As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, filmmaker Ken Burns has released his long-anticipated six-part PBS special, The American Revolution. Unfortunately, the docuseries is tainted by a healthy dose of ahistorical woke nonsense.
The project took nearly eight years to make, and is marketed as a sweeping, definitive retelling of the nation’s founding that shows how “America’s founding turned the world upside down.”
To its credit, the series is extensive. It highlights the Revolution’s complexity as a struggle against the British Crown, a civil war between patriots and loyalists, and, too often overlooked, part of a global conflict fought between Britain and France.
Yet from the opening minutes, it becomes clear that this series is not simply an attempt to present the Revolution as it occurred. Instead, it is in some ways an effort to reframe the conflict through a decidedly liberal lens.
Case in point, the documentary does not begin with George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, or even King George III. Instead, it opens with what amounts to a land-acknowledgment sequence, featuring the words of a spokesman for the “Six Nations” of the Iroquois Confederacy.
The viewer is told that the Iroquois understood the rising value of their lands after the arrival of European settlers, but that “white people” believed they did not. This quickly portrays the colonists in a negative light.
We are also informed that the Six Nations presided over a centuries-old democratic system that predated, and somehow inspired, the governing structure of the 13 colonies.
Finally, we are told that Benjamin Franklin admired the Iroquois system so profoundly that he borrowed its model when envisioning a union of American states. All of this appears in the first three minutes.
In short, the introduction is propaganda disguised as history.
While there is some truth to all these claims, it’s worth remembering that propaganda is not effective because it invents a narrative out of whole cloth. It works because it blends truths, half-truths, exaggerations, and omissions into a coherent (but false) narrative that then shapes the lens through which all subsequent information is interpreted.
By framing the American Revolution, and by extension the American founding, through an Iroquois-centered narrative right from the beginning, Burns sets the viewer’s interpretive framework before any actual Founding Father appears on screen.
A kernel of truth, such as “the Iroquois had a centuries-old thriving ‘democracy,’” morphs into “the Iroquois provided the governing model for the 13 colonies.”
In the same way, a historical observation, such as “Franklin referenced the Iroquois Confederacy,” is inflated into “Franklin was heavily influenced by the Iroquois.” This claim conveniently omits the far more consequential influences on the Founders, such as the functioning of Greek city-states and the Roman Republic, along with political thinkers such as John Locke, Montesquieu, David Hume, and William Blackstone, just to name a few.
Rather than being the ideological inheritor of Greece and Rome, the Burns docuseries reduces the genius of the Constitution and the wisdom of the Founders to a pale imitation of a loose alliance of Native American tribes. Also deliberately absent in the discussion is the British constitutional system itself, which is the very system the American one descends from.
Instead, the viewer is offered a simplified “progressive” narrative: Franklin borrowed from the Iroquois, and the Iroquois were early democratic geniuses. In other words, the Iroquois could be seen as the real Founding Fathers.
Yet, Franklin’s own words completely disprove this framing.
In a letter to James Parker, his New York printing partner, Franklin invoked the Iroquois not as a philosophical model but as a rhetorical prod to embarrass the colonies into unity:
“It would be a very strange thing, if six Nations of ignorant Savages should be capable of forming a Scheme for such an Union… and yet that a like Union should be impracticable for ten or a Dozen English Colonies…”
In short, Franklin’s point was: If six Indian nations commonly dismissed as “savages” can form a union, then surely we can manage it as well. Regardless of one’s feelings about that sentiment, it is not historically accurate in the least to suggest that the example of the Iroquois was a primary “inspiration” of Franklin’s vision for the United States.
Of course, that politically incorrect context is conveniently left out of the story.
But the narrative is already solidified, as the omission of Franklin’s words creates the desired effect in reframing the discussion.
Historical revisionists have long understood that once a narrative is established within the mainstream media and the education system, it becomes extraordinarily difficult to challenge. Counterarguments, however well-sourced, are framed as nitpicking, bad faith, or even propaganda in their own right.
And so, Burns’s initial framing becomes self-reinforcing, especially when modern events seem to support the narrative, such as the 1987 Senate Resolution stating that the United States owes a “historical debt to the Iroquois Confederacy and other Indian nations for their demonstration of democratic principles.”
