Read Online Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen - Free Book Online Page A

     as answers, not questions.
    New evidence that emerges, as archaeologists and historians compare American cultures with
     cultures in Africa, Europe, and Asia, may confirm or disprove these arrivals. Keeping up
     with such evidence is a lot of work. To tell about earlier explorers, textbook authors
     would have to familiarize themselves with sources such as those cited in the three
     preceding footnotes. It's easier just to retell the old familiar Columbus story.
    Seven of the twelve textbooks I studied at least mention the expeditions of the Norse.
     These daring sailors reached America in a series of voyages across the North Atlantic,
     establishing communities on the Faeroe Islands, Iceland, and YEAR 70,000? B.C.12.7 B.C.
    6000? B.C.0? B.C.
    5000? B.C.
    10,000? B.C.? B.C.
    9000? B.C. to present 1000 B.C.
    1000 B.C. A.D,
    BOOB.C.
    600 A.D.
    1000-1 1311?-1460?
    c. 1 1375?-1491 1481-91 1 FROM SiUeria TO Alaska QUALITY OF EVIDENCE High: the survivors peopled the Americas.
    Moderate: similarities in blowguns, pa per making, etc.
    Moderate: similar pottery, fishing styles.
    High: Navajos and Crees resemble each other culturally, differ horn other Indians.
    High: continuing contact Oy Inults across Bering Sea.
    Low. Chinese legend; cultural sim ilarities.
    Moderate: Negroid and Caucasoid likenesses in sculpture and ceramics, Arab history, etc.
    Low. megaliths, possible similarities in script and language.
    Low: legends of St. Brendan, written C. 850 A.D., confirmed by Norse sagas.
    High: oral sagas, conf rmed by archaeology on Newfoundland.
    Moderate: Portuguese sources in West Africa, Columbus on Haiti. Balboa in Panama.
    Low: inference from Portuguese sources and actions.
    Low: cryptic historical sources. Low: cryptic historical sources. High: historical sources.
    Table 1. Explorers of America Indonesia (or other direction)
    Japan Siberia Siberia China Afro-Phoenicia Phoenicia, Celtic Britain Ireland, via Iceland Greenland, Icelard West Africa Portugal Basque Spain Bristol, England Spain Ecuador Canada. New Mexico Alaska Central America Central America New England, perhaps elsewhere Newfoundland? W eal Indies?
    Labrador, Baffin Land, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, possibly Cape Coo and further south Haiti, Panama, possibly Brazil Newfoundland? Brazil?
    Newfoundland coast Newfoundland coast Caribbean, including Haiti South America Greenland. The Norse colony on Greenland lasted five hundred years (982-c. 1500), as long
     as the European settlement of the Americas until now. From Greenland a series of
     expeditions, some planned, some accidental, reached various parts of North America,
     including Baffin Land, Labrador, Newfoundland, and possibly New England.
    Textbooks that mention the Viking expeditions minimize them. Land of Promise writes, “They merely touched the shore briefly, and sailed away.” Perhaps the authors of Promise did not know that, around 1005, Thorfinn and Gudrid Karlsefni led a party of 65 or 165 or
     265 homesteaders (the old Norse sagas vary), with livestock and supplies, to settle
     Vineland. They lasted two years; Gudrid gave birth to a son. Then conflict with Native
     Americans caused them to give up. This trip was no isolated incident: Norse were still
     exporting wood from Labrador to Greenland 350 years later. Some archaeologists and
     historians believe that the Norse got as far down the coast as North Carolina. The Norse
     discoveries remained known in western Europe for centuries and were never forgotten in
     Scandinavia. Columbus surely learned of Greenland and probably also of North America if he
     visited Iceland in 1477 as he claimed to have done.
    It may be fair to say that the Vikings' voyages had little lasting effect on the fate of
     the world. Should textbooks therefore leave them out? Is impact on the present the sole
     reason for including an event or fact? It cannot be, of course, or our history books would
     shrink to twenty-page pamphlets. We include the Norse