When Americans Save Lives Overseas, it Doesn't Make the Textbooks

[alright4u]

Originally Posted by Richard

Most textbooks offer an 'Overview' (a 'Macro' or 'Survey') of History and its events. However, there are also many expanded sub-units which offer teachers a 'guide' to have their students explore events at a much greater depth - IF - the teacher and/or the student(s) have the time and desire to do so. Such historical thematic exploration is less common among the 'regular' History courses (often taught by coaches who are strapped for time and tend towards teaching the minimums to students with little interest in the topic) and more common with 'Honors', 'IB', or 'AP' courses who also supplement their texts with numerous outside readings and thematic units of exploration which offer a much greater understanding of the events.

'America In The Great War' is taught in-depth by some teachers, and studying the effects of 'Total War' (a common sub-topic for WW1 and WW2) does cover the issues mentioned in Pete's post.

For example, these are the Texas regular History course standards:



Here's an example of an AP 'thematic' unit syllabus for the same time period:



The IB (International Baccalaureate) program offered by a number of schools (either ICW or in lieu of the AP program) is explained here:

http://www.ibo.org/diploma/curriculum/core/



History has, historically speaking, always lent itself to revision; always will. SLA Marshall once spoke on the difficulty of recording the History of an event such as WW2, claiming that if a million men went to war and they all returned, there would be a million versions of the 'History' of that war.

As far as being 'taught' History - in my experiences, it all depends on where you are, who your teachers are, and what your personal interest levels in the subject and your personal educational goals happen to be at the time.

And so it goes...

Richard

That one word means- BS.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by alright4u

That one word means- BS.

Which word is that?

Richard

[alright4u]

Originally Posted by Richard

Which word is that?

Richard

Richard [/QUOTE]

Not a bit "confused." Teddy Roosevelt was a damn disgrace in my part of upstate NY. My grandfather who was mustard gassed in WWI thought him a clown. My uncle, his brother, who died in WWI as a pilot can be googled under Potter Society,NY.

I spent my first seven summers as a kid looking at Valcour Island from my grandfather's property on Lake Champlain. That was the damn naval battle of 1812.

What part of the history of that naval battle did you know about? I doubt you knew it happened -without a google.

History was all around me as a kid. In fact, the first SF man to receive the CMH from the war in RVN was from NY.

Now, back to progressives and their whining.

Land was the means to money in early America. If you owned the land-you paid the only taxes. Now, where were those progressives during the land rushes, or during any one of the hitch up your wagon and stake your claim? I say-BITCHING.

BTW. You ever earn a CIB?"

[Richard]

Originally Posted by alright4u

I spent my first seven summers as a kid looking at Valcour Island from my grandfather's property on Lake Champlain. That was the damn naval battle of 1812.

What part of the history of that naval battle did you know about? I doubt you knew it happened -without a google.

Sounds like an interesting place to grow up.

I grew up exploring the gold and silver regions of Northern California and Nevada, and the history associated with that region; it, too, was an interesting place to grow up.

I was aware of the Lake Champlain battle in 1814 in that it had an impact on the negotiations for the Treaty of Ghent, but was unaware of the
Valcour Island battle of the Revolutionary War and had to look it up.

Thanks for the hint. We all learn something new every day.

Richard

[Buffalobob]

Here is an interesting story of conservatives (red sticks) who believed that their land was important to their way of life and progressives who wanted something different. This story begins where I grew up in the Warrior River Valley and spread to other basins in Alabama.

From December 11, 1811, four major episodes of the New Madrid Earthquake, estimated at about 7 in intensity, shook the Creek lands and the Midwest. The shocks were felt over an area of 50,000 square miles. While the interpretation of this event varied from tribe to tribe, one consensus was universally accepted: the powerful earthquake had to have meant something. It came at a time when Southeast American Indians were under pressure from European-American encroachment and internal tribal divisions were becoming more important.

