Lincoln freed the slaves, Manifest Destiny was good, and America always does what is right. It's refreshing to enroll in college courses that teach the same information, while still managing to capture the whole picture of history, even if it's not the most flattering. May's book, Slavery, Race, and Conquest in the Tropics, has certainly complicated my knowledge of two subjects that I mistakenly thought I knew quite well, but it does so in a way that makes me grateful. I'm glad to have discovered the uglier side of Manifest Destiny and Abraham Lincoln, because I can now say that I have a healthier and more accurate representation of what that period was like.