However, this resolution was crafted by legislators, not historians, who were clearly engaging in political symbolism (i.e. virtue signaling) rather than true scholarship.
But when we turn to the historical record itself and examine the actual words and writings of the Founders, a very different picture emerges.
As Dan McLaughlin of National Review notes, few figures in world history left behind a more extensive or transparent record of their political thinking than the American founders.
And yet, within this vast historical library, the Founders made only the briefest, almost incidental references to Native American political structures. Even The Federalist Papers, written for a New York audience living amid the territory of the Six Nations, look elsewhere for their examples of model governance.
In fact, John Adams, who McLaughlin notes devoted the most attention of any contemporary American theorist of government to Native American governing structure, only mentions Native Americans six times in his sprawling three-volume work, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America in 1787–88.
And yet, the Iroquois founding myth remains because progressives do not see this over-emphasis as historical revisionism, but rather as historical self-correction.
The irony is that those who accuse the Trump administration of sanitizing American history are engaging in a sanitization of their own, discarding the Founders’ actual intellectual and cultural inheritance in favor of a myth that elevates historical footnotes, such as the influence of the Iroquois Confederacy, above that of the true inspirations for the American founders.
In its review of The American Revolution, NPR stated, “Ken Burns…will make you think differently about U.S. history.” The New York Times further elaborated on this point, explaining, “When you control how people discuss the past, you control how they see the present and imagine the future.”
The way Ken Burns chose to begin his new series is a clear demonstration of that principle in action.
Whether it’s the 1619 Project that attempts to reframe U.S. history by placing the consequences of slavery at the center of our national narrative, or Burns’s The American Revolution elevating the Iroquois to an outsized role in our founding, the progressive desire to deconstruct and distort the story of the birth of the United States is central to the left’s political project of controlling America’s future.
If we accept history as something that may be rearranged to suit contemporary narratives, we lose the ability to understand the past. But, for a political movement looking to “reimagine” what America means, that is the entire point.
Adam Johnston is a writer and Senior Contributor to The Federalist, whose work has also been featured in The Blaze, and the Daily Caller. He is also the creator of the Substack publication “Conquest Theory,” where he regularly writes about politics, history, philosophy, and technology. You can find him on X @ConquestTheory.
Of course PBS wants to revise history.
Is it any wonder why this administration wants to defund this sorry Leftist organization?
Just more nonsense from the Left to distort reality and mislead the people to accept this series as factual. Most of us older folks know better, but we also know that that this nation’s educational system is broken and continues to subdue the truth. Many books that contain the truth are pulled from the shelves, being replaced by false ones. Goes with Joseph Goebbel’s — tell a lie long enough and it will become the truth to the masses.
In order to reflect our nation as an unworthy and evil government, one must have an immense amount of disdain for our country. I pray that God would soften the hearts of those individuals and that they would seek and find God’s truth.
Slanting our history to infer or right out say the U.S. is “bad and and racist” seems to be the “raison d’etre” of the radical liberals. This is the why it is a good thing to defund them. Don’t look at the PBS kids shows. Once a great network to let your kids watch and learn is now nothing but a sesspool of “woke” brainwashing.
I won’t be watching that PBS special!!! I believe the words of our TRUE FOUNDING FATHERS!
Sadly, it sound like Ken Burns did what I expected him to do :(. I used to respect his work, even with it’s then subtle slant, but no longer.
One of the reasons for the “Schumer Shutdown” was to restore funding for PBS and NPR. Why? Because they are arms of the liberal establishment and produce liberal propaganda in almost every show–even children’s programming!
This nation was founded by people who read the Bible, quoted the Bible, and prayed to GOD to form the documents written to establish our United States. It was NOT promulgated by Indians living on the land we came to live on and survive. This is pure fiction written by a no-nothing writer.
If it’s Ken Burns on PBS, then it’s WOKE.
