What have five hundred year of European occupation done to the nations of North America?

Thomas King gives a great overview on the history of native people in North America. Especially for someone from Europe this book gives a totally new perspective.

Forget Columbus - Learn the facts about Dead Indians, Live Indians and Legal Indians as well as the real history before the US started conquering the west: » For 250 years, Whites and Indians had fought as enemies, had fought as allies, had made peace, had broken the peace, and had fought each other again. But when Great Britain, France, and the newly formed United States sat down in 1783 to hammer out the details of the Treaty of Paris that would officially end the American Revolution, Native people, who had fought alongside both England and the colonies, were neither invited to the negotiations nor mentioned in the treaty itself. «

I learned, that » By the beginning of the nineteenth century, Natives and Whites had been living together in the same neighbourhood for almost three hundred years «.

I also read, for the first time, shocking facts like, that it was quiet usual » As far back as 1976, [that] Saskatoon police officers had been driving young Native men to the outskirts of town and dropping them off. Within the urban mythology of Saskatoon, these rides were known as Starlight Tours «, which killed lots of the young men as they froze to death. Not to mention the different approaches of the churches to "educate“ native children (where up to 50% of them died per year) to proper white men, or as the author writes, » that Native children had suffered at the hands of Christian doctrinaires, pedophiles, and sadists.«

I really liked the fact, that several bands/tribes/nations use their status to run casinos, make good profits out of white men gambling and buy back their stolen land - and there was unbelievable much land stolen by the English, Canadian and US governments over the decades. King tells lots more about unbelievable cruelty, injustice and genocides, that took place till the 21st century.

All in all he summarizes: » The problem was and continues to be unexamined confidence in western civilization and the unwarranted certainty of Christianity. «

And of course: Lorne Cardinal is the best choice for reading this great book!

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