In Zinn’s Chapter, “As Long as Grass Grows or Water Runs”, he talks about the Indian Removal Act as Andrew Jackson’s influence in it. Like the other chapters, a history that I thought I knew has a cruel twist to it. I was taught about the Indian Removal Act and how the US government wanted to grow which led to the forceful removal of the Indians. The US wanted to expand and be able to produce more agriculture and have bigger civilizations, which required the Indians to move westward.<\/p>\n
The really surprising part about this chapter is the description of Andrew Jackson. I was never really taught about Andrew Jackson in school and I always remember questioning why he is on the 20 dollar bill. The vague teachings of him led to me thinking that he did something worth getting recognized for and created this image of Jackson as a good person. Zinn does a great job in this chapter making Jackson look to be the opposite of this. Zinn goes on and mentions how he, Jackson, was one of the biggest enemies to the Indians while being a terrible leader with treating his soldiers terribly. Jackson, who has been vaguly remembered as the guy on the 20 dollar bill, is actually another hero that the history books made up. Zinn greatly emphasizes that Jackson persited on removing Indians westward even after most of them had already fled or been killed. Jackson used policies to take the blame of Indian displacement and death off his hands. In this chapter, Zinn gives another prime example of how the history that schooling systems teach its students, focuses on vague stories about “heroes”, like Andrew Jackson and Christopher Columbus, that do not grasp nearly the full history of what happened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In Zinn’s Chapter, “As Long as Grass Grows or Water Runs”, he talks about the Indian Removal Act as Andrew Jackson’s influence in it. Like…<\/p>\n