The progressives once again are rewriting history. They have been lying for so long they wouldn’t know the truth about America because it’s not their America. Their America is made up of illegal aliens, criminals let out of jail, trans and woke followers that can be sold this story hook line and sinker. The progressives throw themselves behind a minority to oppose the majority by calling them racists. They are destroying America from all sides and this documentary is just another piece of their plan to reach that goal. They are the dictators busy to destroy the white race. Because they want an obedient population not independent thinkers. We created this by not standing up more strongly. Judges are letting this happen by making excuses for the progressives liberalism and letting criminals run the cities. They are destroying our cultural, destroying Christian religion, and allowing lawlessness to thrive. A criminal who has been arrested 75 times is still walking around free to commit more crimes but ICE agents who are trying to deport these criminals back to their home country have a dashboard where people can call them out to oppose their work. Will we become a nation of laws or will it be a free for all where everything is okay? America is becoming a killing field. Especially when these progressive leaders scream I am dreaming about hearing Trump is dead. Really Hillary? Really Pelosi? Really, you democrats who called for the military to overthrow the government think they didn’t do anything wrong. You were calling for a coup. And not one person stood up to denounce this. They even objected that these 6 should be investigated. They should, follow the money. Please Americans stand up before it is too late and we live under a globalist communist regime.
The moment it said PBS I knew it would be slanted to the left and worthless to watch.
I say defund PBS, Isn’t it about time to stop their nonsense?
The only thing I ever watch on PBS is old episodes of Antiques Roadshow, which is now a channel on my Free Roku TV. I do PAY to watch Newsmax though!!
Definitely won’t be watching. Thanks for the heads up.
This is why I don’t want any of MY MONEY going to any leftist beggers like pbs.No more free rides for those accomplices trying to indoctrinate our children and if the schools won’t cooperate cut off their funds.
An excellent book to read on who the founding fathers were and what previous historical figures influenced their thinking is John Eidsmoe ‘s “Christianity and the Constitution” – for those of you who might want to read an fact based book instead of watching a TV series from PBS.
So glad I read this article. I won’t waste one second of my time watching a “WOKE” interpretation of the American Revolution.
PBS is a Marxist Democrat Organization,they put a”spin” on everything
See Kelsey Grammers American Rev serial on Fox Nation vs PBS
Just pay no attention to PBS & definitely don’t give them any attention or coverage.
Who can believe anything the MSM trys to sell us?
The objective, as always, is to maintain us, as David McCullough called a group of college students he had just finished addressing, as: “historical illiterates”.
I did not watch it because it was on PBS….knew it would be biased toward the left and not totally accurate.
As we all know Ken Burns burns history! Propaganda by any other name, including the misleading term “documentary”, is still propaganda. By the left’s definition even the Nazis and Soviets produced “documentaries”, only the “documents” they based them on were propaganda.
DO WE WONDER WHY WE TAXPAYERS, ARE NO LONGER FORCED TO SUPPORT THE SOCIALIST DEMOCRAT PROPAGANDA ON NPR?
Reminds me of Burns’s claim about Ho Chi Minh, that he was a great admirer of Thomas Jefferson
absolutely no TAXPAYER money for pbs.
let it sink or swim on PUBLIC, voluntary, funds!
Perhaps the “Six Nations” should now provide funding for PBS.
Why don’t they make some sort of announcement that the “FACTS” depicted in these fake DOCUMENTARIES are not real. Most of the people that might watch them won’t know the difference. And the true history is likely not taught in schools.
If it is it would be about how mean the American patriots were to the English.
No taxpayer wants to pay for the garbage PBS is now producing, time to approach a private donor, see how much are Clintons, Obama or Gates willing to part with in the name of the culture and education.
As an “over 50” reader, I understand this article to be propaganda. If one chooses to look into primary sources one is able to see the assertions in this article are simply wrong. There are great collections of primary sources out there. Read them.
Funny, I learned in junior high that several founding fathers looked to the Iroquois Nation for ideas on government. I’m 75. Maybe you should read history. Real history.
I HAVE LOST ALL RESPECT FOR KEN BURNS.
BUT THE INFORMATION IS OUT AND UNIFORMED PEOPLE WHO HAVE NOT BEEN TAUGHT OUR TRUE HISTORY WILL BELIEVE IT.
Expect nothing else but partial truths, distortion, spinning and twisting the facts, deception, omission of facts, and the basic rewriting of history from PBS. An anti-America, far left-wing, propaganda-spewing and despicable so-called ‘news’ organization.
I am watching Burn’s creation as this is written. In all my readings of the events in Philadelphia and the Federalist Papers, I do not remember any reference of substance to the indigenous people’s method of governance. Watching the Video, there are many references to the role of African descended and indigenous people which exaggerate the importance of what they contributed.
