The United States’ national myth assuages its conscience by pretending that it has always waged wars for “freedom,” not conquest. But another national myth, “manifest destiny,” held that the U.S. held a special right to spread over the whole of the North American continent. This process of the creation of the thirteen colonies, the formation of the U.S., and the spread of that nation across the entire continent, however, was no democratic or benevolent process. It involved the systematic physical and cultural genocide of the indigenous inhabitants of the continent. This talk will tell the true history of this conquest, as well as the heroic resistance of the Native Americans who fought back, and who continue to fight back to this day.