Reductionist Thinking is Winning

I really did not blame the student for this.  Even searching scholarly databases gets you an overload of racism reductionist history.  Her paper about how the Revolution affected the Indians used sources that failed to inform her that many tribes east of the Appalachians managed to hold their lands.  Not all were stolen from them.  The Mohawks and Catawbas held their lands.  The Mohawks benefitted from the 1795 Jay Treaty with Britain and the Catawbas fought on the Revolutionary side, earning themselves respect and gratitude when other tribes lost from backing the British.

A former co-worker was Cherokee.   I asked him why he joined the Air Force.  He explained that his tribe backed the British in the Revolution and War of 1812.  They allied with the Confederacy.   He wanted to be on the winning side this time.

Amusing tangent over.  Marxist historians used their reductionism about economics to imagine the Civil War was about economics in spite of direct statements by seceding states that it was about slavery.   Racism reductionism similarly insists that race is the only real factor in American History and with similarly nuanced results.