Wokeness, paired with unhinged hatred of President Donald Trump, can infect even a respected filmmaker’s work.
According to Jonathan Barth, associate professor of history at Arizona State University, filmmaker Ken Burns might have suffered that fate.
Barth on Thursday posted a lengthy thread on X that thoroughly debunked one of the more outrageous insinuations to appear in the opening scenes of Burns’ latest docuseries, “The American Revolution.”
Adam Johnston of The Federalist had previously posted a now-viral clip from Burns’ series . As of Friday afternoon, the clip had more than 6.3 million views.
In other words, Americans care deeply about the presentation of our history — as we should.
“Less than 3 minutes into the Ken Burns documentary on the American Revolution, and we get: 1. White people are bad. 2. Native Americans had a centuries-old democracy before British colonists arrived. 3. Benjamin Franklin copied the Native American blueprint,” Johnston wrote.
Indeed, the series did imply a connection between an alleged Iroquois “democracy” and Franklin’s 1754 Albany Plan of Union.
First, a voice actor read the words of the Onondaga (one of the Iroquois Six Nations) spokesman and diplomat Canassatego.
“We heartily recommend union,” Canassatego said. “We are a powerful confederacy. And by your observing the same methods our wise forefathers have taken, you will acquire fresh strength and power. Therefore, whatever befalls you, never fall out one with another.”
Have you watched any of Ken Burns’ Revolutionary War docuseries?
Then, the music changed, and the narrator’s voice returned.
“In the spring of 1754, the celebrated scientist and writer Benjamin Franklin proposed that the British colonies form a similar union,” the narrator said.
Less than 3 minutes into the Ken Burns documentary on the American Revolution, and we get:
1. White people are bad.
2. Native Americans had a centuries-old democracy before British colonists arrived.
3. Benjamin Franklin copied the Native American blueprint. pic.twitter.com/fyx0CHYyQy
— Adam Johnston (@adamkjohnston) November 19, 2025
Burns, of course, never explicitly claimed that Canassatego inspired Franklin. The implication was clear, however, even to a non-historian, let alone a professional one.
“The Iroquois influence thesis, suggested here by Ken Burns in his new documentary on the American Revolution, has been thoroughly debunked by academics and historians,” Barth wrote at the beginning of his thread.
The Iroquois influence thesis, suggested here by Ken Burns in his new documentary on the American Revolution, has been thoroughly debunked by academics and historians 🧵pic.twitter.com/sRSVP9mL7W
— Jonathan Barth (@Professor_Barth) November 20, 2025
Then, in subsequent posts, Barth chronicled both the source of that thesis and its debunking.
“All this is to say… take any sweeping historical claims that you hear with a grain of salt, particularly if it’s coming from a popular documentary. It might just be false, or at least vastly overstated,” Barth concluded.
All this is to say… take any sweeping historical claims that you hear with a grain of salt, particularly if it’s coming from a popular documentary. It might just be false, or at least vastly overstated.
— Jonathan Barth (@Professor_Barth) November 20, 2025
It bears noting that in a spring 2024 commencement address at Brandeis University, Burns revealed his Trump Derangement Syndrome.
“The presumptive Republican nominee is the opioid of all opioids, an easy cure for what some believe is the solution to our myriad pains and problems,” Burns told graduates, per the UK’s Independent. Electing Trump, the filmmaker added, would produce enough chaos to “engulf and destroy us.”
In other words, Burns harbors an anti-Trump bias, which leaves the filmmaker potentially susceptible to woke narratives.
Before examining woke aspects of the Iroquois influence thesis, I should add a few personal notes. First, Burns’ groundbreaking 1990 docuseries “The Civil War” intensified my youthful love of history. Second, Burns’ 1997 docuseries “Thomas Jefferson” played a role in my decision to attend graduate school.
Thus, as a former history professor, I owe it to Burns to acknowledge the brilliance of his life’s work and its influence on my younger mind.
Having said that, I would cheerfully echo Barth’s critique. In fact, I would go further and suggest that wokeness infects the minds of people like Burns without them even knowing it.
When it comes to the American Revolution and the Iroquois influence thesis, what might we broadly identify as woke elements and objectives? Three things leap to mind.
First, woke politics and the woke historical narrative seek to diminish the influence of the Founding Fathers.
Woke leftists have many reasons for attacking America’s 18th-century heroes. But the most important reason lies in the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence. There, Jefferson and his fellow rebels proclaimed four principles: equality, natural rights that come from God, government by consent of the governed, and the right of the people to alter or abolish an illegitimate government. Words cannot describe how revolutionary those principles were in 1776.
Nor can words describe the hatred that woke leftists feel for those principles. They have openly rejected them. So, by the way, did the slaveholders who destroyed the Union starting in 1860. All tyrants have. To the enemies of liberty worldwide, those opening lines of the Declaration constitute some of the most dangerous ever written.
Second, woke leftists seek to elevate Indians at the expense of all white colonists and early U.S. citizens. This serves the woke-Marxist oppressor-oppressed narrative that identifies villains and victims purely by skin color.
Ironically, the Iroquois influence thesis, if true, would actually undermine the woke narrative. After all, if Franklin borrowed a plan of union from the Iroquois, would that not show respect on his part? Moreover, might that lead us to examine areas of collaboration between whites and Indians?
Indeed, professional historians already know that the Iroquois allied with the English as early as the 17th century. (The Mohawks, one of the Six Nations, intervened on the side of the colonists during the catastrophic King Philip’s War of 1675-78.)
We also know that Franklin emphatically rejected the loathsome idea that all Indians were enemies (“I would only observe that the Six Nations, as a Body, have kept Faith with the English ever since we knew them, now near an Hundred Years; and that the governing Part of those People have had Notions of Honour,” Franklin wrote in 1764).
And we know that Jefferson, as president in 1803, hoped that Americans and Indians would “intermix” and move west together.
Alas, none of that serves woke race-baiting and grievance-mongering purposes.
Finally, the lack of evidence supporting the Iroquois influence thesis might constitute that thesis’ most woke element. After all, woke leftists openly deny the existence of truth itself: men are women, math is racist, and so forth.
Surely Burns himself is not guilty of knowingly pushing all three woke objectives. Surely he has not deliberately corrupted history. The woke infection, however, can spread in subtle ways, particularly in minds already afflicted by TDS.
In sum, kudos to Barth for exposing that long-debunked thesis. By now, we know woke history when we see and hear it.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
