Not a Holocaust

Was the destruction of Native America a planned, Nazi-style extermination, or something more complicated and in some ways more troubling?

This evidence-driven look at Native American history tests 20 claims that people repeat as settled fact. They run from smallpox blankets and the Trail of Tears to Wounded Knee, the buffalo, and the boarding schools.

Each chapter shows why a myth took hold, then checks it against the letters, treaties, court rulings, census counts, and military reports. No one disputes the collapse itself. The argument is over what caused it, and whether “genocide” is the right word for it.

Some myths exaggerate the American role. Others play it down, or picture a peaceful continent before 1492. No camp gets a free pass.

Inside, you’ll discover:

Where the word genocide fits the record, as in California in the 1850s, and why ethnic cleansing, coerced assimilation, or dispossession by law better describe the Trail of Tears, the boarding schools, and the loss of land

How a 1763 British plot at Fort Pitt became an American “smallpox blankets” legend, built on a fabricated account

Why 374 Senate-ratified treaties make the loss of Native land a harder story to face than simple theft

How Washington’s broken promise on rations led, step by step, to Wounded Knee

Why the Comanche, the Haudenosaunee, and the Pueblos belong in history as powers in their own right, not as symbols

If you take the suffering seriously, getting the history right matters even more. Start reading today.