the titanic scale of this loss.

 

1. There is an appendix discussing the tricky issue of naming and terminology, in which Mann essentially concludes that “Native American” is an un-asked-for label, and that “Indian” is used by the people it refers to enough that its general use is acceptable.

2. It should be noted that as much as Mann corrects hostile accounts of Indian culture, he does not needlessly vilify Europeans. One of the more interesting revelations was in regard to the Spanish conquest of Mesoamerica. Whatever the native Mexicans thought of Spanish rule, they did not fault the Spanish for attacking and conquering a great empire in its weakness. Their perspective, apparently, was that had the positions been reversed, they would have done the same.

 

 

 

[bmags]

the story that appears in his son’s textbooks, which inspired him to write 1491

 

aHA

[Texsox]

According to many of the History Channel specials I've seen, Lee owned slaves, but he was torn at the onset of the war on which side to fight. I can't recall the reason that he might have wanted to fight on the North (perhaps it was his history at West Point?), but there was something.

 

 

Lee had taken an oath to defend the country against all enemies. He had a hard time splitting those loyalties. He was also Lincoln's first choice to lead the Union forces. Another factor was he fought with many of the Union leaders in Mexico.

[Texsox]

BTW Lies my Teacher Told Me is a decent history book.

[Texsox]

Actually sailors knew the world wasn't flat, they had sailed away from the coast enough to know that. What they did not know was how big it was. The reason for the near mutiny was they were in danger of running out of fresh water and food if the voyage took too long. They were at the point where they had enough food and water for return trip. Columbus was asking for just one more day for three or four days when they began spotting signs of land.

[iamshack]

We were talking about 1491 and 1493 in the Dem thread. It takes about 5 pages into either book to be floored by how much more we know about these historical periods compared to when we were kids. But a few stories I've read of just untruths TAUGHT in school have really just bothered me.

 

The one that doesn't bother me as much:

• Back then, the they thought the world was flat, until Columbus proved it was round. I learned this was an inaccurate account probably in high school. But then in 1493 you learn about just how stupid Columbus actually was. He thought the world was pear shaped, with a nipple on the very top where the divine were chosen to live. But because of it's pear shape it was closer to China then realized. And when the King and Queen of Spain brought this theory to the scientists they laughed it off. The only reason he was able to make this voyage was the desperation to trade with China's riches, and Columbus's stupidity. But what an odd lie to continue to teach? No?

 

The one that still bothers me:

Robert E Lee didn't believe in slavery bought fought with the south because he believed in their cause. I only learned this was false last year, and it really angered me. The above lie surely tried to simplify things for a younger audience. This one tried to complicate it. But it just was false. And why would it be created?

 

Anyway...you guys have more?

I think Lincoln's feelings towards slavery would be a bit more of an issue than Lee's, to be perfectly honest...

[Texsox]

It wasn't like race relations were better in 1865 than 1965. The whole storyline of whites were fighting to free the slaves is kind of over dramatized. It wasn't like there were jobs or great opportunitities for blacks after the war. My students do find it strange that black men received sufferage before white women.

[CrimsonWeltall]

Actually sailors knew the world wasn't flat, they had sailed away from the coast enough to know that. What they did not know was how big it was. The reason for the near mutiny was they were in danger of running out of fresh water and food if the voyage took too long. They were at the point where they had enough food and water for return trip. Columbus was asking for just one more day for three or four days when they began spotting signs of land.

 

The circumference of the Earth was already well known. Isabella overruled her advisors (who knew Columbus was wrong) to finance the trip.

[StrangeSox]

The circumference of the Earth was already well known. Isabella overruled her advisors (who knew Columbus was wrong) to finance the trip.

 

Yeah, the Greeks were able to come up with some reasonable estimations a millennium before Columbus, and over in ancient India in the 5th century AD IIRC they were within a couple of percent and also realized that the Earth rotated about an axis.

