Alana Walker
August 15, 2011
Mrs. Booth
ZINN CHAPTER 1
1. According to Zinn, what is his main purpose for writing A People’s History of the United States?
A: to tell vivid descriptions in history that usually gets ignored. Zinn tries to bring out the positive part in the truth.
2. What is Zinn’s thesis for pages 1-11?
A: Zinn’s thesis is to not grieve for the victims and denounce the executioners.
3. According to Zinn, how is Columbus portrayed in traditional history books?
A: As a great hero that discovered the Americas but was willing to do anything to get what he wanted.
4. Why does Zinn dispute Henry Kissinger’s statement: “History is the memory of states?”
A: because Zinn thinks that we must not accept the memory of states as our own. Zinn’s argument was not against selection, simplification, and emphasis, but his argument was against the mapmakers distortion. Zinn says that it is a technical necessity for a common purpose shared by all who need maps.
5. What is Zinn’s basic criticism of historian Samuel Eliot Morison’s book, Christopher Columbus, Mariner?
A: Zinn feels that Morrison mentions the truth quickly and goes on to things more important to him. He feels that Morrison tries to cover the bad things in history up with good things that have happened.
6. What major issues does Bartolome de las Casas bring up regarding Spanish expeditions in the Caribbean?
A: The major issues Batolome de las Casas bring up is Spanish cruelty towards the Indian people.
7. Identify one early and one subsequent motive that drove Columbus to oppress indigenous peoples.
A: one early and subsequent motive that drove Columbus to oppress indigenous peoples was that in return for bringing back gold and spices Columbus was promised 10 percent of the profits, governorship over new-found lands, and the fame that would go with the title: Admiral of the Ocean Sea. So he oppressed the Indian people thinking they knew where the gold was, because gold was a sign of wealth.
8. What was the ultimate fate of the Arawak Indians?
A: Columbus found the Arawak Indians and kept them as prisoners in the ship because he insisted they would lead him to a source of gold. Most of the Arawak Indians died on the ship because of the cold. Many more were killed after Columbus promised the king gold and slaves. The Arawak Indians were given impossible tasks and as punishment for not completing them, they were killed until eventually none were left
9. What was the significance of Quetzalcoatl?
A: The significance of the Quetzalcoatl was that the Aztecs thought that Hernando Cortes was a legendary Aztec man-god that had died three hundred years before promising to return the Quetzalcoatl so they trusted him and welcomed him into their Aztec society by showering him with gold and silver. The Aztecs did not think the Spanish were there to hurt them at all.
10. Compare the strategies and motives underlying the conquest of the Aztecs by Cortez and the conquest of the Incas by Pizzaro.
A: Pizarro killed mass numbers of people in Peru using the same tactics Cortez did, and he did for the same reasons. Pizarro and Cortez destroyed nations for gold, slaves, products of the soil, to pay bond and stock holders of the expeditions, to finance the monarchial bureaucracies rising in Western Europe, to spur the growth of the new money economy rising out of feudalism, and to participate in “the primitive accumulation of capital.”
11. What were the major causes of war between the Powhatans and the English settlers?
A: (1) When English settlers first arrived in Virginia one of the Indians stole a small silver cup and Richard Greenville sacked and burned a whole Indian village over it. (2) Jamestown (an English colony) was set up inside Indian confederacy led by Indian chief Powhatan. (3) When Powhatan refused to return the runaway English men that went to the Indians to seek refuge during the starving period, the English killed some Indians, cut down corn, burned houses, and took the queen of the tribe and killed her and her children. (4) The Indians went on a rampage killing 347 English men, women, and children.
12. Discuss the significance of Powhatan’s statement, “Why will you take by force what you may have quietly by love?”
A: He means that he and his people will willingly give the English whatever they wanted with love and care as long as they came in friendly manner, so why fight for things that you can have by starting war and destroying people and possessions.
13. Explain Governor John Winthrop’s legal and biblical justification for seizing Indian land.
A: The simplistic answer is the fact that the Pequot's and Narragansett tribes failed to "subdue" their land. By subdue they mean fence in their land for agricultural and ranching purposes. Then he said that a “natural right” did not have legal standing, meaning that their rights did not matter because to them they were not people.
14. Explain the main tactic of warfare used by the English against the Indians.
A: They used a tactic used by Cortes and later, in the twentieth century, even more systematically: deliberate attacks on noncombatants for the purpose of terrorizing the enemy.
15. According to Roger Williams, how did the English usually justify their attacks on the Indians?
A: All men of conscience or prudence ply to windward, to maintain their wars be defensive.
