Harvard Nieman Journalism Lab founder Josh Benton spotted these pages from one of the two eighth grade history textbooks approved for public school students in the state of Louisiana, highlighting this clip about a slave-owning woman “suffering” due to emancipation:

“In an attempt to limit her losses, Amanda Stone sent 120 of her slaves to Texas in 1863. She and Kate were forced to follow the slaves to Texas later that same year. In the family’s absence, the few remaining slaves took over the plantation and moved into the family’s home, dividing the rooms and the Stones’ remaining personal property among themselves. The Stone women would remain refugees (people who are forced to leave their home or country) until the end of the war in 1865. They were able to reclaim their plantation but, due to emancipation (the freeing of slaves), lost all their property in slaves. The family had to face the new reality of planting and harvesting their fields with freed people who, Kate regretted, now demanded ‘high wages.'”

So yeah, this is probably lost on most white Louisiana adolescents studying these pages for a quiz, but Amanda Stone’s experience is not the one the book should be highlighting. Not even close. I remember being about that age and noticing my history textbooks always devoted an obligatory tenth or so of every chapter to “women’s role in history”, so I guess that hasn’t changed, but it’s pretty fucking twisted to see that some MAGA bureaucrat in the state’s education bureaucracy picked Amanda Stone to check that box when compiling this book.