A faction of younger men from the Upper Creek Towns, known as "Red Sticks", sought aggressively to return their society to a traditional way of life in culture and religion. Red Stick leaders such as William Weatherford (Red Eagle), Peter McQueen, and Menawa, who were allies of the British, clashed violently with other chiefs within the Creek Nation over European-American encroachment on Creek lands. Before the Creek Civil War began, the Red Sticks, generally younger men, had attempted to keep their revival activities secret from the older traditional chiefs.[1]

Before the Creek Civil War, in February 1813, the Shawnee leader Tecumseh came to the Southeast to encourage the peoples to join his movement to throw the Americans out of Native American territories. He had united tribes in the Northwest (Ohio and related territories) to fight against US settlers after the American Revolutionary War. Many of the Upper Creek were influenced by his brother Tenskwatawa's prophecies, echoed by their own spiritual leaders, which foresaw extermination of the European Americans. Peter McQueen of Talisi (now Tallassee, Alabama); Josiah Francis (Hilis Hadjo) of Autaga, a Koasati town; and High-head Jim (Cusseta Tustunnuggee) and Paddy Walsh, both Alabamas, were among the spiritual leaders responding to Upper Creek concerns.[2]

The Red Sticks particularly resisted the civilization programs administered by the U.S. Indian Agent Benjamin Hawkins, who had stronger alliances among the towns of the Lower Creek. The latter had been under more pressure from European-American settlers in present-day Georgia. The Lower Creek had been convinced to make land cessions of hunting grounds in 1790, 1802 and 1805, because the settlers ruined the hunting. The Creek began to adopt American farming practices as their game disappeared.[3] Leaders of the Lower Creek towns in present-day Georgia included Bird Tail King (Fushatchie Mico) of Cussetta; Little Prince (Tustunnuggee Hopoi) of Broken Arrow, and William McIntosh (Tunstunuggee Hutkee, White Warrior) of Coweta.[3]

In February 1813, a small war party of Red Sticks, led by Little Warrior, were returning from Detroit when they killed two families of settlers along the Ohio River. Hawkins demanded that the Creek turn over Little Warrior and his six companions. The old chiefs, specifically Big Warrior, decided to execute the war party themselves. This decision was the spark which ignited the civil war among the Creeks.

The first clashes between the Red Sticks and United States forces occurred later that year on July 21, 1813. A group of American soldiers stopped a party of Red Sticks returning from Spanish Florida. The Red Sticks had received munitions from the Spanish governor at Pensacola. The Red Sticks fled the scene, and the soldiers looted what they found. Seeing the Americans looting, the Creek retaliated with a surprise attack. The Battle of Burnt Corn, as the exchange became known, broadened the Creek Civil War to include American forces.

The Upper Creek chiefs Peter McQueen and William Weatherford led an attack on Fort Mims, north of Mobile, Alabama, on August 30, 1813. The Red Sticks' goal was to strike at mixed-blood Creeks who had taken refuge at the fort. The warriors attacked the fort, and killed a total of 400 to 500 people, including women and children and numerous European-American settlers. The incident was known as the Fort Mims Massacre; as a prominent chief, Weatherford was held responsible by the US, although some reports suggest he tried to stop the massacre. The Red Sticks subsequently attacked other forts in the area, including Fort Sinquefield. Panic spread among settlers throughout the American Southeastern frontier, and they demanded US government intervention. Federal forces were busy fighting the British and the Northern Woodland tribes, led by the Shawnee chief Tecumseh in the Northwest, so Southeastern states called up their militias to deal with the threat.

End of the story is how white Europeans became so proud of their family farm that has now been in their family for generations and generations such as the one I grew up on.

The Battle of Horseshoe Bend was significant in several ways:

The power of the Upper Creek was broken and the brief Creek War came to a close. The tribe was forced to relinquish more than 23 million acres of their homeland and move farther west. Unfortunately for them, their suffering was not over; they would be pushed into the present western areas of Arkansas and Tennessee, and finally in the 1830s to Oklahoma, a land that held no appeal for their starkly diminished numbers.

Extremely rich lands taken from the tribes in Georgia and Alabama were quickly opened to white settlers.

Moral of the story is that having a CIB does not make me a expert on history as I had to cut and paste all of this.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by alright4u

That one word means- BS.

Which "one word" are you talking about?

Or were you trying to say that the idea of History being taught in many ways on many levels by many teachers is, in one word, BS?

I'm just trying to understand the context of the post.

Richard

[alright4u]

Yes or NO.

And I wrote progressive for the title.

I said- That one word means BS. Read it again.

[Richard]

Thanks for the clarification - no.

Richard