When discussing the history of Fredericksburg, Va you typically if not exclusively only hear the side of the people settling the land. We only learn of how the white man rowed up the Rappahannock River and explored “unclaimed land.” How the white man defended against brutal savages and fought against beast shooting arrows at them from the riverbanks. Why don’t we hear the stories from the Native Americans? The people who owned this land well before we did, the people who fought against intruders coming up their river. The people who lost everything to this new group with loud guns and heavy armor. We don’t hear the stories of these people because history is told by the winning side. Their story of the beginnings of Fredericksburg surely is different than ours. A story of being concurred and slaughtered, of being forced out of their homes and divided families. It is so important for scholars to read and understand both sides of history. Without that understanding you only have the winning side, no details of the effects of something just how it happened. This leaves an incomplete story, a lost history. To this day it also leaves out large groups of people whose history will never get taught. The Rappahannock Tribe that once covered Virginia just recently, finally got land back. A total of 460 acres after over 350 years of abuse and theft. Both sides of history must be told or else we live in a dangerous position of forgetting it.
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