Having watched similar productions from Hollywood and other sources regarding historical events over 70 years, I expect a generous serving of fiction. Burn’s creation does a good job of recording the actual battles of the War, the behavior of the major leaders of the armies and the significance of each battle and the contributions of France and other countries to both our success and failures. I think he got those parts correct.
I won’t watch anything from that racist. His documentary on WWII was nothing but a diatribe on blacks in the war.
Yawn. Give it a rest. By the way, please note, and this is historically CORRECT for you yahoos, the founding fathers were not Christian, but deists. They believed in a supreme being, but not Christianity per se. So put that in your pipe and smoke it. And stop trashing native Americans, because they were here long before we landed our sorry asses on this continent. We all have feet of clay.
This is why I think AI is such a bad idea. Garbage in, garbage out. People are so lazy they would rather trust a computer as gospel rather that search out the original documents and form their own opinion.
And why would anyone expect PBS (and Burns) to honestly present the history of the revolution, warts and all? They have an agenda that is designed to overtake the Republic by the back door. If you want insight on the revolution, take a look at O’Reilly’s book “Killing England”…..you will find out much that never gets spoken of by those who have an axe to grind. Their are plenty of actual historical renderings out there and PBS won’t come close to the truth….that’s their job. Burns has offered some good stuff, but you have to read his work with a rather large salt load and check the facts. My perspective and opinion alone. History cannot be redacted or revised without twisting the facts…..even some of our school books are bent by legacy and legend, rather than truth and honest depiction. Tell it like it is, the chips falling where they may. Real history does not kiss rumps or paint things with phony colors.
I watched some, but not all of this. I missed the opening.
Something I learned that I had not before was about the Polish and German volunteers in our Revolutionary War and the difficulty in organizing and commanding them when most spoke no English.
I have mixed feelings about today’s PBS. If not for PBS, I would not have been able to enjoy Monty Python’s Flying Circus or Carl Sagan’s Cosmos series in the 70′ and 80’s. These days, PBS has gone too far left. A truly “Public” Broadcasting Service would strive to present ALL sides instead of pathetically leaning left all the time…
I saw ads for this series, but couldn’t escape the feeling that something was off about it, and so didn’t watch it. You a have confirmed to me that my feeling was right.
The article didn’t mention it, but typically, these “history” documenteries manage to include somewhere, somehow a “cut” against the Church. I’ve noticed that with the “progressive” channels. I would be amazed if they don’t talk about the “big, bad missionaries”.
Would that several strong, influential voices would get Adam Johnston’s factual information out there. As cathartic as AMAC members’ comments are, they don’t carry much weight where it counts, unfortunately.
wow. a stormfront meeting. bye!
Everyone comes away from watching the film with a different perspective. For me, Burns spent too much time perpetuating the myths surrounding Washington. While the film certainly did bring to light Washington’s attitudes toward slavery, little time was spent fully exploring his treatment of the indigenous peoples and his motives for that treatment. It is no secret that Washington was one of the wealthiest men in all of the colonies, that wealth generated principally by his acquisition of lands not only in Virginia but in the land between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi…lands that for centuries had been occupied by the peoples indigenous to the land, particularly what became known as the Six Nations. Washington notoriously chafed against the restrictions imposed by the British prior to the war which prohibited settlement of lands west of the Appalalchians, ignoring the restrictions and continuing to both employ land speculators and to survey the land himself. While Washington likely did not agree to assume command of the Continental Army (he was chosen because Adams and others believed a Southerner should be chosen to lead for political reasons), given his vast real estate holdings in the west (as a result his illegal land speculation in the region) and his plans for vastly expanding his holdings, he clearly stood to benefit greatly should the colonists independence be secured. Perhaps because Washington’s orders to Sullivan run contrary to the myth surrounding Washington that he cared nothing for personal wealth or the acquisition of land, little is made of the fact that Washington’s orders to Sullivan in 1779 were issued knowing and probably expecting that the implementation of those orders would result in the deaths of scores of natives (“lay waste all the settlements around…that the country may not be merely overrun but destroyed”). The result of all of this was the deaths of countless members of the Six Nations…men, women and children including infants and the elderly, through either wounds sustained or as a result of starvation and exposure on the march north out of the territory. Never in the war did Washington issue an order to his troops to “destroy” and “total[lying] ruin members of the enemy force (including loyalists) nor issue an order, as he did with respect to the indigenous peoples of the Six Nations, to reject any attempt by them to surrender. Instead, by his orders, the crops and structures built on the land were obliterated to ensure that the lesson was taught and understood. The Sullivan campaign was without doubt a military operation to remove the Six Nations as a fighting force given the willingness of the various tribes to side with the British in its war with the colonies but the byproduct of the Sullivan campaign was to render the land uninhabitable for the Six Nations and to pave the way for expansion to the west which Washington long sought in order to expand his personal wealth and power.
