The Loudon County Public Schools system in Virginia is reportedly teaching sixth-graders with a rap song that rants against Manifest Destiny, the U.S. government, and the “White Man’s rules” and includes the lyric “Blood on your hands today.” The song also devotes special scorn for legendary American president Andrew Jackson, including with the grammatically disastrous lyric “I see you Andrew Jackson, you Indian-killer, Probably think we all savages, if we ain’t vanilla.”
Here are the Flocabulary lyrics to the song “Indian Removal: The Trail of Tears and Manifest Destiny”:
“Last of the Mohicans, last of the Pequot,
Last of the Narragansett, all my people.
Where did we go? Did we choose to leave?
Nah, we got killed or we caught a disease.
Your government has unlimited greed,
Seems like you want us all deceased.
What you can’t trade for – it gets seized,
Enlisting us Cherokee to fight against the Creek.
And we’re the tribe that played by White Man’s rules,
We farmed and sent our kids to school.
Accepted Christ, even owned slaves too,
But your government gave us the boot.
Jackson’s government said we had to leave,
No more could we stay in the land of the East.
Called it Indian Removal, it’s a disgrace,
Your greed got us displaced.
You went tribe by tribe, trying to make us move west,
Some tribes agreed, but most protested.
Cherokee lawyers took the fight to the courts,
At the Supreme Court, we lost of course.
Made good on plans you made,
Blood on your hands today,
Will we still be here tomorrow?
Then you marched us West, that’s the Trail of Tears,
Away from where we dwelled for hundreds of years.
A quarter of our tribe died on that march,
Think about that, tell me what’s in your heart!
I see you Andrew Jackson, you Indian-killer,
Probably think we all savages, if we ain’t vanilla.
Listen, Old Hickory, I remember it vividly,
The way you beat your British and Indian enemies.
Sure, Jackson, you’re not lofty or elite,
Common folk loved Jacksonian Democracy.
So the land-grubbing, self-made young men
Can participate in the government, but then
They push West to the frontier, and it’s stressing me,
The way they talk about Manifest Destiny.
They claim they have a right to move to the seas,
And settle every little piece of land in between.
Blacks in chains, brown people evicted,
Women can’t vote, the system seems wicked.
Should every age be judged by the standards of the time?
‘Cause when I think back, I break down and cry.
Made good on plans you made,
Blood on your hands today,
Will we still be here tomorrow?”