16. What ultimately happened to the estimated 10 million Indians living in North America at the time of Columbus’ arrival?
A: The 10 million Indians living in North America at the time of Columbus’ arrival was reduced to less than a million. Huge numbers of Indians would die from diseases introduced by the whites.
17. Evaluate the statement: “If there are sacrifices to be made for human progress, is it not essential to hold to the principle that those to be sacrificed must make the decision themselves?”
A: This statement means that in order for things to progress in move forward sometimes certain sacrifices have to be made in order to keep pushing forward, but in order for certain sacrifices to be made you have to think on it to make better decisions.
18. How does Zinn attempt to prove that the Indians were not inferior? Provide examples.
A: Zinn attempts to prove that the Indians were not inferior by stating all of their accomplishments that were made without the help of the English such as building large terraced buildings, nestled in among cliffs and mountains to protect them from enemies, before European explorers Indians were already using irrigation canals, dams, were doing ceramics, weaving baskets, and making cloth out of cotton.
ZINN CHAPTER 2
- According to Zinn, what is the root of racism in America?
A: The color of skin. The problem of “the color line.”
- Why were Africans considered “better” slaves than Indians in Virginia?
A: Africans were considered “better” slaves than Indians because they were stronger, could tolerate disease, knew how to farm and grow crops, and they were more obedient than the Indians were. Whites were outnumbered by Indians and faced retaliation if they attempted to enslave them and slaves were resourceful in their home land while whites were at a disadvantage.
3. How did 16th century Africa compare to 16th century Europe politically, economically, and militarily?
A: 16th century Africa’s political system was the same as 16th century Europe’s. They both practiced Feudalism and it was based on agriculture, and hierarchies of lords and vassals.
Economically: 16th century Africa (like 16th century Europe) was big on farming.
Militarily: Militarily, Europeans had superior firearms but were unable to subdue Africans in the interior.
- How did slavery in Africa differ from slavery in Europe and the Americas?
A: Slavery in Africa differed from slavery in the Americas because in Europe and Americas they had indentured servants that could eventually work off their freedom, but they were treated. Slavery in Africa was different, because slaves in Africa were more like the serfs in Europe. They made up most of the population and they had harsh servitude, but they also had rights.
- Describe the conditions that slaves on ships coming to America (“Middle Passage”).
A: They were packed in spaces not much bigger than coffins, chained together in the dark, wet slime of the ship’s bottom, and they choked in the stench of their own feces. They could not turn around or even on their sides due to the chains and cramped spacing. They were chained to the decks by their necks or legs. They often died of suffocation or killed each other just to breathe.
6. What was the position of the Catholic church in Portugal vis-à-vis slavery?
A: The Catholic church did not know if the capture, transport, and enslavement of African blacks was legal by church doctrine. Therefore, they did not believe slave trading was morally correct.
- In terms of mortality, what was the cost of slavery?
A: Africa lost about 50 million human beings to death and slavery.
- What was the relationship between slavery and the plantation system.
A: The relationship between slavery and the plantation system was that the plantation system was steadily growing so the need for slaves grew as well.
- What evidence exists that America’s slaves did not accept their fate easily?
A: There were numerous slave revolts. Many slaves tried running away. They revolted against their owners and tried best to hold on to what little of their culture they had left including their families.
- Why did slave owners fear poor whites?
A: Because poor white’s just like blacks could rebel against rich white plantation owners. The rich feared that the poor whites and blacks would join forces and rebel together.
ZINN CHAPTER 3
1. What is Zinn’s thesis in this chapter?
A: As the colonial period progressed, a distinct class structure developed, creating tension between poor and rich whites. Rich and powerful whites eventually discovered useful means of manipulating the classes beneath them to suit their own needs by deflecting underclass frustration on to British loyalists, keeping Indians at bay by creating a buffer of poor whites in frontier regions, using racism as a means to promote white unity, and providing gains to the middle class in return for support of upper-class ideals.
2. What was the underlying cause of Bacon’s Rebellion?
A: The underlying cause of Bacon’s Rebellion was the conflict over how to deal with the Indians, who were close by, on the western frontier, constantly threatening whites. Therefore, the Virginians were angry that Governor Berkeley did little to protect the western frontier from Indian attacks.
3. What was the “double motive” of the Virginia government vis-à-vis Bacon’s Rebellion?
A: The Government of this time (The House of Burgesses) developed an Indian policy that would divide the Indians in order to control them and punish the rebellious whites to show them that rebellion did not pay.
