An Unspoken History:

Why 87% of U.S. Schools Don't Teach This

The 87 Percent Problem

For most Americans, the history of Native peoples stops around 1900. If it's mentioned at all, it's often confined to a single, sanitized chapter about the "First Thanksgiving" or conflicts in the 1800s.

This is not an accident. It's an erasure.

A recent report from the National Congress of American Indians found that 87% of state curricula do not mention Native American history after the year 1900. Furthermore, 27 states do not require Native American history to be taught at all.

The result is what the report calls "the invisibility of Native peoples". We are taught a version of history with its most difficult chapters systematically torn out.

Title

The Chapters They Omitted

This missing 87% contains the most systematic and brutal truths of the nation's founding. When history is "cleaned up" for textbooks, these are the facts that are left behind:

25,000

cherokee souls

exterminated

300+

lakota massacred

at wounded knee

100,000

children stolen by

boarding schools

150,000

native californians genocided

As one educator noted, when non-Native students are finally taught this history, their reaction is often shock: "Why didn't we know this? How is it that I've reached the eighth grade and haven't heard any of this?".

Title

The Cost of Invisibility

This educational failure isn't just about the past; it has devastating consequences for the present.

For Native students, it creates a school environment where they are falsely portrayed or completely marginalized, contributing to the lowest educational attainment rates of any group in the U.S..

For non-Native Americans, it allows a harmful myth to persist—that the atrocities of the past are "over," when in fact the systems they created are still in place.

An Act of Remembrance

If the system will not teach this history, we must teach it ourselves. How do we choose to remember a legacy that has been intentionally erased?

To honor the voices that were silenced and the warriors who fell, we created the "Trail of Tears Commemorative Collection."

Each piece in this collection is not jewelry, but a story-bearer—a tangible tribute to the strength, resilience, and unyielding spirit of the Native Nations. They are designed with reverence, ensuring each detail carries meaning and respect.

This is not an effort to rewrite history, but to ensure it is finally, and fully, read.