[bmags]

I think Lincoln's feelings towards slavery would be a bit more of an issue than Lee's, to be perfectly honest...

 

What are you referring to?

 

[bmags]

It wasn't like race relations were better in 1865 than 1965. The whole storyline of whites were fighting to free the slaves is kind of over dramatized. It wasn't like there were jobs or great opportunitities for blacks after the war. My students do find it strange that black men received sufferage before white women.

 

Ta-nehisi Coates has probably the best line to put it better in perspective: The civil war is but one bloody chapter in the war against black people.

[southsider2k5]

Yeah, the Greeks were able to come up with some reasonable estimations a millennium before Columbus, and over in ancient India in the 5th century AD IIRC they were within a couple of percent and also realized that the Earth rotated about an axis.

 

Hell the Eygptians knew many of the things that our modern scientists have "discovered" over the last hundreds of years.

 

http://www.crystalinks.com/gpstats.html

[iamshack]

What are you referring to?

Well, it's no revelation at this point, and I don't mean to state the obvious...but Lincoln is portrayed as this great friend to the African American people...whereas he was simply much more concerned about keeping the Union together. He didn't want slavery spreading throughout all the new territories, but he didn't really have an issue with slavery continuing in the south for the forseeable future. The Emancipation Proclamation was certainly not issued because Lincoln was concerned about freeing the slaves, either...he was just tapping another available resource to him.

 

This is not to say that Lincoln believed in slavery or the Southern way of life, but to say that he was some great advocate for the slaves simply because it was morally unacceptable is to not exactly be clear. Again, maybe it's a bit of an issue of the age of the learning audience, as you pointed out.

[bmags]

Well, it's no revelation at this point, and I don't mean to state the obvious...but Lincoln is portrayed as this great friend to the African American people...whereas he was simply much more concerned about keeping the Union together. He didn't want slavery spreading throughout all the new territories, but he didn't really have an issue with slavery continuing in the south for the forseeable future. The Emancipation Proclamation was certainly not issued because Lincoln was concerned about freeing the slaves, either...he was just tapping another available resource to him.

 

This is not to say that Lincoln believed in slavery or the Southern way of life, but to say that he was some great advocate for the slaves simply because it was morally unacceptable is to not exactly be clear. Again, maybe it's a bit of an issue of the age of the learning audience, as you pointed out.

 

I disagree. I think this is the push to whitewash the fact that the civil war was about slavery, first and foremost. Lincoln spoke before even officially becoming president that he wasn't goign to free slaves. The south seceded anyways. BUt not all slave states seceded. So he was forced to do a political balancing act to keep them in. IF there's ever been a man to not entirely judge by all of his words it was Abe Lincoln circa 60-65. Regardless of whether Lincoln stated he just wanted to keep the union together, it just so happens that by the end of the conflict, the president nominated by the anti-slavery party 5 years later resided over a country where slavery was now illegal, and whose party was now re-writing the constitution to give rights to those former slaves. So while he may not have been perfect from a civil rights perspective, he just so happened to be the leader during a dramatic transformation from a slave society, to a non one.

[iamshack]

I disagree. I think this is the push to whitewash the fact that the civil war was about slavery, first and foremost. Lincoln spoke before even officially becoming president that he wasn't goign to free slaves. The south seceded anyways. BUt not all slave states seceded. So he was forced to do a political balancing act to keep them in. IF there's ever been a man to not entirely judge by all of his words it was Abe Lincoln circa 60-65. Regardless of whether Lincoln stated he just wanted to keep the union together, it just so happens that by the end of the conflict, the president nominated by the anti-slavery party 5 years later resided over a country where slavery was now illegal, and whose party was now re-writing the constitution to give rights to those former slaves. So while he may not have been perfect from a civil rights perspective, he just so happened to be the leader during a dramatic transformation from a slave society, to a non one.

I guess my point is there seems to be quite a bit more interesting things happening right there in your post than in how Robert E Lee felt, at least to me, anyways.

