‘The Suppressed History of America’ (book review)

‘The Suppressed History of America: The Murder of Meriwether Lewis and the Mysterious Discoveries of the Lewis and Clark Expedition’ [Paul Schrag & Xaviant Haze; 2011; Foreword by Michael Tsarion]

 
From the Back Cover:

“Authors Schrag and Haze teach a fascinating lesson in what we will never be taught but what every American should know.”
--Edward F. Malkowski, author of Sons of God--Daughters of Men, Before the Pharaohs, The Spiritual Technology of Ancient Egypt, and Ancient Egypt 39,000 BCE

Meriwether Lewis discovered far more than the history books tell--ancient civilizations, strange monuments, “nearly white, blue-eyed” Indians, and evidence that the American continent was visited long before the first European settlers arrived. And he may have been murdered to keep it all secret.

Examining the shadows and cracks between America’s official version of history, Paul Schrag and Xaviant Haze propose that the America of old taught in schools is not the America that was discovered by Lewis and Clark and other early explorers. Investigating the discoveries of Spanish conquistadors and Olmec stories of contact with European-like natives, the authors uncover evidence of explorers from Europe and Asia prior to Columbus, sophisticated ancient civilizations in North America and the Caribbean, the fountain of youth, and a long-extinct race of giants. Verifying stories from Lewis’s journals with modern archaeological finds, geological studies, 18th- and 19th-century newspaper articles, and accounts of the world in the days of Columbus, the authors reveal how Lewis and Clark’s finds infuriated powerful interests in Washington--including the Smithsonian Institute--culminating in the murder of Meriwether Lewis.


PAUL SCHRAG is an award-winning journalist, novelist, marketing and business consultant, photographer, and musician. XAVIANT HAZE is a freelance researcher of ancient manuscripts and alternative history. His career as a music producer and DJ allows him to travel the world, exploring and documenting his findings on lost cities and the myths of the pre-diluvian world. Both authors live in Tacoma, Washington.

I read this book earlier this year, and I wanted to review it since it covers some of the subjects covered on this blog. I purchased it because it promised to uncover numerous mysteries, but the step-by-step adventure of an untamed America was what I remember most about the book. Most Americans, myself included, have a hard time wrapping their minds around the fact that the world west of the Mississippi River was a great unknown at the start of the nineteenth century. Even ninety years after the Lewis and Clark Expedition ended, certain areas of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan were still “frontier” areas.

The book also covers other mysteries of the Americas. The Lewis and Clark story doesn’t even begin until chapter four. I found the foreword by Michael Tsarion memorable. Particularly formidable are the revelations concerning the vaunted Smithsonian Institution that was legally established in 1846. Curiously, its founder, James Smithson (1765-1829), never visited the United States. It is not even clear what motivated him to found the institution. Its facade gives an impression of nobility and academic prowess, and its cathedral-like architecture exudes an aura of established credibility. The average visitor is not inclined to guess that the carefully arranged displays and tour-guide rhetoric and contrived to give them a false impression of America’s past. No, they walk away feeling intrigued, informed, and certain. Little do they suspect that they’ve been royally deceived.

Any intelligent person, even privately, can see that when you look into any area of history or human endeavor, the “official story” appears more and more flimsy… and it's clear that it could have been presented in a completely different way. When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers thoroughly destroyed the site of Kennewick man so no further archeology could be done there, there’s a strong tendency for most people to not want to question the integrity of the “U.S. Army Corps of Engineers”…. or the “Smithsonian Institution.” That would make you a bad person. Part of the human condition, over thousands of years, is the apparent necessity for powerful forces to rush in as soon as possible and write your history for you. Control the narrative. “History is a set of lies agreed upon” –Napoleon. The winners of wars write the history.

To be honest, I wasn’t very impressed with chapter one. To me, the giant Olmec head carvings don’t even look like Black Africans at all. Many Mayan types have heavy features like that, including a flat nose and full lips. Who’s to say that they weren’t Polynesian? They carved giant heads on Easter Island off the coast of South America, and were a sea faring people. I also was not taken by the supposed fourteen-foot tall “stele” carving of two Northern European men. I saw the carving, and I didn’t see the supposed “obvious” Caucasian features. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t great mysteries in Central America.


I found the book to be a good read. Without giving away too much, it looks at mysteries like the “Fountain of Youth” in Florida, which hints at water with properties that may reverse the aging process; of giants which were spotted by famous explorers, and I know there is strong evidence of at least populations of people who were eight to nine feet tall in certain places in the world; and the Mississippi Mounds. These man-made mounds were made with massive amounts of soil, and are very intriguing. They may have been outposts for long-range communication, although they weren't in use when discovered by Lewis and Clark.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition came upon many strange things. Perhaps the oddest was the Mandan tribe of North Dakota. These people appeared to have been of European origin, with light hair and eyes; with perhaps some Amerindian admixture. They had a highly advanced agricultural culture, and were very different than the surrounding tribes. They received the expedition with great hospitality.

Perhaps the greatest mystery of the book, as far as American history is concerned, is the possibility that Meriwether Lewis was murdered… maybe to bury some of what he had discovered. I believe that he was probably murdered, and if he was, and with his close friend and organizer of the expedition Thomas Jefferson as the sitting president… well, it’s not surprising that the case has not been reopened as many of Lewis’ descendants wish.

There was one account in the book of sacks of Roman coins uncovered in Kentucky. What is interesting is that even though this has been confirmed, it’s a taboo subject among the academic community. There is clear evidence of Romans, Hebrews, Vikings, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Welsh, Chinese, and Polynesians having visited North America; not to mention the Solutrean question.

For some unknown reason, the academic establishment has decided that the Amerindians are the only people in the history of the world who are not to be allowed to "officially" have had any contact with any other people in their pre-Columbian history.. except Leif Erikson. I found the book to be very interesting, thought provoking, and easy for the mind to imagine.


Interview with Xaviant Haze on The Stench of Truth on BlogTalkRadio

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