On Rivers of Blood, Rivers of Gold

Interesting introduction to the history of Europe’s relationship with “indigenous peoples” (in this case, the Mexica, aboriginal Tasmanians, Apache, Herero, and Nama). The author does take a bit too much at face value. For example, the myth that Pope Alexander VI slept with his daughter, Lucretia Borgia, which is mentioned at the beginning of the book as though it is a historical fact. Some of his comments are also anachronistic, like the idea that indigenous people in Spanish America had to pick between their own society and the double-headed hydra of Christianity and European “science” (which Europeans would not have recognized as emerging until the eighteenth century). In spite of its sloppiness, this text is worth taking a look at if you aren’t already familiar with the formation of European empires and their relationship with indigenous people who inhabited lands that Europeans claimed.