Clayton Haglund

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Dr. Josh Gold

Pols 1100-027
Apr. 15,2015
A First Peoples History of Christopher Columbus
Kathy Emery describes Howard Zinns book, A Peoples History of The United States, in
her introduction to the Teaching Edition, Zinn provides what no other textbook does: the human
impact, the human cost of decisions made by politicians and businessmen. (Emery p. xii). The
late Dr. Zinn was an intelligent child and a voracious reader and his parents encouraged him in
those areas (Carrigan p.59). As an adult he fought as a bombardier in WWII, and that experience,
at least in part, inspired him to become a pacifist. He later got a doctorate in history with a minor
in political science. After that he became a professor at Spellman College, a black womens
college in Atlanta, where he was involved in the early Civil Rights movement. He has taught at a
number of different colleges and university since then. He said of his own schooling experience
about the teaching of history, all the way up through getting his doctorate, What I was getting in
the textbooks, what I was getting in my classes did not seem to be aware of ordinary working
people. (C-SPAN2 99). A Peoples History was written for anyone high school age or older,
with a yearning to learn the history of the United States, and that is at least questioning the
validity of history taught in American schools. It was written from a skeptical mindset of the
United States history as it is usually taught, through a very narrow perspective. The first chapter
Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress is about Christopher Columbus and the early
settlers (a fallacy of a term, because the natives, or First Peoples had been living here for
thousands of years) of the North American continent, as written from the perspective of the First
Peoples (The Arawaks, League of the Iroquois, Pequots, and Powhatans). It is also an

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introduction to the rest of the book as a whole. It makes a great introduction for a book about
telling history, not from the view of governments, conquerors, diplomats, leaders. but of
ordinary people (Zinn p. 10). It should be a required read for any political science that focuses
attention on the American political system because it shows what was the set up, and early
beginnings of the America to come.
His first point focuses on two things: the darker side of Spanish exploring expeditions to
the Americas, and pointing to things that have been generally left out of history textbooks, or,
more importantly, just skimmed over and burying them under praise and admiration for those
explorers. It shows why Zinn has some different perspectives from the usual ones, that turn focus
towards the brighter sides of people like Christopher Columbus and Puritan settlers. Zinn sets up
the chapter and book by showing some of the dangers of skimming over and burying some of the
grittier, and as is the case with Columbus story, more gruesome parts of history.
He attributes this selective view of history to leading to atrocities like Vietnam and
Hiroshima still being carried out presently under the pretense these atrocities are necessary steps
for progress. Its a view that inherently assumes that what is good for the nation is good for the
individual. Skepticism of this view is summarized well in The Democratic Debate during a
chapter about the early debate over the constitution, Popular democrats, like Thomas Jefferson,
feared a strong federal government as too removed from the common man and likely to aid in the
accumulation of large fortunes that could corrupt democracy. (Miroff, Seidelman, Swanstrom,
De Luca p. 8). Columbus mission is summed up by the question: Where is the gold?, which
when looking at the destruction to First Peoples and horrible treatment to them (killing them for
sport, making them slaves with impossible tasks or cutting off their hands, and taking the women
and children to be used for sex), validates Jeffersons connection between large fortunes

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corrupting democratic rule, and Columbus own greed and the ravaging of Hispaniola and the
southern U.S. (Zinn p. 4)
Zinn makes some more subtle, however intriguing and valid connections between
Western societys annihilation time and time again of native societies through history and their
reverence for and insistence on private property based society. The search for wealth and
competition based societies has led to quiet acceptance of conquest and murder (Zinn p. 10).
Zinn plays devils advocate in a way during the later part of the first chapter asking the reader to
imagine that atrocities like killing of millions and millions of First Peoples is necessary in order
to build a civilization. He follows by showing his belief that the extremely vague notion of
human progress, is not worth the clear sacrifice of our own, or even other peoples, children.
He builds on the skeptical view of so-called progress by holding up incredible feats of the
First Peoples flourishing, and sometimes quite large (in the later parts of their existence),
communities in the Americas, whom were killed off to make way for what are now the
civilized nations of Mexico, The United States, and Canada. He makes a clear distinction
between communities and nations, and specifically points out that they are not, and never were
the same, and that the memory of a nation is not that of a community or of a family. But, he
shows, throughout the chapter, the pitfalls of presenting it as such as it is in the curriculum of the
education institutions of the U.S.
The final resignation of the English settlers, Not able to enslave the Indians, and not able
to live with them, the English decided to exterminate them., sums up the tragic beginnings of
the U.S. (Zinn p. 11). The costs were incredibly high, millions and millions of First Peoples were
wiped off the planet at the hands of the first Europeans to the North American continent. This
tragic part of this nations history is never highlighted in classrooms across The U.S. If these

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stories remain buried under mountains of praise and admiration, things will never get better. The
attitude that brought these atrocities will never be scrutinized by future generations, and therefore
will continue to exist. Selective looks at history arent helping progress the human race, but are
hindering it. Zinns more holistic look at history and his questioning of Western civilizations
view that people are disposable for progress is a valid one. Not only does he question these
views in this book, and in this chapter, but he presents the facts as seen from the view of the
conquered, ordinary people, workers, poor people, the stepped on, and native people. The telling
of Columbus story has started to be told in a different light in the past 2 decades, a positive step
and one that facilitates an active approach in creating new, better histories. But there still needs
to be more books like this one.