I just finished reading it. Not a bad book. I don't think there was anything new in there that I didn't already know but it was a decent read at least. Most books are written based on previously written books and I had read the books that were written previously that this book was based on. They did sort of imply that the natives were peaceful when this was far from the case. Especially with the Aztecs who sacrificed at least tens of thousands in a single day, but this book isn't on the subject of the crimes of the natives, it would be more fair to characterize the period as mixed instead of peaceful Indians falling to the Spanish. It repeats this bias later whenever Indians are mentioned, they are always innocent and their crimes are not mentioned, when in fact, they did have some crimes. This "nativewashing" of history is a pretty common bias in contemporary literature but understand that the actual situation was more complex than the idealized stories told here. Sometimes when two groups of people are in conflict instead of one being the hero and the other the villain, often they are both heroes and villains simultaneously. Other than this one bias, it was fairly accurate and unbiased.

I am of Quaker/Borderlander descent, my wife borderlander. They did have a bit about the borderlanders coming across the Oregon trail on wagons to fill in the countryside in the Pacific Northwest where the Yankees came by boat and filled the cities. This Yankee city Borderlander town/country rift is the same as the Democrat / Republican rift in this state. One nice line in there was about how the borderlanders have equal contempt for the Yankee teachers as they do for the Deep South aristocratic slave lords. Yup. I don't know why both the Yankees and Southern aristocrats are so controlling with other people's lives and don't believe in individual freedom like quakers and borderlanders do. There was another part of the book talking about the difference between the idea of liberty vs the idea of freedom. Where I very much have the Quaker/Borderlander conception of freedom as an individual’s ability to pursue their own interests and desires vs liberty as rights and responsibilities due to your place in the hierarchy.

One last tidbit was that in the midwest they use the term "Yankeed" to mean cheated or tricked. I'm going to start using that one. Next time they start their sanctimonious preaching about some social justice issue. I'll say, don't Yankee me bro.