[StrangeSox]

I disagree. I think this is the push to whitewash the fact that the civil war was about slavery, first and foremost. Lincoln spoke before even officially becoming president that he wasn't goign to free slaves. The south seceded anyways. BUt not all slave states seceded. So he was forced to do a political balancing act to keep them in. IF there's ever been a man to not entirely judge by all of his words it was Abe Lincoln circa 60-65. Regardless of whether Lincoln stated he just wanted to keep the union together, it just so happens that by the end of the conflict, the president nominated by the anti-slavery party 5 years later resided over a country where slavery was now illegal, and whose party was now re-writing the constitution to give rights to those former slaves. So while he may not have been perfect from a civil rights perspective, he just so happened to be the leader during a dramatic transformation from a slave society, to a non one.

 

I don't get how that stands up to the scrutiny of just looking at the documents and speeches of the time. It was primarily about protecting the legality of owning slaves.

 

http://www.civil-war.net/pages/texas_declaration.asp

http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp

[Texsox]

Well, it's no revelation at this point, and I don't mean to state the obvious...but Lincoln is portrayed as this great friend to the African American people...whereas he was simply much more concerned about keeping the Union together. He didn't want slavery spreading throughout all the new territories, but he didn't really have an issue with slavery continuing in the south for the forseeable future. The Emancipation Proclamation was certainly not issued because Lincoln was concerned about freeing the slaves, either...he was just tapping another available resource to him.

 

This is not to say that Lincoln believed in slavery or the Southern way of life, but to say that he was some great advocate for the slaves simply because it was morally unacceptable is to not exactly be clear. Again, maybe it's a bit of an issue of the age of the learning audience, as you pointed out.

 

Lincoln had spoke out against slavery years before he became president. It is true that he was willing to allow slavery to remain in the south, but he was against any additional slave states being added to the union. I would not go so far as to say he didn't have an issue with it. I believe it would be more accurate to say that stopping the spread was probably the practical limit to what could have been done at the time.

 

Most people incorrectly assume that the Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves. Actually slaves that were living in the north were not freed, only in the Confederate States. And yes it was much of a war tactic as a moral issue. It also was brilliant in that it effectively stopped any European country from coming to the help of the Confederacy. I've read some interesting papers that theorize that France or Spain may have come to the aid of the southern states. That would have been a game changer.

 

What is interesting to me was a debate at the time whether slavery was more a legal or moral issue.

[bmags]

I guess my point is there seems to be quite a bit more interesting things happening right there in your post than in how Robert E Lee felt, at least to me, anyways.

 

Well yeah, these aren't all big lies. But that's the precisely the point, they are small colorful lies that can be used as evidence for advancing certain insidious world views. The biggest lie here was addressed by strangesox...that native americans were just dumb hunter gatherers that came up against the european intellectual machine.

[CrimsonWeltall]

Hell the Eygptians knew many of the things that our modern scientists have "discovered" over the last hundreds of years.

 

http://www.crystalinks.com/gpstats.html

 

It's easy to make the Egyptians "know" things when you fudge numbers and invent your own units like "pyramid inches", that there's no evidence the Egyptians used.

[StrangeSox]

It's easy to make the Egyptians "know" things when you fudge numbers and invent your own units like "pyramid inches", that there's no evidence the Egyptians used.

 

Oh man not pyramidology....

 

Ancient engineering and scientific discoveries are pretty amazing, though. The complexities of ancient American societies and their advanced knowledge is discussed in 1491 pretty heavily.

[StrangeSox]

The biggest lie here was addressed by strangesox...that native americans were just dumb hunter gatherers that came up against the european intellectual machine.

 

The biggest problem there is that the standard narratives, be they from the Manifest Destiny, rah-rah settlers end or from the noble savage, perfectly in tune with the environment until evil Europeans came is that Indians are rarely, if ever, granted actual agency and identity. They're merely pawns in the Europeans' games, not actors in their own right.