The Bully Pulpit

Just finished a great book, by Charles C. Mann, called "1491." The book takes great pleasure in destroying all the comfortable stereotypes we've established about Native American cultures and how they existed prior to the landing of the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria.

Incidentally, as the link above will point out, the Niña replica ship will soon be visiting Humboldt County. It occurs to me with this ship's arrival, its crew members will see a relatively well-settled town in Northern California. But if these ships were preceded by the small pox virus and 95 percent of our population had died off prior to its arrival, they'd see a loose gathering of hunter-gatherer societies who they could feel comfortable calling savages.

History repeating itself?