Summary Of A People's History Of The United States By Howard Zinn

In the second chapter of A People 's History of The United States: 1492-Present by Howard Zinn, he discusses the way white indentured servants and black slaves were treated and viewed. He expands on the dynamics and importance of their relationship in history. In society, the dominant group has always attempted to divide the minorities from one other for the sole purpose of being able to manipulate them to fit their needs and desires. This is to ensure that they will never come together and start a riot or attempt to change the social order that isn 't in their favor. The ruling class knows the minorities largely outnumber them and that if the minorities came together and knew about their true power, they would no longer be on the top of

The two whites were punished by having an extension of their service, whereas “the third being a negro named John Punch shall serve his master of his assigns for the time of his natural life.” There are more examples of this despicable unequal treatment. One of the most severe examples were in 1940, when a Negro woman had a child by Robert Sweat, a white man. The court had her “whipt at the whipping post and the said Sweat shall tomorrow in the fornoon do public penance of his offense at James citychurch....” Their punishments were very different, even though they both participated in coitus. The court was not fair in regards to this case or really any cases regarding people with colored skin. They dismissed the situation and were not able to look at the individuals objectively and beyond their skin color. Clearly, the treatment of whites and blacks vary, even in the same conditions and situations and there is a fine line between the treatment of black and white indentured

Regardless of skin color, and the subordination of blacks in the Americans during the seventeenth century, blacks and whites got along perfectly fine. They had a lot in common in regards to problems, work, enemy/master,and behavior. They actually viewed each other as equal human beings. Basically, as Kenneth Stampp would describe it, they were “remarkably unconcerned about the visible physical differences.” Eventually, laws were instituted to prevent relationships between blacks and whites. In 1661, a law was passed in Virginia in which any English servant that ran away with any Negroes would have to provide special service for additional years to the master of the runaway Negro. Also, in 1691 another law was implemented so that there would be banishment of any “white man or woman being free who shall intermarry with a negro, mulatoo, or Indian man or woman bond or free.” The laws instituted were meant to divide the minorities from each other, so that they couldn 't and wouldn 't be able to see how similar they were. The other difference between black slaves and white indentured servants were really their skin color, which divided them. Clearly, the system devised by the slaveowners was a way for them to maintain their labor supply as way as their life by manipulating the