We, as a people, have been horrible toward every other people we have encountered. We learned this from what the Romans did to us! The legacy of Rome is to treat "others" as inferior and to mold them to be as much like Romans as they could. Yet still inferior, as they were not Roman.
It is that concept that the Europeans used when conquering the Americas.
Before anyone says anything, this was just one example of what mankind in every civilization has done to "other" cultures than their own.
We fear the "other," so we have to make them in our image or destroy them if they resist.
At any rate, we now have two chapters that end with the boys seeing something that they recognize... Curse you, Bill!