The English colonists, declaring political independence from their motherland, listed a bill of particulars against King George III as justification for what would certainly be treason if they lost the resulting war. Among the offenses alleged against the King:

He has…endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

Raised where Indians were the most numerous minority, I was supposed to be lucky that, unlike the black kids, I was offered the same education as the whites. As soon as I knew the word “massacre,” I was told it was something Indians did to white people.

The black and white “westerns” we saw for a nickel at the Walmur Theater, where we could sit where we pleased while the black kids sat in the balcony, taught the same.

History as taught in K-12 is a largely mythical narration of the story that led inevitably to the Greatest Country in the World. I suppose it’s taught that way everywhere, with only difference being the identity of the Greatest Country in the World.