Berkowitz
American History
Questions for Unit 2 Reading/Assignment 3––Howard Zinn, “Columbus”
1.
Early in his essay, what distinction does Zinn make between the “civilization” of the Indians and that of the Europeans of
the Renaissance?
2.
What was Columbus’s motivation for his expedition?
3.
What was the European context generally, and the Spanish context particularly, that led to the expedition?
4.
How did the Arawaks live? What was their society like?
5.
What did Columbus do after he encountered the Arawaks?
6.
What did Columbus report back to Ferdinand and Isabella?
7.
What happened on Columbus’s second expedition—and after?
8.
Who is the chief source of information about what happened on the islands after Columbus came? What was his
background?
9.
How did he (the person referred to in #8) characterize Indian society? What did he report about the treatment of Indians
by the Spaniards?
10. Who was Samuel Eliot Morison? What did he write about Columbus? What is Zinn’s criticism of Morison’s treatment of
Columbus? Why does he view Morison’s treatment as “ideological?”
11. If Zinn's point is not to “condemn Columbus in absentia,” then what is his point? How should we view Columbus—as a
hero, villain, neither?
12. What point is Zinn attempting to make about “progress?”
13. Why does Zinn believe that we should not “accept the memory of states as our own?” Why would Himmelfarb or
Cheney disagree?
14. How does Zinn describe and characterize the first contact in the America’s (Mexico, Peru, Jamestown, New England)?
15. Why does Zinn pose the question: “Was all this bloodshed and deceit—from Columbus to Cortes, Pizarro, the Puritans—
a necessity for the human race to progress from savagery to civilization?” What is Zinn’s answer? How would you
respond?
16. How does Zinn respond to the conventional notion that the “Indians” were without civilization?
17. What might be a criticism of Zinn from the perspective of a sophisticated social historian? How might their
understanding of Indian-European relations after contact differ from Zinn’s?