Faith Blogger Reconsiders Shawnee Indian Mission History

We like this write-up from a former newsman because it reminds us that the point of history is to remember the past accurately and in context rather than apply a political agenda to long-ago records.

Here's the main point . . .

The Shawnee Indian Mission site has a rather different history from some of the later boarding schools for Native Americans where mass graves of children now are being found. That doesn't mean that the slave-owning pastor who ran the place -- or others in his absence -- didn't do some things that would be completely unacceptable today. But it does mean that all Indigenous boarding school histories are not alike and cannot be judged as if they were.

Even a short visit to the site can leave a visitor with questions that the displays don't answer.

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . .

We can't understand the present if we don't get history

To have any hope of understanding almost any aspect of history, context is vital. That's what makes it so important for museums and other interpretive centers to make clear the context of the periods or events they're trying to explain...