As for the question of slavery, the fight was as much about forcing the British off of the continent as it was about preserving a way of life that he and his fellow landowners throughout the southern colonies had enjoyed for many decades. Nothing underscores this point more than the fact that Washington (and others, including Jefferson) demanded that his slaves be returned to him lest the British be deemed to be in violation of the terms of the Treaty of Paris then being negotiated to once and for all bring the war to a close because the then British Commander-in-Chief, Guy Carleton refused to return those persons previously enslaved who had fled to British lines in response to the two Emancipation Proclamations issued by the British in 1775 and 1779. For Carleton, the position was a matter of honor; that the Crown had offered those persons freedom were they to flee their enslavers and either join the fight for the British or simply seek the protection of British forces. Carleton’s position did not sit well with Washington who had seen several of his slaves flee to the protection of the Crown and made clear to Carleton his contention that the British had violated the terms of the Treaty and that the matter would be referred to the American Congress to determine the next steps in seeking recovery of the escaped slaves. In the end, Congress intervened, refusing to deem the British position a violation and moved forward to approve the Treaty being negotiated by Franklin and others in Paris. But it is telling that Washington, among many others, placed his own interests to preserve a way of life that long predated the war above the interests of the new nation[
To my point, the Burns piece spent an inordinate amount of time over the course of the final two installments, in particular, focusing on Washington with little discussion of so many others who played a vital role in not simply prosecuting the war itself (Hamilton and Lafayette, for example) but, on the civil side, in keeping the disparate colonies together despite failings on the battlefield and ultimately in pursuit of a consensus about how to structure the government once victory and independence seemed likely.
As I said, everyone comes away with a different perspective. Those disagreements are healthy and discussion about those disagreements should be welcome.
I beg to question this article but I am confused about this interpretation. I spent a few summers during high school living with a Seneca Indian family on the Tonawanda Indian Reservation and formed a deep family connection. I had heard from the Aunt of Eli S. Parker, a well-respected and intelligent Seneca Indian who was the aide to U.S. Grant and the man who penned the Civil War contracts at Appomattox to end the war. They were not in my opinion savages as far as I’m concerned any anything but. I can attest that they were in love with tricking the White people so some of what I was told may have been hyperbolized but I am not sure this has not been to do exactly what we did to the Iroquois Nation.
*sigh*
I don’t disagree that the documentary is clearly Left leaning, but I am just so, SO completely exhausted by the nonstop hand-wringing and twitching every time something even remotely “liberal” happens that I really just do not care anymore.
It’s biased media… like literally everything else. The Left does it, the Right does it, and for the love of God, it’s not an existential crisis. Ken Burns isn’t hiding in your closet just waiting to jump out and fill your head with poorly-constructed, revisionist logic.
We used to just call this kind of thing “opinion”, or simply “ill-informed”, but that has somehow now exploded into this ever-present “Woke Bogeyman” that is hell-bent on nothing less than the very destruction of our great country.
The History Channel has put out FAR more problematic historical “facts” over the decades and somehow, none of those sent any political idealists into a frothy rage. I’m pretty sure if you went out and asked 10 teenagers whether the Iroquois or space aliens created the United States, they’d confidently say the latter, and they’d source “Ancient Aliens”.
We should deal with this one the same way we dealt with those… just make some memes and move on for crying out loud.
This is the main reason why PBS has lost their funding. More Liberal wokeness.
Maybe if our education system would teach the real History of the United States,
then this 6-part piece of trash documentary would never see the light of day.
I would never had known about Ken Burns destroying the United States’ history. What a SHAME!!!! I haven’t watched PBS in years nor will I ever watch it.