Traditionally, historians of the United States hoping to have suc
cessful careers in academia and to author lucrative school textbooks
became protectors of this origin myth. With the cultural upheavals
in the academic world during the 1960s, engendered by the civil
rights movement and student activism, historians came to call for
objectivity and fairness in revising interpretations of US history.
They warned against moralizing, urging instead a dispassionate
and culturally relative approach. Historian Bernard Sheehan, in an
influential essay, called for a “cultural conflict” understanding of
Native—Euro-American relations in the early United States, writing

~ that this approach “diffuses the locus of guilt.”® In striving for “bal-
~ ance,” however, historians spouted platitudes: “There were good
\:@@MMEL@&” “American culture is an amalgama-
i)f all its ethnic groups.” “A frontier is a zone of interaction be-
@ig;ltures, not merely advancing European settlements.”