Being a Canadian, I have always wanted to learn more about Aboriginal People and Culture. This hunt has proved difficult though as I am a fan of facts, not opinions and feelings. Their history has been important to me, as both my parents side has Native ancestry (which I just purchased a DNA test to prove this claim).

Right out the gate, I figured out everything I learned in school was oh so terribly wrong. I learned in school that when Christopher Columbus the great explorer discovered America the teachers strongly insinuated it was on purpose, and they taught he got along with the natives and lived peacefully alongside them. Well… he was looking for the Asian Continent and apparently soon as they got on dry land they pulled guns out and mercilessly slaughtered 3000 natives and took hundreds captive to bring back to Spain as slaves (women and children as well not just men).

The wars I learned about were horrifying, as all wars are, but the colonists took war a step too far which is saying something. Natives would win wars more often than not with their Gorilla War tactics, forcing the Colonists to turn to Diplomacy to get what they want and work WITH the natives to prove their usefulness, which since we are still here they did successfully. However, the battles the Colonists did win turned very brutal, very fast. Kiefs war (Named after New Amsterdams mayor at the time General Kief), raided a Native villiage, burning huts to the ground killing hundreds of natives. They ripped babies out of mother’s arms and bashed the babies heads against rocks, butchered toddlers alive cutting off limbs and throwing the limbs in the swamp and roasting the bodies. The children that were older than the toddler stage they would nail hands and feet to a board, and beat, stab, and cut the child until it slowly died forcing parents to watch.

When the Colonists and Natives did band together and get along to beat back the British, the new Americans left the Natives out of the Paris Treaty talks and stole their land despite Natives helping the Colonists found a new Nation and fight for its freedom and independence. I discovered George Washington was not a great man as he launched “Operation Scorched Earth”, which entails a mission to kill every Native on American Soil by offering a large bounty for Native scalps, a Native Child’s scalp being worth the most. What surprised me most was the Natives weren’t innocent, as they would force Colonial children into slavery, as well as during Jefferson’s time the stronger tribes (Cherokee and Comanche) purchased and owned black slaves until they were freed by Abraham Lincoln.

In the end, both sides did horrible things to each other, Colonists were especially brutal in their attempts to make Natives submissive, and African Americans were mistreated by both sides. There’s more information, and not just atrocities in this book. Very much recommend, rated 4 stars as there is very little history about how Canada treated its Natives.