While the US government claimed they were "civilizing" the Natives, in reality, they were removing these children from their families and forcing them to practice the religion, culture, and language of their colonizers. They were also physically and emotionally punished for not adopting these foreign lessons, thus instilling generational fear and trauma. Either by force or self-censorship, Native peoples have slowly lost most of their history.

While the history of post-conquest Native Americans is full of tragedy, the attempt to use White or American guilt as a form of penance has done no one good. In both Canada and the US, laws have been written specifically for the economic benefit of Natives, but to no avail. Instead of making modern Americans apologize for the past, society should study and respect this complicated history.