 U.S. history textbooks often present sanitized versions of slavery. Those versions treat slavery as a temporary blip in the American progression towards equality and democracy. Even worse, for African American students, imagine how depressing it is to have the first image of someone that looks like you in the textbook be that of a slave. African American in the textbook is synonymous with slavery. What are the consequences of this whitewashed version of slavery? Teachers and students may draw erroneous conclusions about the inevitability of African enslavement and the complacency and passivity of the Africans. The narrative of African Americans does not begin with slavery in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619, rather it begins long before that. Anthropologist Jared Diamond argues that it was not inevitable that Europeans conquered and enslaved Africans. Along with other factors, Diamond explores the idea that geography is destiny. He posits that the shape of the Eurasian continent from east to west along the same line of latitude created a large swath of land that enabled specific migratory patterns. These migratory patterns allowed for an ease of communication and travel that created a context for the technological advancements that enabled conquest. Geographically, Africa and South America were much more remote and did not benefit from the cross-pollination of ideas available to people in more centrally located northern climates. Furthermore, the milder climate of these northern latitudes encouraged the proliferation of agriculture and accumulation of material wealth. Diamond argues that this geographic centralization gave Europeans specific military advantages that allowed for the development of innovations that enabled conquest. Therefore, the Europeans were the beneficiaries of geographic advantages outside of their control and the Africans were never destined to be passive victims of European slavery.