Zinn journal 1

Howard Zinn’s thesis in chapter one of “A People’s History of the United States” is that even though he was made out to be such a great explorer, Christopher Columbus was a malicious butcher. As we all learned in elementary school, Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, it is not until later we learn that he is in fact one of the worlds first men to start genocide, later Hitler would be the more widely known genocidal maniac.

Through out the chapter Zinn talks about the history of the Arawak’s, the people Columbus killed. He teaches us all about them. Before Columbus discovered the Americas the Arawak people had gotten along just fine. They knew how to spin and weave and they had food, that was all they needed and if there was something they needed everyone shared their possessions. The whole thing that sparked Columbus to practically kill off the whole Arawak race or enslave them, small gold earrings that they wore. When Columbus didn’t like what he found he then forced anyone over the age of fourteen to hunt for gold, and if they didn’t find any their hands were cut off and then they bled to death. The Arawaks even started mass suicides to protect themselves from being killed for not finding any gold. All of this death occurred simply because Columbus wanted to please the King and Queen. Then only way to do this was by filling the ships with gold and since there was none; he opted for the next best thing, slaves that can be resold once back to Europe.
Continuing on, Zinn states that there is no way that we could ever punish Columbus for what he did and we shouldn’t try. Zinn just wants the acceptance for actions such as this not to be so easy, even if it is a necessary event for progress to occur. He also wants us to know that, the preceding views on such events are coming from the people that run our country. Zinn states that he, unlike the majority takes the side of the victim, in this case the Arawaks but does not grieve for them.

I feel that all of the author’s arguments are valid, and from what I have learned about Christopher Columbus everything Zinn has stated is true. With the given information, I don’t feel that any other conclusion can be made. Columbus was a malicious butcher; no matter what way you look at the information that stays true. I don’t think that Zinn’s position affected his argument; at least not to the point that he would lie to his readers. As stated earlier he tends to tell the story from the victims point of view, but he was still stating facts.

I really enjoyed this article, as weird as that may sound. I had known about the genocide that Columbus inflicted but have never had a chance to read it from the victims, Arawaks, point of view. Every story seems to justify what Columbus did and I liked the fact that Zinn, neither denounced or justified it. It was nice to see the story from the other side, not just what King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella wanted us to know.