The conquistadores invaded Mayan country and after wantonly killing as many of the  natives, they deliberately handed out Smallpox laden blankets to finish off the south American population through disease.. The  dirty Europeans (Mayan were squeaky clean) were the obvious villains in this story. OF course they spread these germ laden blankets a few hundred years before the discovery of germ theory. In one text brought home by my daughter all the above info was presented as ‘education’ for the children. The fact that the sacrifice of thousands of innocents by having their heart, still beating. cut and torn from their breast, was not even hinted at in the text.   Bad, dirty, violent Europeans, nice clean peaceful Mayans, Is the lasting impression of the lesson. Even though  estimations of the Mayan body count ranged up to over 200 thousand human sacrifices a year.