I thought that the Zinn reading was really interesting. It brought across some interesting topics on historical events and how we should view them. In my history classes in high school, I was taught and had always known to some degree that Columbus was evil but I had never learned all of the specifics and the extent of the harm he did until now after reading this article. Reading the horrible history between the Europeans’ invasions of the native’s land and the malicious killings and burning of their crops and villages was very appalling.
It actually is crazy how we are not taught more about the evils that Columbus inflicted on the indigenous people. In one section of the reading it mentioned that by 1650 there were no more Arawaks or their descendants left on the islands because they had all been captured and killed. It is time for our educational systems to stop whitewashing the history and teach the truth about the colonization of the Americas and we should also eradicate Columbus Day.
I agree with you that all of these actions were horrible and tough to read about. I wonder if the reason we weren’t taught the extent of these atrocities was in order to continue to portray a good image of the country. It is all too common for acts like these in our history timeline to be under recognized.
I agree with you, I found it really eye opening to read these stories. I think it really reiterates the idea that winners write history. It seems crazy how this influence remains in elementary school classes. I wonder if there will be a shift in teaching in the future now that Columbus’ brutality is more well known.
It opens up the question of the way we treat other diverse groups of people. For example, the way we imprisoned the Japanese americans during WWII.
I was in the same boat as you. We were taught that for the most part, Columbus was a righteous man and that he had a somewhat evil past. We were shielded from the truth of what Columbus did in the Americas and it’s the same way with many other important American holidays as well as American historical figures.
Yeah it’s insane that Elementary schools still teach Columbus as a hero who discovered America, despite there being so much wrong with that. Not only was he genocidal maniac even by the standards of the time, but he also didn’t even discover mainland America, he only visited the Caribbean islands.