Zinn 5 Paragraph Essay

Zinn 5 Paragraph Essay In “A People’s History of the United States,” by Howard Zinn, Zinn states “To emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors as navigators and discovers, and to deemphasize their genocide, is not a technical necessity but an ideological choice. It serves-unwittingly-to justify what was done,” this quote is true to all extent. True, Columbus and his followers founded Central America, but they were obviously not the first or the “native” Americans would have not been there. Zinn portrays Columbus as not a hero, but I see his point. Just because Columbus founded Central America does not make him a hero. If you look at the history of Columbus failed all of his voyages and his queen and king by not doing as he was told. He was told to basically make peace and trade with the “native” Americans but instead he tried to force the Indians into being his slaves and treated them as if they were objects, he was being greedy. But Columbus wasn’t the only person or “hero” Zinn talked about in his book “A People’s History of the United States,” he also talked about Cortes, Pizarro, and other English settlers. How they were seen as heroes also. In elementary, middle, and early high school we were taught that all explorers were heroes but when you look in deep you see that they are heroes, they were just famous for finding lands and continents. That’s all they are, founders of some lands. They are heroes that’s just how they were presented. When the explorers found land, they thought no life was there but that was wrong. When they saw that there was life they traded and more. But some of the explorers and settlers’ thought to tell the “native” Americans that they were some sort of god and they were gullible. “The treatment of heroes (Columbus) and their victims (the Arawaks)-the quiet acceptance of conquest and murder in the name of progress-is only one aspect of a certain approach to history, in which the past is told from the point of view of