AMERICAN HISTORY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 24 December 1927, Page 2

AMERICAN HISTORY.

THE CHICAGO CAMPAIGN. RED INDIAN PROTEST. NEW YORK, Dec. 14. . “Big Bill’’ Thompson’s dissatisfaction with American history books as pro-British has given the American Indians an opportunity to protest against histories, for the entirely different reason that none gives the original owners of this continent a square deal. The Redskins held a grand council at Chicago, where representatives of a score of North-Western tribes demanded that school children be taught the heroic part played by their ancestors in the early history of the country. Most American histories to-day, it was complained, misrepresent the Indian as a bloodthirsty, scalp-hunting barbarian, -who remorsely tortured and slew the whites, whereas the facts are that they were the innocent victims of “Pale Face’’ gluttony for lands which were taken without payment. True history, they declared, would admit that the very site of Chicago was stolen from Pottawattomie, an Indian chief whose great-grandson was present at the council.

The Indians will tell Mayor Thompson that if he intends to place a “hundred per cent. American’’ history in the school it must give proper credit to many tribal heroes who are now ignored.

Mr Wickham Steed told a Chicago audience that no nation can preach hundred per cent, truth without offending other nations. Mr Thompson has, however, offered a prize of £2OOO to the person who will write a new allAmerican history text for the use of the Chicago schools which will “tell the truth “