Analysis of A People´s History of the United States

1. Zinn's purpose for writing A People's History of the United States is to write about American history from the viewpoint of the people, and not from the rich or the men that made the decisions, but from the people who lived through those decisions and whose lives were affected. His purpose is not to make the people who were in charge look bad, but to see what they did from all perspectives.

2. Zinn's thesis for pages 1 to 11 is to tell the arrival of Columbus as it really happened from the point of view of the Indians. He doesn't try to hide the things that Columbus and other Europeans did to the Indians and talks about how the Indians were not inferior as the Europeans had thought they were.

3. In traditional history books Columbus is often portrayed as the hero who discovered new land. These books do not mention the massacres of the Indians that took place, and if they do, they only say so briefly, and focus on all the positive about Columbus.

4. Zinn disputes Kissinger's statement because in Kissinger's book, he discusses how from the viewpoint of the leaders of nineteenth century Europe that everything was peaceful but he ignores the working class and those who suffered from the decisions made by these leaders. Kissinger claims that "peace" had been restored in Europe, but for the lower classes, everything was far from peaceful.

5. Columbus oppressed the indigenous peoples initially because he was under the impression that they knew where the gold was and by capturing them they would eventually lead him to where it was. After discovering there was not as much gold as they assumed, Columbus began taking the Indians as slave workers by force back to Spain to make up for the lack of gold.

6. Powhatan said, "Why will you ...

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...rican revolution." He says this because the rich people that had been in charge of the revolt had only gotten richer after it and the poor class still stayed for the most part poor. Everyone stayed in their social classes and no new ones were created.

6. The Indians had been ignored in the Declaration of Independence, had not been considered equal, certainly not in choosing who would govern the American territories in which they lived, nor in being able to pursue happiness as they had before the Europeans arrived. But with the British no longer in charge, the Americans were free to push the Indians off their land and kill them if they resisted. Before the Revolution, the Indians had worked out co existence with the colonies but with the colonial population growing fast after the war, the pressure to move westward for new land was causing conflict with the Indians.