‘A sanitized view of America’: inside Trump’s campaign to erase US history from national parks

Critics say the Trump administration is trying to rewrite and whitewash history by removing and altering scores of signs on public lands

Often heralded as “America’s best idea”, national parks are the closest thing the country has to sacred lands. What many may not realize, however, is that US history – not just nature – is at the heart of the visitor experience at most of the 433 parks, historic sites and monuments in the NPS system.

But over the past year-and-a-half, this history has been under attack, as the Trump administration has raced to reconstruct a version of US history they prefer – one in which the Bransfords didn’t exist, the genocide of Native Americans didn’t happen, George Washington didn’t own slaves and the glaciers aren’t melting because of the ongoing climate crisis.