Several weeks ago, after I finished speaking at a local high school, a student asked me this question: "Why are we taught about indigenous peoples from everywhere else in the Americas, but here?" I advised her that I would give the question some serious thought and in due course respond to it in my column. As promised, here is my answer.

To start off, as I stated in previous columns, the true histories of the relationships between First Nations and the European colonizing Nations is not being taught in our schools. What mostly is being taught is a product of biased and twisted imaginations.

For instance, the versions of history now used leaves children with a perception that the civilizations of the Americas were somehow inferior to those of European origin and thus their destruction was of no consequence.

The fact that one of the most, if not the most, massive human extermination campaign in the history of humanity was set underway by the landing of Christopher Columbus in the Americas, is studiously ignored in the texts used. Instead of acknowledging and detailing the rape of the Americas, these teaching aids mostly glorify the actions of the monsters who engineered it.

And, one of the most repulsive things that has occurred because of the dissemination of this false information is that otherwise civilized nations in the Americas and Europe have erected statues and designated monuments in honour of individuals who participated in some of the most barbaric, genocidal crimes ever recorded in the history of humanity.

Here are a few comments on the actions of some these so-called heros: *Christopher Columbus - a man who by this simple statement shows himself to be a monster driven by greed: "We can send from here, in the name of the Holy Trinity, all the slaves and Brazil wood which could be sold."

*Hernando Cortes - a man who as the written record attests, slaughtered so many Native Americans that a stream could be filled with their blood.

*Governor Edward Cornwallis -- the author of a 1749 proclamation which paid money to human butchers for the scalps of Micmac men, women and children.

*General Geffrey Amherst - a man who advocated and used, as well as conventional means, germ warfare to slaughter the people. A comprehensive list of the barbarians who participated in, or by their silence condoned, the slaughter of the original inhabitants of the Americas would include kings, queens, presidents, prime ministers, religious leaders and so on.

In the case of Nova Scotia, the true details of the early Micmac/British relationship have been kept firmly under wraps for centuries. Perhaps the reason for this can best be provided by a quote taken from a book review of "We Were Not the Savages" by E.E. Cran, Saint Journal Telegraph Journal: "his work is too well documented to discount.

“Those of us who are of British ancestry have to unlearn much that passed for history when we were in school and take a hard look at what some of our forefathers and mothers did."

This I believe to be the problem: self-examination and the disavowal of false heros is not an easy chore to undertake.

To begin to rectify the wrongs of the past, the descendants of the British must accept the fact that their ancestors were not involved in some kind of noble cause when they dispossessed the Micmac and other Nations of the Americas and appropriated their lands and other properties.

One does not need a crystal ball to ascertain that the motivation behind the invasion was primarily centered around an attempt to satisfy an insatiable quest for power and wealth.

To continue to view the destruction by a brutal white empire of productive and viable non-white Native American civilizations as being something positive for them, is the epitome of white-supremacist thinking.

And further, the fact that the forced imposition of the invader's alien values upon the survivors of these civilizations was for them a humiliating and degrading experience needs to be conceded.

In Nova Scotia today, society has not yet even acknowledged this simple fact: the Micmac, prior to European invasion, had a functioning and viable civilization which served them well. Their lives were not improved by European intrusion, but devastated.

Instead of teaching this and other truths, a mythical version is taught in our schools which is explicitly designed to depict the actions of the colonial authorities as being less barbaric than what the written record reveals.

For instance, the myth created by the descendants of the colonials which depicts the Micmac as wild-eyed and ravaging savages who, without provocation, barbarously slaughtered the innocent British is without foundation, but still promoted as truth.

Those who try to perpetuate the myth ignore this well established rule of law: when defending one's home and homeland from the designs of a ruthless invader, which the Micmac were doing, one can be forgiven for taking any measures available to them to stop the invader.

This statement is witnessed by the fact that Canada and all other civilized countries have enshrined in their criminal codes the principle of self-defense as a basic civil and human right for their citizens. Therefore, it signifies racism when the Micmac, being a people of colour, are still depicted as villains because of efforts they made to defend themselves.

In order to see justice done, the reality just mentioned is the one that someday has to be taught in our schools. But before this can occur, the appalling actions and conduct of many of this society's colonial heros must be honestly examined and then repudiated.

Daniel N. Paul