When I started this project I was doing it primarily because I had gotten tired of seeing such biased accounts of the period both in print and portrayed on the screen and on television. I believe I first noticed such historical discrepancies in published textbooks when I was teaching history classes in both middle school and high school. My first inclination was to consider it just an aberration or lack of good editing. Then, after seeing the same pattern in other areas like the Cuban Missile Crisis and the causes of the Indochina wars, I determined it was not accidental but intentional to distort history for younger generations. That might sound a bit paranoid but I have not been able to pin down any other explanation. This story that I am writing is not in any sense a textbook with official citations to meet certain subjective standards but it is drawn from a combination of eye-witness accounts from both sides and diaries of participants with close-up views of the conflict. I have not tried to slant the facts with opinions formed first and then writing the story to fit the opinion. I have done just the opposite and am writing the story and allowing the reader to form the opinion from the facts.
I have been gratified by the volume of comments on the writing thus far and it bolstered my resolution to bring the entire project to a speedy close. It is not my intent to offend any reader with the content of this story but in a story of this nature that deals with a conflict that is in a sense still fresh in the minds of many descendants of the participants, it is only natural to find strongly held viewpoints on both sides. I have made a few charts on excel files to explain the influences that were most important during this period of time from 1492 - 1892 and will try to figure out how to incorporate them into the story for the SOL readers. Additionally, I have collected a number of interesting photos of the Indian Tribes and the other participants along with maps of the Tribal areas and routes of migration. If I am unable to include this content, I will collect them into a single attachment file and make them available to any SOL reader who wants the other content forwarded to them directly.