4. What groups of people took part in Bacon’s Rebellion?
A: White frontiersmen, slaves, and servants
5. Explain indentured servitude (also known as the “headright system”).
A: Indentured servitude was when poor immigrants agreed to pay their cost of passage to the Americas by working for a master for five or seven years.
6. How did the voyage of indentured servants to America compare with the “Middle Passage.”
A: The immigrants were often imprisoned until the ships sailed to keep them from running away. The voyages normally lasted weeks. They were packed into ships and died of suffocation, hunger, or disease just as the slaves did on the “Middle Passage.”
7. What generally happened to indentured servants after they became free?
A: After indentured servants became free they either went back to England, became poor whites, died during servitude, or became tenant farmers.
8. To what extent did a class structure emerge in America by 1700?
A: The wealthy controlled almost everything they owned most of the land, sat on the governor’s council, and served as local magistrates. They had a monopoly over all poorer individuals. The poor began to increase in number and the middle class began to increase consisting of artisans and merchants.
9. What evidence does Zinn provide regarding the monopoly of power by the rich in Boston?
A: A historian who studied Boston tax lists in 1687 and 1771 found that in 1687 there were, out of a population of six thousand, about one thousand property owners, and that one percent of the population owned 25 percent of the wealth and in 1771 1 percent of the property owners owned 44 percent of the wealth.
10. Explain the statement: “The country therefore was not “born free” but born slave and free, servant and master, tenant and landlord, poor and rich.”
A: This statement means that the country was not a free country because people were put under more hardships than before. Indentured servants and slaves made up most of the population, some people like women had no rights, and most of the power lay in the hands of the wealthy.
11. How did the rich manage to keep Indians “at a distance?”
A: They monopolized the good land on the eastern seaboard, they forced landless whites to move westward to the frontier, there to encounter Indians and to be a buffer for the seaboard rich against Indian troubles.
12. What was the probable reason why Parliament made transportation to the New World a legal punishment for crime?
A: Certain colonies grew concerned that their population was too black creating the possibility for revolt so white criminals sent to America would help equalize the population.
13. Explain the statement: “race was becoming more and more practical.”
A: As a means of controlling poor whites, rich whites began playing the race card to create an alliance among all whites including the poorest whites. This way even the poorest of them could see that they were better than the blacks.
ZINN CHAPTER 4: “Tyranny Is Tyranny”
- What is the thesis of this chapter?
A: Issues with social and economic inequality and lack of representation in government plagued the colonies prior to the American Revolution, creating widespread unrest. Revolutionary leaders, especially the elite, deflected anger stemming from internal conflicts onto the Crown’s tyranny to rally colonial rebellion. In doing so, they transferred power from Britain to themselves, but also oppressed the lower classes to prevent internal rebellion.
2. According to Zinn, how did the creation of the United States benefit the upper class?
A: The creation of the United States benefited the upper class because there they could take over the land, profits, and political power from favorites of the British Empire.
3. Describe the disproportionate distribution of wealth in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York.
A: 5% of Boston’s tax payers controlled 49% of the city’s taxable assets. In Philadelphia and New York too, wealth was more and more concentrated. By 1750 court records of the cities showed that wealthiest people in the cities were leaving 20 pounds equal to 5 million dollars today.
4. Why were both Loyalists and leaders of the Revolution concerned about the lower classes in Philadelphia?
A: By mid 1776, laborers, artisans, and small tradesmen, employing extralegal measures when electoral politics failed were in clear command in Philadelphia they launched a full scale attack on wealth and even the right to acquire unlimited private property.
5. What major issues fueled the “Regulator movement”?
A: Taxes on the poor and the farmers. Farmers were harassed to pay taxes. The Regulators also saw that wealth and political power ruled North Carolina.
6. What was General Gage’s observation vis-à-vis the leaders of the movement against the Stamp Act?
A: General Gage’s observation was that leaders of the movement against the Stamp Act had instigated crowd action, but then became frightened by the thought that it might be directed against their wealth too.
7. What advice did colonial leaders—including Samuel Adams and James Otis—give to the people concerning the Townshend Acts?
A: They gave the advice no mobs or Tumults, let the Persons and Properties of your most inveterate Enemies be safe.
8. What class did the leaders of the Sons of Liberty come from? What was their goal(s)?
A: Leaders of the Sons of Liberty mostly came from the middle and upper classes. Their goals were to broaden their organization to develop a mass base of wage earners.
9. What was the significance of Patrick Henry’s oratory?