families. Gary Nash describes Iroquois culture:
No laws and ordinances, sheriffs and constables, judges and juries, or courts or jails—the apparatus of authority in European societies—were to be found in the northeast woodlands prior to European arrival. Yet boundaries of acceptable behavior were firmly set. Though priding themselves on the autonomous individual, the Iroquois maintained a strict sense of right and wrong.… He who stole another’s food or acted invalourously in war was “shamed” by his people and ostracized from their company until he had atoned for his actions and demonstrated to their satisfaction that he had morally purified himself.
Not only the Iroquois but other Indian tribes behaved the same way.
So, Columbus and his successors were not coming into an empty wilderness, but into a world which in some places was as densely populated as Europe itself, where the culture was complex, where human relations were more egalitarian than in Europe, and where the relations among men, women, children, and nature were more beautifully worked out than perhaps any place in the world.
They were people without a written language, but with their own laws, their poetry, their history kept in memory and passed on, in an oral vocabulary more complex than Europe’s, accompanied by song, dance, and ceremonial drama. They paid careful attention to the development of personality, intensity of will, independence and flexibility, passion and potency, to their partnership with one another and with nature.
John Collier, an American scholar who lived among Indians in the 1920s and 1930s in the American Southwest, said of their spirit: “Could we make it our own, there would be an eternally inexhaustible earth and a forever lasting peace.”
Perhaps there is some romantic mythology in that. But even allowing for the imperfection of myths, it is enough to make us question, for that time and ours, the excuse of progress in the annihilation of races, and the telling of history from the standpoint of the conquerors and leaders of Western civilization.
Exercises
1. Before reading the chapter: Write down all that you think you know about Columbus, including myth as well as reality. Examples: Columbus sailed in 1492; people believed the earth was round; Columbus sailed on three ships.
While or after reading the chapter: Write down passages in the text that either support or contradict each item generated by the assignment above, then identify those events and actions discussed in the text that had not been part of your thinking about Columbus originally.
2. After reading the first chapter, choose two adjectives that describe Columbus, two that describe the Spanish, two that describe the English, two for the Arawaks, and two for the Powhatans. You may use the same adjective for more than one group. Do not feel confined to using only the adjectives listed.
For each of the adjectives you choose:
a. Write down the definition that best describes the applicable group.
b. Write ten short sentences using the selected adjectives—one adjective for each sentence. For example:
c. Then look for details/facts in the text that you think illustrate the definitions of the selected adjectives.
Important: In defining a word, you cannot use any part of that word in the definition. Furthermore, useful definitions for this exercise will be ones that do not employ the opposite of the word. An example of a useless definition would be: primitive = not civilized. The problem here is what does “civilized” mean? Not primitive? If you have a dictionary that gives you such circular definitions, go find a more detailed dictionary or use a thesaurus.
3. Choose an infinitive to finish each of the sentences below.
a. Use a dictionary to define the infinitive.
b. Look for details/facts in the text that you think illustrate the definitions.
The purpose of Columbus’s voyage(s) was…
The result of Columbus’s voyage(s) was…
Some options: to civilize, to explore, to exploit, to conquer, to establish trade, to discover, to Christianize, to destroy, to convert, to destroy…
4. Write down the five most important things Zinn says about Columbus (include page numbers). Write down the two most important things he says about the writing of history.
Compare your list with a classmate(s). Why are your lists different? What are the criteria you each used in making your choices? [This is a real brainteaser.]
5. Was Columbus responsible for the behavior of his men?
a. Identify what the soldiers’ behaviors were.
b. For each act, identify what Columbus could or could not have done to alter that behavior.
6. Compare Columbus’s log entries with Las Casas’s journal entries.
a. Identify differences and similarities (e.g., how each describes the Arawaks).
b. Identify topics the other did not discuss.
c. What accounts for the differences? the similarities (their personalities, their goals, their job functions, their status in relation to the other Spaniards)?
7. Write a two-page story of Columbus that you would want read to a third-grade class at the point when the students are first being introduced to Columbus.
8. For each of the suggested phrases below that completes the sentence, identify the passage(s) in the book that either supports or challenges each assertion. Identify irrelevant phrases with NP (no passage applies). When choosing a relevant passage, note its page number and whether the passage supports, challenges, or doesn’t apply.
Zinn thinks that Morison.…
a. omits the truth.
b. believes that all readers share a common interest.
c. writes the kind of history that allows atrocities to continue to be committed.
d. is critical of Columbus.
e. idealizes Columbus.
f. is as accurate as a mapmaker.
g. allows his opinions of Columbus to select out only the positive.
h. buries the negative facts with positive facts.
i. omits the bloodshed.
9. If communities share common interests, did Columbus and Las Casas belong to the same community? If so, what are their common interests? (What was Columbus in the Caribbean for? Las Casas?) If not, what
